Well, I’m not sure if I should post this here or in Giles’ thread, but I thought I put my own two cents in the matter independently. In such “theorycrafting” one must recognize two facts: no matter how much information one has one cannot assume an monopoly on the interpretation of them, and that sometimes the information can run counter to more deeply seated parameters that can lead to alternate conclusion based on that information (or in simpler terms: you can’t know if you’re right automatically since it’s just “theorycrafting” and you can’t always know if things work out just from raw information alone).
That being stated, I’ll begin with this simple conclusion: things will stay roughly the same in an anarchy in North America. Here’s why.
First, despite Giles’ claims that the population of the planet is largely conservative that in fact if one considers the history of the populations on this planet that really it’s more subtle and complex than that. People tend to carry many values that can run contrary to each other unless evaluated from a broader context (language, family, region, climate, basic economic constants (relatively scarce resources and etc)) that in itself makes it hard to predict exactly what values will come out on top and how they will express themselves.
Lets consider that in a nation like Thailand, homosexuality is generally accepted among males. Not only in the Kathoey (ladyboy) form, but also in overt male-to-male sexual encounters. And historically, even pedophilic behavior has been accepted or tolerated (it depends on how you interpret it) in Thailand. Even when you consider the presence of Islamic populations in Indonesia and India (which in terms of spatial relations is very close by), it seems odd that this practice continues. Whatever may be the causes, I can at least attest to one fact: it’s not their government. Giles has no backing on the claim of governments enforcing certain behaviors like homosexuality at least when considering Thailand. As it took at least two constitutional ‘conventions’ in Thailand for homosexual ‘rights’ to be recognized by the government. Oddly, it was popular support of the population at large and not from the ruling parties or the judges that such rights were demanded. Ultimately, the Thailand example suggests that there are other factors involved in this acceptance or tolerance of male homosexuality in Thailand, which I cannot state for the record as being resultant of any given social convention/value/belief-system (Basically, I don’t know…).
Second, human social relations are not hierarchal. This is evidenced in the fact that throughout human history even when governments were at their strongest and most violent, populations and the values contained in those populations varied greatly even in the same region. Whether one considers the anti-jewish attitude of Medieval Europe or the oddly tolerant attitude of the North African islamic kingdoms of the same time frame, or whether one considers modern America of the Great Plains (from Kansas to Oklahoma) where homosexuality, atheism, and religious pluralism (Catholics, Muslims, Protestants, Hindus, Buddhists, Hassidic Jews, Mennonites, and the Amish all peacefull co-existing) seem to be thriving despite the assumed air of conservative values in said region in America, variety is the default position of human culture(s). The reasons for the variety are not particularly known to me, but I can give one honest guess: people are individuals, so how they express themselves is an individual affair, thus cultures evolve to accept and depend on that individuality. Thus, it makes little sense for homogeneity to be the norm, when it seems at least it is the rarest of exceptions.
In conclusion, regardless of governments, tyrants, or Gods, humans tend to vary more than enough in the expression of their values as to not simply become ‘conservative’ in culture as it seems not only present cultures, but past cultures show a wide variety of values even when they seem very conservative. Therefore, any claim that a state of anarchy will ever yield to some White Anglosaxon Protestant Christian Utopia is not one that bears out from the observations of present/past cultures. It doesn’t even fit with reality, so why even theorize any utopia or fanciful future realm(s)?