One need not be an intellectual to hold to a philosophy based on social ontology.  Nor does one need even to know what that is!

 

Do you really believe that, to the Progressive, "individual suffering matters"?  Does forced sterilization ameliorate human suffering?  Did Carrie Buck suffer less because she was denied the ability to have children?  As such a thing was advocated by some of those Progressive voices, your depiction is grossly inadequate, unless by "human suffering" you mean the suffering of those who must live with people of such presumed mental or physical deficiencies.

 

Your definition of conservatism is confused, perhaps deliberately so, as the conservative most certainly does not think in terms of the "end of the betterment of society," as society has no existence above its members.  There can therefore be no "end."  It is the Progressive (who later co-opted the badge of "liberal") who maintains that teleology, that society, which they assert exists independently of its members, has an end which we must strive to advance.  Your definition, therefore, is patently false.  As to cultural elites, they are typically self-appointed and tend to advocate social control to maintain their positions -- i.e., they tend to Progressivism!

 

What the older Popenoe did is irrelevant, given the period with which this discussion has been concerned.

 

 

CM