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Why is ‘civilization and barbarism’ such a poor reasoning tool, after all?
It is entirely legitimate to value a people by the quality of civilization they are able to create. It is why it is inherently more reasonable to have respect for Yamato than for Fulanis, for example, it is why - for all my disagreement with mass immigration of Central Americans - I still respect the heights of Aztec civilization and wonder, sometimes here, what they did that modern governments in the region seem incapable of.
And the same, of course, is true in reverse, because there too civilizational quality is critical. Were Ashkenazi Jews of 90 IQ we would be a forgotten population. At most, we would be like the Roma, somewhat disliked in parts of Mitteleuropa but otherwise irrelevant. It is only because of the heights and the low points of outsized Jewish achievement that this is even a discussion at all.
‘Every bloodline for itself’ perhaps, but I have respect for great civilizations and disdain for poor ones, regardless of their opinion of me. That isn’t to say I would fight for people who hate me, or would not make peace with barbarians who are amenable to me, but it is to say, in Scruton’s words, that beauty matters. If Jewish civilization is incapable of beauty (and as I have argued here, this is at best an open question) then we deserve to perish. I leave it to you to determine whether the same is true for your own people.
Value is arbitrary, as are dimensions of quality under consideration. The particular kind of value system implied here is very Western and not Israeli at all. I suppose West Bank settlers create a certain kind of civilization; from the modern Western perspective, it's worthy of sanctioning, while from the Israeli one it deserves being subsidized and protected, even as they rebel against the secular powers. Because the latter's function of «quality» more or less collapses into boolean «Jewish or not».
More complex matters could be discussed but it doesn't matter. Only Westerners are weird enough to forget that, before all admiration for «civilization» measured in homing missiles or GDP or Nobel prizes per capita, there's the very simple concept of the political. Neither Arabs nor Jews will ever forget it.
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I would not want to live in Central America, but I don't think that modern governments there are worse than the Aztecs. Modern Central America is actually pretty stable politically, I don't remember the least time there was a major conflict, civil war, or revolution there. Many parts of it are poor and corrupt, of course, and there are problems with cartels, but it is not an utter civilizational disaster. The Aztec Empire was not very stable, it lasted only about a hundred years and many of its subject people hated it so much that they gladly sided with the Spanish when those came over from Europe. Plus of course there was the constant ritualistic bloodshed.
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