Yes. And you can go two ways from there. Either you can try to eliminate them, but then you meet the issue that for most folks it is incredibly difficult to make a difference between policy and values as both are approached from an “I cheer for X” angle. If succesful, you end up with a society that does not have a culture. From this viewpoint I feel for the conservative case. It is very, very weird to try to build a society without culture, it is as if it was not meant for human brains. And it would be very good if people could see a clear difference between policy and culture but again it is very, very hard, it goes against many instincts.
I am basically a product of that. My parents were always the kinds of secular Euroliberals who don’t really believe in many values, and for this reason I alway found it hard to find goals in life: there was nothing they were passionate or judgemental about, so I find it to be passionate about anything. From this kind of upbringing it is just hard to think anything matters as everything was taught as a mere preference, hobby, interest...
The opposite solution is to try to break up into an archipelago, where sub-societies, sub-cultures are forming their own rules. This sounds a bit sci-fi but look at it this way. The Roman Empire was largely monolithical. The Dark Ages afterwards an archipelago. Charlemagne’s empire monolithical, then the German-Italian city-states and small kingdoms again an archipelago. It sounds a bit like it ebbs and flows.
Both the Roman and especially Charlemagne’s empires were archipelagos compared to today’s states. Both contained many sub-states that where mostly left to govern themselves as long as they acknowledged imperial authority and paid taxes.
Yes. And you can go two ways from there. Either you can try to eliminate them, but then you meet the issue that for most folks it is incredibly difficult to make a difference between policy and values as both are approached from an “I cheer for X” angle. If succesful, you end up with a society that does not have a culture. From this viewpoint I feel for the conservative case. It is very, very weird to try to build a society without culture, it is as if it was not meant for human brains. And it would be very good if people could see a clear difference between policy and culture but again it is very, very hard, it goes against many instincts.
I am basically a product of that. My parents were always the kinds of secular Euroliberals who don’t really believe in many values, and for this reason I alway found it hard to find goals in life: there was nothing they were passionate or judgemental about, so I find it to be passionate about anything. From this kind of upbringing it is just hard to think anything matters as everything was taught as a mere preference, hobby, interest...
The opposite solution is to try to break up into an archipelago, where sub-societies, sub-cultures are forming their own rules. This sounds a bit sci-fi but look at it this way. The Roman Empire was largely monolithical. The Dark Ages afterwards an archipelago. Charlemagne’s empire monolithical, then the German-Italian city-states and small kingdoms again an archipelago. It sounds a bit like it ebbs and flows.
Both the Roman and especially Charlemagne’s empires were archipelagos compared to today’s states. Both contained many sub-states that where mostly left to govern themselves as long as they acknowledged imperial authority and paid taxes.