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Comment by w_t_payne | Hacker News Reader

In this age of information, an excess of social conservatism is a systemic weakness for a culture; perhaps an existential weakness.

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You are missing the forest for the trees. The reason the people in the story are having problems is because they are doing things that go against the norms of their cultures. That their particular cultures are socially conservative is incidental.

Those who go against the norms of their culture in general can face similar problems, regardless of whether those norms are conservative, liberal, or something else.

Join a progressive, tree-hugging, vegan commune and then a few months later post a series of selfies to Facebook of you driving a Hummer through the McDonalds drive-thru and then eating several Big Macs, and you'll be in for some world-class shaming and shunning. :-)

There is much evidence to suggest that exactly the opposite is true: an excess of social liberalism leads to the downfall of a culture. Social conservatism means stable families, strong men, and social cohesion, which translates into a stronger nation. Social liberalism, as it has now, degenerates into identity politics and political paralysis. As Aristotle put it, "Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society."

The greatest time for the middle class in the United States, for example, was in the 50s, when society was much more conservative than it is now. (That's what the "Make America Great Again" is all about.) The 50s are the last decade that the conservative WASP aristocracy was in power. Every election since, groups like African Americans, women, and Jews have increased their power and brought about with them big government. How is that an improvement? Surely, you agree that big government is disastrous for the country?

There's a book "Sex and Culture" by J.D. Unwin that actually argues (convincingly in my opinion) that a suppression of sexual energies (i.e. control of women) is a necessary (not sufficient) condition for a civilization to succeed. Check it out.

Ahh, yes, the 1950s, when millions of veterans went to college for free and obtained low-interest mortgages under the GI Bill, when the Interstate Highway System -- perhaps the largest, most costly, and most environmentally consequential public works program ever -- was begun, when half the world fell to Communism, when schools were forciably integrated and whites began to flee cities and urban centers for the implicitly segregated suburbs, when modern medicine developed the polio vaccine and the birth control pill, when half the US workforce was unionized, when the Kinsey Report and Playboy were first published...

Wait, what were we talking about?

Social conservatism.

Even if I take your point that big government can be good, one has to concede that it succeeded with social conservatism. Ever since social liberalism took hold, things have gone steadily downhill.

How so? The social conservatives seem to be able to kill people. The only reason why they are so rare in west is lack of popularity.

If they don't suffer from such unpopularity somewhere, then they seem to have all the cards in their hands.

this isn't (just) conservatism though: it is social repression; the conservatism just attempts to keep it that way.

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