British Redefine Conservatism

David Brooks: The Conservative Revival - New York Times.

“We used to stand for the individual. We still do. But individual freedoms count for little if society is disintegrating. Now we stand for the family, for the neighborhood — in a word, for society.”

I am not sure I fully understate what it means. On one hand the top down totalitarian movements that don't care about an individual like communism, fascism, Lubavitch are long gone and discredited. On the other hand there are some practical constrains that limit how much one can do in a complex society by top to bottom intervention. I am curious to know how do they define neighborhood intervention as a party policy? Would that be the Singapore model? But Singapore is booming because of geography, not the intrusive big brother society. Brooks often doesn't think through his articles, great, it leaves a lot of room for the reader.