I was at a a social technology training conference at the MARS centre in Toronto last week. It was a very interesting and useful conference. However, what struck me as the most interesting thing were the people in attendance. They were all very good people who were very committed to doing good on various things - food, environment, poverty, technology, etc. After a day or two it became rapidly apparent that I was the only one in the room of a conservative philosophy.
It seems that conservative actors have focused on the economic issues and stopped asking the question about how they can do good in society. Alternately, there may be groups of conservative people who are unwilling to come out and identify themselves as conservative. Or, maybe conservatives just do not get invited to conferences like these.
The interesting question is how do conservatives regain the agenda of doing good and of values that mean something to everyday working folk. The conservatives that I deal with on a daily basis are as concerned about their neighbours as anyone else but they just want to address the problems themselves rather than have some bigger government solution.
The question is how do conservative groups regain their focus on doing good as opposed to being solely associated with economic and crime issues?
