Social Conservatism

After Ireland’s gay big landmark gay vote it turns out that within the EU only Italy and N. Ireland do not now recognise gay marriage. It was only on listening to some improving radio the other day that I discovered that such liberalisation is seen as ‘rolling back social conservatism’. Among other measures making up this rollback are the encouragement of fatherless households via the general practice of not judging and saying ‘Hey, there are no rules!” Also not to be judged are childhood behaviour, academic performance and antisocial behaviour; all of these are subject to the ‘invent a syndrome’ method of explaining away why people just can’t be expected to fit into society, like they used to.

Misfits. That’s what we called them. Don’t play by the same rules and that’s what you are. Except that’s a pejorative term and thus not allowed in this brave new world with all the social conservatism sucked out of it. But without societal pressure, how do we make sure people do the right things, say the right things…think the right things? Why, we make the practice of wrong things illegal and not just generally illegal, but specifically illegal. Chief among the statutes of the new liberal society is the growing list of hate crimes. Racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia and the many sub-divisions that proliferate under those headings. So that we can all be equal and diverse we must be subject to a legal system that brooks no diversity… and often doesn’t apply equally.

Dare I say Rotherham? In fear of the dreaded charge of being politically incorrect the systematic gang rape and trafficking of a truly awesome number of young girls was allowed to happen with the full knowledge of far too many responsible persons; the same people who would have children taken from a drunken mother, or wouldn’t hesitate to prosecute a young suitor for not heeding his girlfriend’s ‘no’, sat idly by while hundreds and hundreds of young lives were irreparably damaged. Theirs is a life sentence for no other reason than the imperative to ‘roll back social conservatism’. But why?

Social: ‘relating to society or its organization’. Conservatism: ‘A general preference for the existing order of society and an opposition to efforts to bring about sharp change’. What, I ask you, is wrong with that? Yes, things change and yes they should, but for there to be an actual agenda and appetite for such rapid alteration is something we should all fear. The last Labour government actually trumpeted this agenda and then set about rubbing our noses in it. The current ‘Conservative’ government appears to be continuing to obey to the letter the same set of commandments, blaming it on Brussels. I don’t doubt that the EU is fully committed to the rollback, but come on Britain, where’s your fight?

As far as I can recall, in our socially conservative society, we used to generally be polite to each other not for fear of punishment but out of respect. We accepted that others had different viewpoints and while they could be challenged, the idea of creating laws to prevent them from stating their views was a tool of totalitarian states. And nobody called anybody who wasn’t an actual acquaintance ‘mate’. Yes we may have had ‘a place’ and knew it, but there was comfort in fitting into that place. Now though, rolling back social conservatism has also resulted in a lack of opportunity for social mobility.

Now we have politicians who say “I have been very clear” when they have clearly been anything but. We have young people with no concept of hierarchy and consequently no way of understanding where they are now and why they are going nowhere any time soon. And we have armies of socially ‘progressive’ activists who will not stop until we are all uniformly fucked-up, genderless, deranged, lost and helpless human-like automatons. Far from promising liberty, rolling back social conservatism looks a lot to me like, ‘a boot stamping on a human face – forever’.