Randy's recent post and the post below which alludes to the reality of cultural change has put me into a moment of reflection on tendencies to view culture and biology as integrative wholes or decomposable aspects of a given individual. If given a few basic assertions about what "liberal" or "conservative,"perhaps in reference to Rawls and Oakeshott, two philosophers who exemplify a highly intellectualized form of both ideologies, I might conclude this about both camps:

1) conservatives tend to be more "implicit" in their acceptance of background assumptions, ie; custom & tradition. They will assent that there is a seamles" whole of society (organic) and individual (who one is reflects thousands of years of past ancestry, encapsulating history, religion and genes, amalgamated in a fashion that is not reducible by reason).

2) liberals are more "explicit," and flesh our their axioms and the chain of reason that unites their various propositions into a constructed whole. Therefore, strictly speaking, society and individuals can be decomposed, and re-composed, to fit the most "reasonable" organization of all things.

And yet, in the current American political context, I doubt most conservatives would assent to the view that transracial adoption is a form of "cultural genocide," in other words, there is the implication that culture and race should be separated. This explains the tendency on the modern American right to rhetorically absue multiculturalism, while tolerating (or lauding) multiracialism. Though most liberals that I know would have a serious problem with assenting to a simple equation of "cultural genocide" with transracial adoption, I suspect they would not be as vociferous in denying its validity due to reasons of sensitivity. Similarly, I would suggest that many modern liberals take an integrative approach to the identities of racial minorities, seeing their culture & class as being implied by their race. This explains the common conflation of anti-Islamism (or anti-multiculturalism) with racism or opposition to the welfare state with racism (that is, there is a conflation of racial minorities with the underprivileged).

The generalization I make above is obviously is not true in all contexts, and I doubt most liberals would assent that their axioms harbor within them the conception that race, culture and religion must be viewed "holistically" (that the blood will always tell), rather, their assumptions would deny this, and they might argue that only present conditions and parameters make it incumbent upon them to behave so. In other words, they are simply reflecting realistic parameters that define modern society.

In practice, there are proximate considerations that constrain conservatives and liberals to espouse the views that they do, but one must remember that a proximity to any given position can eventually work its way back up and change one's foundational belief structure. By this, I mean that temporary alliances often force one to re-orient priorities and slowly transform one's beliefs simply through proximity, and an acceptance of "current realities" over an extended period can ossify into a background assumption that undergirds other, unrelated political positions (eg; the attempt by liberal activists to transfer identity politics into the ethnically, racially and economically variegated "Asian American").

Addendum: Readers might recall that both secular utilitarians & evangelical leaders were the most vociferous in denying the value of the organically developed cultures of India during the period of the East India Company. Rather, "conservatives," such as Edmund Burke, defended the folkways and traditions of the subcontinent as natural to the peoples of that region, as the most apt reaction to local historical and environmental conditions.