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> when it comes to social issues In a society, those are the only issues that actually matter.

pdonis 6y ago
> In a society, those are the only issues that actually matter. Only if your definition of "society" ignores individuals and says that only society itself matters. Lots of individuals (including me) strongly disagree with that.
- erichocean 6y ago
  Literally no one's definition of "society" ignores individuals. Not sure what you're on about.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > Literally no one's definition of "society" ignores individuals. Yours appears to since you say only social issues matter. You are ignoring that individuals have issues, and those issues matter too, because society has to respect individual rights, and that includes the individual right to resolve individual issues without micromanagement based on some busybody's beliefs about "social issues".
    - erichocean 6y ago
      > because society has to respect individual rights That hasn't been true since the 1960s when the bulk of our Civil Rights legislation was passed. The prior legal regime already supported individual rights for all people; "Civil Rights" was about putting the health of society ahead of those individual rights. Actual 1st Amendment rights like "Freedom of Association" were severely curtailed by Civil Rights legislation; indeed, that was the entire point. Now, I probably agree with you about respecting individual rights. I would have liked (as far as I can tell, having not lived through it) the pre-Civil Rights legal regime because I'm a White, straight male. The culture back then was designed to work well for someone like me (and according to all historical evidence, it did). But that's no longer the culture in the US, and we're coming up on 60 years now since the rules were changed. I'm not sure what you want me to do about it, assuming I even could change things today (or would want to).
      - jakkyboi 6y ago
        Respectfully, this is the hugest flaw with small c conservative thought, it's hyperfocused on the individual and ignores any larger social context or wellbeing to the detriment of a nation, state, etc
        erichocean 6y ago
        I think your "small c conservative" thought is actually more like libertarianism, but otherwise I agree. (When I think of actual "small c conservatives", someone like G. K. Chesterton is what immediately comes to mind…)
        jakkyboi 6y ago
        I might have to revisit my perspective, thanks for this!
        rayiner 6y ago
        You can turn that around just as easily. As an Asian, I’m always a bit unsettled by the degree to which liberals are willing to absolutely set the social fabric on fire to accommodate individuals. Like, a school in small town Iowa where everyone is Christian can’t use their public institutions that they pay for to perform one of the most fundamental functions of human societies: socializing children in the community’s religion. I see why it’s that way through the view of western individualism, but I can’t say your average person in Bangladesh would see that as rooted in a consideration for the “larger social context.”
        pdonis 6y ago
        > the degree to which liberals are willing to absolutely set the social fabric on fire to accommodate individuals. Like, a school in small town Iowa where everyone is Christian can’t use their public institutions that they pay for to perform one of the most fundamental functions of human societies: socializing children in the community’s religion. I don't think liberals are actually setting the social fabric on fire to enable individualism over, in the case of your example, socializing children in the community's religion. I think liberals simply want to socialize the children in their own ideology instead of that of their parents. That's one of the things compulsory public schooling is for, in the words of the very people who put that system in place.

> In a society, those are the only issues that actually matter. Only if your definition of "society" ignores individuals and says that only society itself matters. Lots of individuals (including me) strongly disagree with that.

erichocean 6y ago
Literally no one's definition of "society" ignores individuals. Not sure what you're on about.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > Literally no one's definition of "society" ignores individuals. Yours appears to since you say only social issues matter. You are ignoring that individuals have issues, and those issues matter too, because society has to respect individual rights, and that includes the individual right to resolve individual issues without micromanagement based on some busybody's beliefs about "social issues".
  - erichocean 6y ago
    > because society has to respect individual rights That hasn't been true since the 1960s when the bulk of our Civil Rights legislation was passed. The prior legal regime already supported individual rights for all people; "Civil Rights" was about putting the health of society ahead of those individual rights. Actual 1st Amendment rights like "Freedom of Association" were severely curtailed by Civil Rights legislation; indeed, that was the entire point. Now, I probably agree with you about respecting individual rights. I would have liked (as far as I can tell, having not lived through it) the pre-Civil Rights legal regime because I'm a White, straight male. The culture back then was designed to work well for someone like me (and according to all historical evidence, it did). But that's no longer the culture in the US, and we're coming up on 60 years now since the rules were changed. I'm not sure what you want me to do about it, assuming I even could change things today (or would want to).
    - jakkyboi 6y ago
      Respectfully, this is the hugest flaw with small c conservative thought, it's hyperfocused on the individual and ignores any larger social context or wellbeing to the detriment of a nation, state, etc
      - erichocean 6y ago
        I think your "small c conservative" thought is actually more like libertarianism, but otherwise I agree. (When I think of actual "small c conservatives", someone like G. K. Chesterton is what immediately comes to mind…)
        jakkyboi 6y ago
        I might have to revisit my perspective, thanks for this!
      - rayiner 6y ago
        You can turn that around just as easily. As an Asian, I’m always a bit unsettled by the degree to which liberals are willing to absolutely set the social fabric on fire to accommodate individuals. Like, a school in small town Iowa where everyone is Christian can’t use their public institutions that they pay for to perform one of the most fundamental functions of human societies: socializing children in the community’s religion. I see why it’s that way through the view of western individualism, but I can’t say your average person in Bangladesh would see that as rooted in a consideration for the “larger social context.”
        pdonis 6y ago
        > the degree to which liberals are willing to absolutely set the social fabric on fire to accommodate individuals. Like, a school in small town Iowa where everyone is Christian can’t use their public institutions that they pay for to perform one of the most fundamental functions of human societies: socializing children in the community’s religion. I don't think liberals are actually setting the social fabric on fire to enable individualism over, in the case of your example, socializing children in the community's religion. I think liberals simply want to socialize the children in their own ideology instead of that of their parents. That's one of the things compulsory public schooling is for, in the words of the very people who put that system in place.