Social Cohesion, culture, and wealth

3. October 2009 by admin.

The funny thing about national unity is that both sides of the political spectrum implicitly agree on one thing: that keeping society unified is a good idea, and that the dissolution of political powers is a painful, cumbersome, and oftentimes violent process that’s worth avoiding (this is unless, of course, that radical is an anarchist or a separatist, but both of these groups are minorities of minorities).  The disagreement between Left and Right on social cohesion occurs because, just as with pleasure and peace and wealth, how you pursue unity defines whether or not you reside in the camp of good or evil.  But despite the fact that both sides have completely different approaches to unity, both sides claim the other violates civil liberties in the pursuit thereof, and reality will always attest that no two political stances offend liberty with perfect equality. As such, it is our duty to determine which pathway is more destructive to the cause of freedom.

While true liberalism demands that political unity must be attained through institutionally-based equality, those on the Right maintain that unity under a government should be pursued by a people with sense of cultural and theological belonging.  It is this, conservatives argue, which grants legitimacy to the democratic republic, with the people deciding who they are and why they belong together.  Anything else would be contrary to the very idea of liberty itself: just ask someone from a Soviet satellite republic. Read the rest of this entry »

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