Monday, June 15, 2015

Social Issues

I am reading Jonah Goldberg's "The Conspiracy of Cliches..." I hope to write a review of it if I ever finish it. Sneak preview of my review: It is funny and thought-provoking.

Goldberg's book is subtitled "...How Liberals Cheat in The War Of Ideas." Liberals do not have a monopoly on clichés. They are everywhere and they can dominate our thoughts if we are not careful.

An overlooked cliché is "social issues." What is most bothersome about this term is that it seems to always be expressed in the plural. The issues are by no means created equal.

Abortion does equal gay marriage. Gay marriage, like conventional matrimony, is a social construct. Abortion is the termination of a human life. One subject is abstract and the other is concrete. The two issues should not be stored in the same bin. Cookies and hardware.

School choice, gun ownership affirmative action, academic speech codes...what does one mean when one talks about social issues?

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