No need to apologize for asking an honest question :)
By combining a good databinding framework and reactive extension
so Bond & RxSwift or DataBinding (from google) & RxJava (or RxKotlin if/when it becomes a thing).
Of course, behind the scenes, this accesses the platform widgets in an imperative way (but that's also what RN has to do when it manipulates the same widgets). What matters is the API surface you interact with.
By combining a good databinding framework and reactive extension
so Bond & RxSwift or DataBinding (from google) & RxJava (or RxKotlin if/when it becomes a thing).
Of course, behind the scenes, this accesses the platform widgets in an imperative way (but that's also what RN has to do when it manipulates the same widgets). What matters is the API surface you interact with.