Well, the strongest argument in favor of social conservatism is common sense – in this case, the idea that society is the way it is for a reason, and that any large scale change is therefore liable to have severe negative societal consequences.
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Liberal commentators dismiss this concern in the name of utilitarian consequentialism: the idea that even if a proposed change seems scary, you should just shut up and do the math and then implement it anyway if the numbers work out.
Rinse and Repeat.
This has basically been the American 2-step since the countries founding, and of course the social and political dance between Conservative and Liberal forces is a common thread throughout the entire history of Human Civilization. You can’t have one without the other, otherwise you lose sight of what makes ‘good’ things so ‘good’, right?
I don’t take a lot of issue with this post overall, although I question particularly the summation:
In summary, it’s true that the arguments from social conservatives tend to be pretty sucky, but there are underlying reasons for their taboos which are genuinely important and correct.
Specifically the idea that socially conservative (or even socially progressive) ‘taboos’ are “genuinely important and correct.”
a social or religious custom prohibiting or restricting a particular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place, or thing.
I think taboos are possibly the entire problem facing the world today; and while in some cases they are helpful and informative, forbidding the discussion and/or research into many important areas considered ‘taboo’ is tantamount to censorship and allegiance to cultural myths and stereotypes that perpetuate the very problems they supposedly are trying to solve.
For instance, the taboo against research into areas like gun violence and the actual potential medical benefits of illegal drugs in past decades, has had disastrous implications for the world because of how society chose to ‘solve’ those problems. In these cases we are only just now starting to have conversations that are having an important impact on society in relationship to arguable very important cultural and societal problems.
Now if you changed the word ‘taboo’ to something like ‘concerns’ I would agree wholeheartedly. i.e
“In summary, it’s true that the arguments from social conservatives tend to be pretty sucky, but there are underlying reasons for their concerns which are genuinely important and correct.”
I would be onboard with this statement, because many taboos are areas of human knowledge and experience that tend to be governed by extremely dated and inaccurate information and knowledge. Concern for the implications of changing or keeping ‘taboos’ becomes a conversation starter, whereas making something ‘Taboo’ has the chilling effect of closing down conversation for fear of severe social or legal consequences.
Hence the ‘prohibition’ of homosexual behavior because of what the Bible says, resulted in the chemical castration of Alan Turing post WWII even though his brilliance contributed to helping the Allies crack the Axis ciphers, he died of supposedly a self induced cyanide poisoning; or the classification of Marijuana as a schedule 1 drug because of the business interests of potential competitors in industries like timber, and because of racist and bigoted concern regarding the use of it.
These are 2 examples among many others or how declaring something ‘taboo’ and illegal has made it difficult to prove the validity of the taboos surrounding these practices because anything associated with it was considered illegal and criminal and the punishments for committing these crimes and getting caught was severe.
‘Concern’ is reasonable in many cases, but I think in the year 2021 with the entirety of human scholarship and research at our disposal through the technological wonders of digital and network technologies (except for things that are deemed ‘top secret’ or ‘taboo’ or behind ‘paywalls’ or written in ‘legalese’ or otherwise so much domain specific ‘jargon’ so as to be undigestible except to experts in that particular field) that the number of truly useful taboos is likely fewer then there are currently in practice.
I think as a result of the aggregate effect of the prohibitions surrounding a specific pattern of subjects deemed ‘taboo’, the hedonistic, youth obsessed culture of the Contemporary Western Tradition is what’s continuing to cause world wide cultural shockwaves and 9/11 and the horrible war following it are direct results of this. The active measures aimed at disrupting our democratic elections and governmental apparatus from Russia and it’s allies as well, are simply technologically amplified echos of the Info/Psychological Warfare operations of the Cold War era, and the influence war of the reinvigorated battle between the West and the East is the future of warfare.
We need to seriously reexamine our priorities in the West if we expect to reduce our potential weaknesses in this domain of contemporary warfare instead of increasing them. Using our taboos against us becomes a moot point if they become concerns we learn to deal with appropriately instead of criminal acts which cause severe social consequences. The Local is Global, and the Global is Local in this interconnected world, for better or worse.
...
Rinse and Repeat.
This has basically been the American 2-step since the countries founding, and of course the social and political dance between Conservative and Liberal forces is a common thread throughout the entire history of Human Civilization. You can’t have one without the other, otherwise you lose sight of what makes ‘good’ things so ‘good’, right?
I don’t take a lot of issue with this post overall, although I question particularly the summation:
Specifically the idea that socially conservative (or even socially progressive) ‘taboos’ are “genuinely important and correct.”
From Googles entry for the search “def: taboo”
I think taboos are possibly the entire problem facing the world today; and while in some cases they are helpful and informative, forbidding the discussion and/or research into many important areas considered ‘taboo’ is tantamount to censorship and allegiance to cultural myths and stereotypes that perpetuate the very problems they supposedly are trying to solve.
For instance, the taboo against research into areas like gun violence and the actual potential medical benefits of illegal drugs in past decades, has had disastrous implications for the world because of how society chose to ‘solve’ those problems. In these cases we are only just now starting to have conversations that are having an important impact on society in relationship to arguable very important cultural and societal problems.
Now if you changed the word ‘taboo’ to something like ‘concerns’ I would agree wholeheartedly. i.e
“In summary, it’s true that the arguments from social conservatives tend to be pretty sucky, but there are underlying reasons for their concerns which are genuinely important and correct.”
I would be onboard with this statement, because many taboos are areas of human knowledge and experience that tend to be governed by extremely dated and inaccurate information and knowledge. Concern for the implications of changing or keeping ‘taboos’ becomes a conversation starter, whereas making something ‘Taboo’ has the chilling effect of closing down conversation for fear of severe social or legal consequences.
Hence the ‘prohibition’ of homosexual behavior because of what the Bible says, resulted in the chemical castration of Alan Turing post WWII even though his brilliance contributed to helping the Allies crack the Axis ciphers, he died of supposedly a self induced cyanide poisoning; or the classification of Marijuana as a schedule 1 drug because of the business interests of potential competitors in industries like timber, and because of racist and bigoted concern regarding the use of it.
These are 2 examples among many others or how declaring something ‘taboo’ and illegal has made it difficult to prove the validity of the taboos surrounding these practices because anything associated with it was considered illegal and criminal and the punishments for committing these crimes and getting caught was severe.
‘Concern’ is reasonable in many cases, but I think in the year 2021 with the entirety of human scholarship and research at our disposal through the technological wonders of digital and network technologies (except for things that are deemed ‘top secret’ or ‘taboo’ or behind ‘paywalls’ or written in ‘legalese’ or otherwise so much domain specific ‘jargon’ so as to be undigestible except to experts in that particular field) that the number of truly useful taboos is likely fewer then there are currently in practice.
I think as a result of the aggregate effect of the prohibitions surrounding a specific pattern of subjects deemed ‘taboo’, the hedonistic, youth obsessed culture of the Contemporary Western Tradition is what’s continuing to cause world wide cultural shockwaves and 9/11 and the horrible war following it are direct results of this. The active measures aimed at disrupting our democratic elections and governmental apparatus from Russia and it’s allies as well, are simply technologically amplified echos of the Info/Psychological Warfare operations of the Cold War era, and the influence war of the reinvigorated battle between the West and the East is the future of warfare.
We need to seriously reexamine our priorities in the West if we expect to reduce our potential weaknesses in this domain of contemporary warfare instead of increasing them. Using our taboos against us becomes a moot point if they become concerns we learn to deal with appropriately instead of criminal acts which cause severe social consequences. The Local is Global, and the Global is Local in this interconnected world, for better or worse.