Conservative, Liberal, Perverted Liberal

Conservative thought is structurally different from liberal. Conservative thought defines actions that all individuals must take, and therefore is absolutist. Liberal thought focuses on individuals, their desires and motives, and therefore is relativist, allowing many valid courses of action. Liberalism, which defines the modern Western state, is like a credenza that allows many cubbyholes, each of which can be filled by a conservatism. Conservatism is intolerant of other conservatisms, so only liberalism can serve as the overstructure of many; any conservatism can threaten to expand outwards to take over the whole. Yet another current threat to the liberal over-structure is Perverted Liberalism (PL), which uses the vocabulary of liberalism but attempts to take over its relativist structure like a conservatism. The goal of PL is however not to change the world, it is to force expressions of guilt and contrition on the part of those its adepts see as the more powerful. Because the victories of PL are victories of words only, it has taken root in the temple of words, academia.