God and Nationalism are alive and kickin' - at least when you look at the right wing movements in most European countries. In fact, I have the impression that the crisis led to a further strengthening of right wing tendencies - take for instance Hungary or the latest elections in France. Actually, the dismantlement of the welfare state is very much a part of this tendency - right wing populism for the middle classes (heading for a bigger social stratification) and right wing extremism for the under class (hating Jews or Roma or whoever fits instead of their national elites). Maybe Hungary is in fact the model of what to expect in Europe.

Dear Philipp Altmann,

You look to the right wing extremists as a natural way of saving nationalism and God. I do not.You are not right in understanding the role of right wing in Eastern Europe. These extremists to whom You pointing to are the result of tiredness, exhaustion, disappointment, helplessness and impotence of former able right-centre -left forces.

But there are appearing in Eastern Europe in general and Lithuania in particular the nationalistic forces who are NOT extremists, but are with national feelings and also religious and also adhering to traditions whom You can not blame as extremists. Why in the West You do not see them? Because they are also not useful for globalization and neo-liberal ideas and practice. What is strange with me personally, so I am expecting one day national, traditions oriented and religious left-wing movement with its social quality ideas in economic-social matters.. Who will stand for NATO and EU, but against all this post-modernist neo-liberal Bilderberg ideas. Do You think, is it possible? In this case it will be for me for whom to vote at least.

I think we cannot say that nationalism is dead in the former Soviet Bloc. There, many leading parties are nationalist (e.g., Poland, Ukraine), primarily because of an anti-colonial dynamic vis-a-vis the Soviet/Russian empire. With respect to god, beyond far right groups, there is of course Christian Democracy, which is pervasive throughout Europe. Many Republican leaders and rank-and-file activists in the U.S. are devout evangelical Christians.

I've been thinking about what modern societies (i.e., Europe, America, East Asia) offer their citizens in the way of eschatology. I conclude that it's not much, and this explains why traditional religion persists against all expectations, and also why we have new religions that are manifesting themselves (everything from "new age" to "Star Trek" -- alternative views of where we are heading). It also may explain why some societies appear to be languishing (in point of plain fact, much of Europe is demographically in decline). For whatever reason, a good segment of humanity needs some explanation beyond evolution and also something to look forward to. I suspect the loss of religion/eschatology leads to an even more fundamental problem...the loss of confidence in civilization, which leads many people to create new loyalties to more abstract (less tribal) entities, such as "world society." You see this in Europe, but less so in America (where confidence in Western civilization is stronger). Ironically, these new sensibilities (international progressivism, for lack of a better term) are built on Western ideals, so what's really been accomplished is a new faith and a new confidence in something that 1) cannot be realized and 2) cannot be criticized or empirically invalidated. This would also explain why "international progressives" are so aggressive about their agendas...those agendas are faith-based, and sometimes verge on the fanatical (e.g., environmentalism). In short, people have to have something to believe in, and faced with an eschatological vacuum they will invent what's needed.