Exactly. “Social Justice” is just the latest rendition of social conservatism/bourgeois morality.

Social conservatism isn’t static. It changes relative to time and place like anything else. Even the staunchest 1950s-style American social conservative was a flaming liberal compared to a medieval Catholic social conservative or an ancient Roman social conservative. Today, I know plenty of self-proclaimed “social conservatives” who smoke weed, have been divorced multiple times, and have multiple children with multiple partners (what used to been known as “free love hippiedom”). Even the 19th century Victorian model of social conservatism was a product of the rising bourgeois hegemony of the era, which was actually revolutionary for its time. Now that the 1960s cultural revolution has become dominant, mainstream, and institutionalized, it has become a form of social conservatism.

Social conservatism usually amounts to a defense of whatever status quo exists at a particular time. It’s also necessary to differentiate between social conservatives, who wish to uphold established values, and reactionaries, who want to turn back the clock to some allegedly idyllic past. In today’s society, someone who upholds stereotypical 1960s social values (e.g. “racial, gender, and sexual equality are the highest social/moral goods”) is a social conservative. Someone who wants to turn back the clock to the 1950s (e.g. “segregation wasn’t that bad and women need to get back in the kitchen and gays need to get back in the closet”) is now a reactionary, not a social conservative.

A serious social radical in today’s world might be someone who favored institutionalizing polyamory, although even that is now almost left of center, or will be very soon. A real “social radical” would probably be an advocate of zoophilia or Foucauldian pederasty.

By Ed West, Unherd

The return of censorship, speech codes and taboos suggests society returning to normal.

Gareth Southgate is the sort of man you’d want your daughter to marry. He’s reliable, conventional, high in conscientiousness. Of the big five personality traits, conscientiousness is the one that correlates with political conservatism, and conscientious people historically vote for conservative parties.

Southgate is the sort of footballer who, in team photos from the early Seventies, would have been the last one to sport a short, back and sides when everyone else was looking like Charlie George. A haircut to set your watch to, as Grampa Simpson put it.

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