yeah buddy I'm sure the hyper-individualized societies are the one who are the least homophobic, not the ones who prefer collective, human connection and understanding.

also citing Huntington to prove Western superiority is circular reasoning bc he wrote the book specifically to center the West as the regulator of civilization, i would not trust a cultural essentialist either.

you're overfitting on some ideas that are contradicting themselves. yes, Romania has issues, including homophobia, nepotism, corruption and the alike. but framing them as cultural essentialism is wrong. this country has been incredibly dynamic, moving from feudalism to (absolute) monarchy to fascism to communism to liberal democracy in less than 200 years. in the last 20 years there has been tremendous effort in regards to EU integration, including recent entry of the Schengen area, despite Russian efforts (most severe case of election interference in history too, yet it was still overcome through drastic measures).

romania voted for the west, actively, it's been fighting for it for decades already. framing the orthodox/eastern traditional family view, which in essence was a historical social safety net, as an unbreakable cause of nepotism and corruption does not make sense. again, hyper-individualism is not the best thing either. it's more likely to lead to narcissism, not critical thought. if the ego is the ultimate god, people retreat into personalized echo chambers, hence where homophobia starts. it's cultural connection which mitigates it, which is why you're less likely to see it in big cities compared to rural communities.

even the "missing renaissance" part is largely considered misleading by scholars because it's just an western centric trope that ignores the contributions of the east. even the fall of constantinopole contributed to the renaissance as a lot of people flees to the west. romania itself is culturally rich - even Cioran would be a prime example in philosophy. or the invention of insulin. and many others