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Notes -
The abortion debate below brought to mind something I've been thinking about for a while. There's been a convergence of sorts between mainstream Republicans/conservatives and the far-right, but there are still many differences, such as on the Single Mother Question. The far-right (which includes most people on this website) views single mothers negatively, while the mainstream conservative view is very different. For instance, here's what Speaker Mike Johnson said about Medicaid:
Mainstream conservatives and the far-right agree that the welfare state serves to subsidize single motherhood, but only the latter thinks it's a bad thing. Mainstream conservatives' embrace of single motherhood is connected with abortion politics. One mainstream conservative pundit put it succinctly: "you can't be pro-life and anti-single mom." Many on the far-right responded to her tweet with "just watch me" and others scratched their heads, wondering what she meant. But there's a certain logic to it. Much of the motivation for abortion comes from women not wanting to be single mothers. You can respond to this in two ways:
The far-right prefers option 1, I've heard it many times on this website. But do you think it will actually be effective in changing behavior? I personally suspect that given the options of not having sex or having sex at the risk you might have to drive out of state and get an abortion and then get shamed by some online anonymous far-rightists, the latter will be the popular option. Just a vague suspicion I have. So it doesn't surprise me that many conservatives choose option 2. It also harmonizes better with the current conservative political coalition, which is increasingly reliant on the votes of low-class and non-white voters who have higher rates of single-motherhood. We wouldn't want to be elitist, looking down our noses at the salt-of-the-earth working class now would we?
Surely you can do both; don't have premarital sex, but, as a fallback option, of course single motherhood is better than many alternatives.
How is convincing western populations not to do this going?
Follow up question, does abstinence only sex education show any efficacy in preventing pregnancies?
Certainly not in the current welfare-state environment. It seemed like a stable norm, when combined with shotgun weddings, in previous environments.
I mean okay?
Any proposed policy or solution that requires massive (edit: and unpopular) social change to work isn't a very useful proposal, but it's a nice dream I guess
That's a weird thing to say standing in the consequences of massive social change.
We did it before and we can do it again. There is nothing mandatory about the sexual revolution, lots of human civilizations don't work like this right now let alone in history. And mores can grow more rigid in response to problems created by liberalization, has happened many times before.
Yeah maybe, at this point we're both vibing given the scope of our discussion (the direction of human civilization).
Human history has been a fairly steady march of increasing liberalism, I think because humans like doing what they want and hate being told what to do. It's open for debate if that's actually been a good thing for us (some ways yes, some ways absolutely not) as a whole. But I have a hard time imagining people wanting to give up freedom and flexibility once they have it.
I could be wrong though, if I was accurately able to predict the direction of entire societies I would be very very rich, and too busy raising children on my private tropical island to post here.
I also added "and unpopular" to my sentence above that you quoted, as it wasn't precise enough before.
I disagree with this statement perhaps as strongly as I've ever disagreed with any statement.
The view of history it assumes is wrong, the actual results of the liberal project it assumes are wrong, the whole thing is just 18th century propaganda that history has utterly falsified in a million ways and I think it's appalling that you believe this in the face of the world you live in.
History has no singular direction, and if it has a direction within the scope of an era it is towards greater control, not greater freedom, and if the Liberal project's teleology in practice has been anything, it has been one of ever increasing individual alienation rather than liberation.
A peasant from the middle ages is more free than you are in all the ways that actually matter to the individual experience of the world to a degree that is comical. He pays less taxes, owns more space, has more social relationships, works more for himself, doesn't have to spend much of his life in a school, can't be conscripted into wars, doesn't need to fill as much paperwork... the list goes on.
The liberal project's only true undeniable achievement brought about by mass and scale is one of comfort and pleasure. People suffer much less ever since we relieved the estate of Man, and they are easily amused by marvels nobody could have dreamed of. Calling this an increase in flexibility and freedom when it comes at the cost of levels of constraint, civility and socially imposed burdens that are historically unprecedented is bold on the absurd. It is like walking up to John the Savage and telling him he is less free than genetically modified slaves.
It's a prison liberals have built. A very nice comfortable and safe prison, but a prison nonetheless. Like all ideas, theirs also inverted when taken to their ultimate logical conclusion.
I don't relish this in the slightest and still have much sympathy for the liberal project, but where I find acrimony is when facing denial. Liberalism failed. Pinker style refusal to acknowledge that reality is criminal. And indeed when Pinker himself is faced with such questions, he just shrugs and goes on with the line go up charade as if nothing happened. Please don't be like him.
You cannot be serious. What's comical is your lack of knowledge about the lives of peasants and your idealization of some "free men of the soil" living like Hobbits in Middle Earth.
Peasants paid whatever tax rate their lords set for them, which could range from bearable to crushing.
Peasants did not "own space" - generally they literally owned no land at all, and at best had tenure on it. The dwellings they lived in were tiny by modern standards.
Peasants "social relationships" were generally limited to the village they lived and died in. They had no other options and were often not even legally allowed to move to a city with more social relationships available.
Peasants didn't work for themselves, they worked for their lords, and had very little volition in what work they would do. Peasants didn't choose their careers.
Peasants didn't spend much of their lives in school because school wasn't available to them. Education wasn't available to them.
Peasants absolutely could be conscripted into wars.
Peasants couldn't fill out paperwork because they were illiterate, and thus had no way to even know if any theoretical rights they had were being violated.
Do go on.
But sure, if you would prefer to be a medieval peasant than a modern man, that route is available to you. There are many places yet even in first world countries where you can disappear, build yourself a cabin, and live alone in the woods.
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