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What Makes a SoCon?
A few days ago, several Ricochetti on the member side were kicking around an idea for a podcast featuring social conservatives. (Want to read those in-house conversations? You need to be a member.) It was a good discussion and one that’s been mirrored behind the scenes at the site (we take your suggestions seriously).
It brought an interesting question to mind, however. What makes someone a SoCon? I’ve never used the label in reference to myself because I’m generally fine with gay marriage as a policy matter (though I’m totally opposed to the means by which it’s been gaining ground) and I know that’s usually a litmus test. That said, I’m also pro-life, firmly in favor of the various Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, anti-assisted suicide, totally opposed to the contraception mandate, deeply troubled by the pervasive breakdown of the family, and generally convinced that both the law and the culture are developing an ominously antagonistic posture towards people of faith. So wouldn’t it be sort of weird to say I’m not a social conservative?
You tell me. I’m genuinely curious as to what our readers think the term means, and what the essentials of the SoCon creed are.
Oh, one other thing — if this turns into a 350-comment thread arguing SSM, you will all be sent to your rooms. No dessert.
Published in General, Religion & Philosophy
Tom – you are merely correct about differing views on the hierarchy of market. Allow me to attempt a small elucidation.
Markets don’t emerge when two people just happen to be close enough to trade. There’s a vast tectonic plate full of stratified values and morals and ethics beneath them upon which they must both be standing. And when there are cracks or shifts it can range from disturbing to devastating.
Can markets emerge before norms, or can they only do so within the context thereof; like a fish needing water in which to live and swim?
Civil marriage is one of the few institutions I think the government has a legitimate role in supporting, at least to the extent of continuing to issue licenses and ensuring some legal protections between spouses.
For an easy example — as in, everyone here will agree — of an institution government should not have supported, consider American slavery. The practice would almost certainly have died out much earlier in the South had the governments of the future Confederacy (with the consent of the Federal Government) not propped it up for decades.
I didn’t say anything about closeness; at the risk of quoting myself:
And yes, the more sophisicated markets become, the more necessary it is for them to have tradition, morals, and values to sustain them and keep them honest. But a basic market requires only free exchange and protections form violence, theft, and fraud.
Afternoon Tom,
I think that many of what would now be called SoCons were against slavery. Do you have more modern examples of failed traditions the government at the urging of SoCons is holding up?
Luke,
Markets emerge rather easily where governments do not prevent their existence. People of differing faiths and values are often engaged in market arrangements with each other.
The only thing you need in common is the profit motive: a nearly universal human trait.
Some don’t like the term profit motive, but you can just say a desire to better the situation of you and yours.
Jim Crow laws would be a more recent example of government propping up bad traditions. And — as I said before — I was am not implying that anyone here is on the other side of that one.
A slightly more recent example yet might be the contraception bans that led to Griswold (which, for the record, I think was very badly decided).
For a truly contemporary example, I’d have to do some thinking.
Oh, I agree with you on this and disagree with my fellow libertarians (I’m kind of an odd-ball on marriage). I can imagine how such a system could exist, but about a dozen major things would have to happen first; in the meantime, I don’t think it’s a very helpful suggestion.
I believe Ed mentioned the matter a while back, but I think SoCons are (generally) quite skeptical of spontaneous/extended order while libertarians are (generally) it’s biggest proponents.
The differences become starker the further you move from Econ.
Hi Again Tom,
Doesn’t the problem of coming up with a failed tradition which with the SoCons urging or support illuminate the problem between libertarians and SoCons? You reference Griswold, yet SoCons were not marching about the lack of arrests as this century old law was being violated. SoCons were not pushing for a ruling that the law should be strictly enforced, many SoCons are Protestant and for them contraception is not an issue. SoCons are not boycotting “sanctuary cities” or states with loose drug laws, or states which have assisted death laws, or legalized prostitution, even if they would vote against them for their states.
So the fear that SoCons will impose a moral code on an unwilling population is irrational. This fear is in part because libertarians do not seem to know SoCons, also it seems libertarians are lacking insight.
In retrospect, I did not make the point terribly well and — in context of this conversation — it was not very apt.
That said, I didn’t state that SoCons are currently guilty of it doing this and — in response to your comments and Merina’s — I came up with three specific examples of where the state has used its power to prop-up harmful traditions, none of which I attributed to SoCons. Notably, I did all this in the context of largely agreeing with Sabr’s comments and explicitly agreeing with the value of tradition:
Where did I state such a thing?
I think I understand SoCons reasonably well (though I undoubtedly miss somethings and try to learn as I go).
Though there definitely are SoCons who understand libertarianism quite well — I would nominate Ed G. as one example — though there’s a great deal of misinformation on that subject. With all due respect to Manny, I don’t think his thread displayed much familiarity with libertarianism, especially of the kind advocated on Ricochet.
I think ending contraception bans begat the sexual revolution which has harmed our society and greatly contributed to family breakdown. The problem with contraception bans was that once protestant church’s changed their theology on the matter, the traditional institutions and support for them disappeared.
Donald, I wasn’t arguing that socons aren’t guided by principle. My argument was addressing the legitimate question of what might limit the imposition of one particular concept of good through government. In that context I think procedural and practical limits apply as opposed to some generally objective principle derived from reason.
I believe the term I used was “exaggerated”.
In abandoning my failed attempt in elucidation… What could be said about the following?
It was postulated earlier that for Social Conservatives the basic unit is family. Appearances are deceiving. The basic unit is the individual, which effects Society, which effects the Individual. The family is the formative machine in the formative years. (Preemptive nod to genetics)
You see, my daughter will go out into the world, and do, and say, many things. I want her to learn ways to “not-be-a-dick-about-it”, and to “not-harm-others”, and to love, and care for those around her, and those beyond her view; even when she won’t be found out, and she’ll never see the poor waiter again, and she could get away with it anyways, because of her cute button nose, big eyes, small waist, and large breasts…. What then, is to stop her from being terrible to others, if she can still profit; if not financially, then socially?
The libertarians seem to get close to saying “all you need is the profit motive”. And no one laughs at this awesome joke. My daughter needs a conscience. Nature has not been the most consistent installer of consciences. Perennially, we are bombarded by an invasion of rancorous barbarians. They are called children. Untamed, children can be the cruelest. I, myself, was subject to punching sessions … the reasons for which … Maybe they were trying to weed out the weak, mildly autistic one; as nature intended.
If any libertarian has said such a thing, he or she has said something very foolish indeed.
Now I think libertarians think profit and self-interest can do more than many SoCons credit it as able to do, but that’s a long way from saying it’s all you need.
Again, Hayek who wrote a whole essay explaining why he could not consider himself a conservative though tradition an indefensible part of a functioning society and wrote about it at book-length.
There i fixed it.
We can put a construction on this where the statements are not contradictory, but it’s all here on this very page.
Meh, different points of discussion being conflated. Luke and I were discussing what was necessary for the emergence of markets. Not the same as what is required to have civil society in general.
My point deals with the rather indisputable fact that people who have diametrically opposed world views still engage in capitalism with each other. You don’t need agreement on many broader issues the way Luke suggested, in order to have a market.
They are not conflated, we simply disagree. I don’t think markets require only the profit motive. They also require trust, similar expectations about how contracts work, and a number of baseline assumptions about how negotiation works in this culture. I gather Luke doesn’t agree with you either.
I don’t think this is so much a point of disagreement, as it is you pointing out things as important that can be largely taken for granted.
If you don’t honor contracts to a certain level of satisfaction, then no one will trade with you. So you end up having to honor contracts.
Sorry to drop back in here after pages that I haven’t kept up with. Maybe someone else has already answered this, but this is an entirely inadequate response to the problem. I am not a business person, but I’m willing to wager that the vast majority of businesses stay in business while serving a very small minority of the people in any given region. So, if for example 3% of people in a given neighborhood do business with the porn shop, and the other 97% don’t want it to be in their neighborhood, the porn shop advocates win? What about the porn shop that sets up (as many have done in my part of the world) right next to the interstate highway, thus bringing declining property values, crime, unsavory people, and negative impact on children to a community while being almost entirely supported by people from elsewhere?
I’m still trying to focus in on a peculiar, defining characteristic of Social Conservatism.
That Social Conservatives seem to be interested in the internal motivations of others. Crafting them, pushing them, pulling them, righting them. The installation of a Conscience.
Why would they?
Because they’re just as tyrannical as the left?
No. It’s in pursuit of the fight to protect freedom.
Because actions have effects on others, and the sum of which has effects upon the society(which in turn has effect on the future membership of the society). that these concerns exist because no man is an island, and unchecked trends toward the bad society can cascade into all the nightmares that freedom loving men fear most; all the while pointing the finger at the bad actors and not the creation thereof.
Social conservatives seem to believe that the good society, good governance, and good markets are to be forever chronologically preempted by the efforts of good men. To social conservatives, entropy seems to not be limited to the physical universe. The attempt at the creation of good men begins at the family. We need Good-Society-Cart-Pullers, too. We seem to be running out, and they don’t seem to come along often enough.
To a Social Conservative: Leaving the creation of Good Actors to the dice rolling of genetics and less than effective parenting, if any, seems to be a fast track to everything good rotting out from the inside.
Luke, every single thing you just wrote are the exact justifications for all of the Left’s social engineering projects over the last 100 years.
While we do disagree – it’s not exactly on this. There seems to be too many unshared enthymemes to converse with comfort.
EDIT: The bit that I noted as the most clear difference of opinion was your profit motive and my tectonic plate of morals values and ethics. For some time the japanese were very hostile to outside traders, but very interested in profiting. profit motive is not enough information. I cannot overemphasize the importance of the preferences as to “How” ,or “To-what-end”.
I’ve been thinking on this for so long… and you’re right. the framework is. but you have to change out the cast and characters… and that is not an insignificant change. I dare say – as i spent the first 5 years of my marriage railing at my wife about her lack of love for Ayn Rand – that Libertarians have a like story to tell. turn several words and we’ll have it. Existential threat + policy prescription + justification.
EDIT: You [Libertarians] aren’t special.
EDIT[2]: [Having re read it. i think the criticism a bit less fair than i did, at first. you’d have to change more. Which i think is revealing as to the lack of understanding which libertarians seem to have about both right and left. I can’t really tell the difference between two songs I think are the same genre if I don’t like them. ]
I think that’s a fair challenge. A few thoughts:
Generally, the libertarian response is that people should be able to do what they want so long as it doesn’t harm anyone. The trick is deciding what constitutes harm: too narrow and you get one set of problems, too broad and you get another. Again, this particular kind of subject isn’t something I’ve given enough thought to, but my sense is that it’s in a grey area where there’s definitely a harm, but it’s hard to quantify and/or describe a limiting principle.
I can tell you that we have a brick-and-mortar porn shop in front of a strip mall with a major supermarket, one block off of I-40 in Durham. So yes, they exist, and the community did not want that store there.
If I drive through South Carolina (of all places) on I-95 I have to pass dozens of billboards for such stores, and for “gentlemen’s clubs” and the like.
But this is a tangent and evades the more general problem of the extent to which communities ought to be able to set their own standards free from interference by external authorities.