The Western culture has become hyperglobalized and as a result, there’s a lack of memetic diversity needed for resilience. You might remember my note about school shootings in Serbia, inspired by the favorable coverage of school shootings in the US. Now they’re having a series of copycat attacks because Serbian media have not gotten the training in how to cover terrorism without inspiring more terrorism.
The good news is that there are groups that have chosen different sets of memes, and they’re doing alright. Here’s an example of Amish and Mormons:
In summary, doing the analysis at the national level is less relevant than doing it at the memeset level (neotribe, neonation). Even within the West, there are several memesets, the simplest perhaps being the Left and the Right.