Leah Libresco has been reading Hauerwas and Willimon’s classic book Resident Aliens. She says she was particularly struck by a passage in which the authors say that Christian ethical claims can’t always be restated in the language of secularism, and that Christians who believe that they can be risk losing something essential to their point of view. In other words, some things simply cannot be translated.

Leah says:

If you’d like a non-religious example of a divide where each side’s common sense sounds like lunacy to the opposing side, try Scott Alexander’s Survive vs Thrive model of political divides. (In brief: do you think the world is pretty stable, and we’re figuring out how to best share this lasting prosperity, or do you think the world is teetering on the edge of near collapse, and unless we’re very careful, everything will crumble).

Survive vs Thrive has become one of the background assumptions I automatically ask about when I’m in a dispute with someone I already know and respect. It’s turned out to be lurking behind a lot of the disagreements I’d find most repulsive or hard to debate — my interlocutor is usually much farther toward the “Survive” end of the spectrum than I am, and is ready and willing to do last ditch things.  (When I turn out to be the closer-to-Survive one, the Thrive person tends to feel to me like a Jenga player who hasn’t heard of gravity).

I read the “Survive vs. Thrive” essay, and found myself — surprise! — very much on the Survive side, with an important caveat. The thing that I am worried about surviving is not this country (at least not primarily), but Christianity in this country, and in the West more generally. I think we’re in a critical moment regarding that question. I tend to be less worried about the US as a whole, believing that absent some catastrophe like a return of the Great Depression, we will continue to muddle through while managing our decline slowly. That still puts me much closer to Survive than Thrive, but I don’t feel all that urgent about it — probably because my personal life is pretty stable. If I were poor or otherwise struggling, it would probably be a lot different, and I would probably be a lot more drawn emotionally to someone like Trump — even though he is a chaos candidate who would create a far less predictable world than Hillary Clinton would.

Anyway, Survive/Thrive is a pretty interesting way to think about political orientations. The other day I got a friendly but concerned e-mail from a pal back East who says he can’t understand the alarmism on this blog. He just doesn’t see things falling apart like I do. We’re a lot alike in many respects, but this is a real gap between us. I bet we could spend a rewarding long afternoon drinking beer together, and still come no closer to convincing each other of our perspectives. We’re still going to be friends, but a lot of Americans have lost the ability to pull that off. Without question the most bigoted, uptight, intolerant people I’ve ever dealt with personally come from the educated white coastal liberal demographic. Your Mileage May Vary.

Are you closer to Survive or to Thrive? Let’s have a poll of readers. Say what your political orientation is, then explain what persuades you to one side or the other (Survive or Thrive). Me first:

I’m a Red Tory conservative who is far more Survive than Thrive. This is because 1) Christianity is in steep decline, probably irrecoverable in my lifetime; therefore 2) the traditional basis for our society and culture, and its unifying, moralizing force, is dissipating; 3) the family is unwinding among many Americans, especially the working class and the poor; 4) there are things regarding the formation of the next generations that only the family can do, not the state — and these things aren’t getting done; 5) the people at the top of the economy and in positions of cultural authority (including the media and entertainment industries) are committed, however passively and uncomprehendingly, to popularizing policies and beliefs that fracture the country further, and that make it less cohesive and resilient; 6) eventually there will be a grave economic crisis that will put us to the test, and we will find out just how much spending down all our social capital costs.