Isn't it interesting to think about? Just picture their ideal societies.moda0306 wrote: PS,
I really do love your theory about conservatives/liberals and collectivism/individualism. While I still think people bounce back and forth in their arguments to be convenient to the conclusion that they've already decided, I think if I'd have to lean any direction, it would be yours in a heartbeat. Especially as I see liberals championing the causes of further and further fringe groups, like men who think they are women wanting to play women's basketball. (Facepalm emoticon)
Trannies suck.
The ideal conservative society is marked by sameness. Everyone's the same race, follows the same religion, lives in the same kinds of houses, and sends their kids to the same schools. There is one family model: the husband-wife-children family, with the permitted variant of adding on grandparents once they get too old to live by themselves. Everyone likes and follows the community norms, and deviation from them is punished socially. There is a strong leader who exemplifies these norms behind whom everybody is happy and proud to line up. Everyone works hard and work is emotionally satisfying; all able-bodied male members of the community (women are too busy raising children) are good little worker bees, busily buzzing along to build something magnificent. Everyone is happy with this state of affairs; people who don't like it are invisible, nonexistent, even.
In the ideal conservative society, people compete amongst one another to aggressively follow the norms; the end goal of this society is for everyone to be socially bound to everyone else on multiple levels to ensure maximum group cohesion.
By contrast, picture the idealized liberal society: it's safe enough for everyone to do whatever the hell the want without having to worry about the consequences. If you want to have children or not, that's fine. If you want to go partying and get drunk, it's cool, and you don't have to worry about anyone taking advantage of you. If you want to marry a man, a woman, two women, five men, a dog, whatever... that's all fine. There are no community norms at all except for the universality of extreme tolerance for anything at all--save for those things that are seen to diminish other people's free choice, which is itself subjective, and nobody agrees on it, leading to constant conflict over which actions are impermissible because they negatively affect others; there is constant debate over what constitutes an externality. Really it's barely a society at all, just a collection of atomized individuals all following their personal pleasure, interacting with other humans only when it it mutually beneficial, meaning everyone's lonely a lot. Work sucks and is optional; robots do most of it, leaving people more free to pursue their subjective pleasures.
In the ideal liberal society, people compete amongst one another to aggressively deviate from the norms; the end goal of this society is for everyone to be totally disconnected from everyone else, leaving them 100% free to pursue their personal pleasure with zero externalities resulting from it.
We wouldn't even be having this conversation in such an ideal conservative society. It reminds me of Mormons in suburban Utah, The Stepford Wives or even Brave New World. Ignorance is bliss, truly. But then there's that island where all the outcasts/heretics like me are living... 
I wish you would have added in the sterotypical libertarian and the statist - would be a fun read.
