The Three Civilizational State Solution for The West Part II: Neo-Byzantium

Many decades ago, Winston Churchill famously described Russia as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” From a North Atlantic point of view, this certainly appears to be an appropriate way to describe not just Russia, but the entirety of the Eastern Orthodox realm to varying degrees. Indeed, in his famous civilizational world map, Sam Huntington divides the predominantly European-populated areas of the world into a Western civilization and an Orthodox one.

In fact, there are a number of noticeable ways in which the Orthodox world differs from the rest of Greater Europe. For one, with the exceptions of Romania and Albania, Orthodox world uses non-Latin alphabets as the mainstay of their scripts. In addition to the sectarian divide, the Orthodox world is also less genetically varied than other European gene pools. For example, the average Englishman is on average twelfth cousin to any other Englishman he sees on the street. In the Orthodox world, they would average to be just sixth cousins, something many believe explains part of the Orthodox world’s higher degree of weariness towards outsiders. Being in the middle of the Eurasian hordelands stuck between Teutonic knights and Turkic horse lords might also add to this.

This is why in a future of greater cooperation across ever greater geographical areas, an Orthodox civilization state may very well prove to be beneficial, the current conflict in Ukraine notwithstanding.

The nations that comprise the Orthodox world have both many things in common that open the door to collaboration and greater economies of scale if done right as well as face many of the same challenges. United under the same religious tradition, with the caveat that any and all practices be brought in line with true Biblical doctrine, the Orthodox world will be able to find a sense of shared civilizational unity and identity through this tradition that it does not share with the rest of the West.

The Orthodox world is also facing the prospect of one of steepest demographic declines in recorded human history. In fact, most of the Orthodox nations will end this century with smaller populations than they had during the first half of the twentieth century. In addition, this decline will also happen in the context of relatively less advanced economies with relatively low capital-to-labor ratios. While this is indeed a daunting and existential challenge that must be dealt with as soon as possible, such a time of troubles have quite often been the breeding ground for great men to rise up and lead their people to an age of renewed greatness.

One only needs to look into the histories of Russia and other Orthodox nations to see the truth of this time and time again. From Dmitry Pozharsky who saved Russia from the Time of Troubles which paved the way for the Romanov Dynasty to Tsar Alexander I who sacrificed Moscow to save the rest of the empire from Napoleon, the Orthodox peoples are well-known for their ability to endure long periods of hardship for the sake of their fellow countrymen. There is little reason to believe this cannot be done again in the not-too-distant future.

Should such a grand hypothetical be entertained, how should a Neo-Byzantium be organized? Ironically, the higher in-group preferences of Orthodox nationalities will require some creative thinking in order to avoid numerically dominant groups (read the Russians) bulldoze over smaller groups and essentially render them second class citizens in a hypothetical Neo-Byzantium.

One possible solution to this would be to resurrect a practice of the Roman Republic and inaugurate two Chief Executives at any given time, one Eastern Slav and one of the rest of the Orthodox nationalities. Measures such as this would help maintain a balance of power between the nationalities without resulting in a Balkanization of the region which would defeat the entire purpose of this hypothetical project.

On the economic front, the key deficits that would need to be tackled are the lack of finances as well as skilled human resources. Indeed, the best and brightest of the Orthodox world often seek better opportunities in Western Europe and North America, further exacerbating the already dire situation. Since this cannot be solved with financial incentives for obvious reasons, the other solution would be to simply get one’s economic ducks in a row and show the Orthodox diaspora that there is a future back home.

Another potential wildcard that might provide a much-needed boost would be a return of the highly-skilled and well-capitalized Greek diaspora. With five million worldwide and three million in America alone, the global Greek diaspora have not assimilated into their host countries nearly as completely as Northwest European nationalities have. This means a hypothetical appeal for them to return to help the motherland would not be as far-fetched as some might think. While still a longshot by any stretch of the imagination, it is but one of the many options that could be exercised if the focus is solely on the rejuvenation of Orthodox civilization.

When one looks at the natural endowments of the Orthodox world, particularly Russia, it is a wonder why their birthrates have languished for over a generation. With so much underneath their feet and so much bountiful space in the Black Earth Belt just waiting to be metabolized, the only restraints behind above-replacement fertility being achieved are socioeconomic and psychological.

The Orthodox world in particular suffers from a very cynical type of civilizational exhaustion. Public housing estates have been neglected and look far more dystopian than their revitalized counterparts in Central Europe, potholes go unfilled for years and even decades, and there is generally no sense of broader civilizational direction for the ordinary Eastern and Southeast European to look forward to. This is what needs to be rectified in the Orthodox world and the West more generally if we wish to see this part of the world be demographically ascendant once again.

To prevent this from becoming a book, which it really can, we will leave things at this for the time being. In the next part of this series, we will discuss the Continent and the hypothetical European Federation.

Find Part 1 in the series here.