Why are so many young people turning to conservatism?
I joined The Brian Crombie Show to unpack this question — drawing on my recent op-ed in the Toronto Star and a broader diagnosis of our cultural moment.
We talked about how the liberal and progressive worldview’s fixation on unbounded autonomy has led not to fulfillment, but fragmentation — eroding civil society, pathologizing masculinity, downplaying femininity and sexual difference, and leaving too many young people adrift in a world without rootedness, reverence, or responsibility.
Western culture, since the 1960s, has increasingly celebrated rebellion, expressive individualism, and moral relativism. The costs been steep: rising loneliness, mental illness, declining birthrates, and a collapse of meaning. Even as material prosperity grows, countries like Canada and the U.S. now rank well below others in global flourishing — a reflection of our relational and spiritual deficit.
👉 See the results of the Global Flourishing study here: https://bit.ly/421I1yV
Many young men, in particular, are rejecting this status quo. Not out of anger, but out of aspiration. They want to strive. To lead. To love. They’re drawn to ideals of strength, sacrifice, and service — and they’re finding them not in progressive identity politics and rootless navel-gazing liberalism that celebrates transgression and detachment, but in family, faith, and moral formation. There is ample evidence to show that these things are the paths to individual and social flourishing.
Listen to the conversation here
Watch it here
Read the op-ed
Peter Copeland 