Respectfully, this is the hugest flaw with small c conservative thought, it's hyperfocused on the individual and ignores any larger social context or wellbeing to the detriment of a nation, state, etc
You can turn that around just as easily. As an Asian, I’m always a bit unsettled by the degree to which liberals are willing to absolutely set the social fabric on fire to accommodate individuals. Like, a school in small town Iowa where everyone is Christian can’t use their public institutions that they pay for to perform one of the most fundamental functions of human societies: socializing children in the community’s religion. I see why it’s that way through the view of western individualism, but I can’t say your average person in Bangladesh would see that as rooted in a consideration for the “larger social context.”
That's an interesting way of framing necessary change.
I'm not interested in diminishing the capacity of people to celebrate their beliefs, but yes indeed, we separate church and state because it's in the best interest of society in general. I guess that's very western of me to say, but I'm more than glad to defend it in the context of many past examples of religious institutions abusing public goods in order to discriminate.
> the degree to which liberals are willing to absolutely set the social fabric on fire to accommodate individuals. Like, a school in small town Iowa where everyone is Christian can’t use their public institutions that they pay for to perform one of the most fundamental functions of human societies: socializing children in the community’s religion.
I don't think liberals are actually setting the social fabric on fire to enable individualism over, in the case of your example, socializing children in the community's religion. I think liberals simply want to socialize the children in their own ideology instead of that of their parents. That's one of the things compulsory public schooling is for, in the words of the very people who put that system in place.
(When I think of actual "small c conservatives", someone like G. K. Chesterton is what immediately comes to mind…)