Any regime built upon coercion, peer pressure or, most importantly, tunnel vision, will eventually succumb to the pressure within any individual mind to experience curiosity and explore the world. The USSR fell, and rather quickly, after a generation of exposure to Western TV, more than any other factor, with the possible exception of the SDI program. The Soviets were whipped technologically. The Soviet bureaucracy was not providing the quality of life visible just over the border. A very important process of mind is the making of comparisons. Why else do dictators need closed societies?
>>I don’t buy that premise ... Islam will strengthen because it has absolutes and other religions are becoming more and more squishy to the point of irrelevance ,,, take the Church of England as my #1 example.
And now both the Russian Orthodox Church and the Soviet ideology and form of organization (”both”, interestingly) are coming back strong under Putin. Is that because there is now -— compared to 1989 -— less digital technology in Russia, or more?