If history's social conservatives have always been wrong, why would we think today's are right?

Social conservatism reduces to two primary claims:

1. The way we (meaning the social conservative) live now (or at some chosen point in the past) is the best way to live

2. Deviations from that style of living (whether proposed, or by way of example of those choosing to live differently) are not improvements, but steps in the wrong direction, and potentially quite harmful ones

Social conservatism thus rejects social liberalization, or the increasing freedom of people to choose new ways to live, to express personal identities in increasingly diverse ways, and to achieve social acceptance in that diversity. (Update: I wrote a follow-up post clarifying the distinction between “social liberalization” and “the political left.") The social conservative tells us to trust his judgement that the contemporary forces for social liberalization have either gone too far, or are asking us to go too far, and that if we continue along that path, we will regret it.

But the social conservative’s claim runs into a rather obvious problem: history. For there have been social conservatives before him, stretching back as far as we have historical records. And so in light of his claim now about this time social liberalism has gone too far, or threatens to do so, we can ask, “Were those prior generations of social conservatives right in their echoing claims?”

And there’s the rub. Because if we think back, to history’s cavalcade of social conservatives saying, “Now we’ve gone too far” or “Now is just the right about of social liberalism,” in every instance it’s turned out they were wrong. We didn’t have enough social liberalization a thousand years ago, or five-hundred, or even one-hundred. Every one of those points we can look back on and think it’s a good thing the forces of social liberalization won out, because we (or, at least, most of us) wouldn’t want to go back to that.

If that’s the case for every prior social conservative standing athwart his moment’s history and demanding the liberalization stop, why wouldn’t we assume that it’s the case for today’s social conservatives, as well?