Thomas Fazi https://x.com/battleforeurope/status/1990813706507128935
@battleforeurope
Emmanuel Todd on the relationship between Russophobia and Protestantism:

“What we have seen appear recently in Europe is a specifically European Russophobia, a specifically European warmongering, centered on Northern Europe, on Protestant Europe.

Protestant Europe is the United Kingdom, it’s the majority of Germany, it’s Scandinavia, it’s two out of three Baltic countries. I have been in contact or even visited several countries following the translations of my latest book, and I have noticed that Spain, Italy, Catholic countries in general, are neither Russophobic nor hawkish.

To end this conference, I would like to try to explain why Protestantism is more dangerous in its zero state than Catholicism. Protestantism is more capable of leaving behind a nihilistic society. 

Protestantism, and the same could be said of Judaism, was a very demanding religion. There was God, there was the faithful, and the world was secondary. The beauty of the world in particular was rejected with, among other things, a refusal of images, a refusal of the visual arts. When such religions, obsessed with transcendence, disappear, nothing remains. The world itself is not interesting, empty. This intense void opens up a particular possibility of nihilism.

Catholicism is a less demanding, more humane religion that can accept the idea that the world is, in itself, beautiful. The images have not been rejected in the Catholic world, and the Catholic world is filled with artistic wonders. In a Catholic country, if you lose God, you are left with the feeling of this beauty of the world. If you are French, you still have the feeling that you live — an illusion no doubt — in the most beautiful country in the world. If you are Italian, you actually live in the country in the world where there are the most beautiful things, since Italy itself has become an object of art. In such contexts, the fear of the metaphysical void is less intense, and therefore the risk of nihilism less. 

In my opinion, the country in Europe least threatened by nihilism is Italy, because in Italy everything is beautiful”.