Oh this is such a good comment.
Yeah, the reason I have my doubts is that what one culture view as “conservative” might be considered “progressive” due to difference in tradition.
And it is not something that can be neatly divided into two sides either.
For e.g., in feudal Japan male homosexuality is accepted but the society is very male dominated. On the other hand, there are rights that women have which would be considered “progressive” by Western standard at that time, such as women did not need to share wealth with husband, which means the wife can be more wealthy than the man and might be the one sponsoring his work.
I had seen some conflict in culture between some Asians and “American liberals” on issues such as cultural appropriation and affirmative action. Liberals blame “conservative” Asian values for their disagreement. But from the Asian point of view, the two ideas could be considered “regressive”.
Take affirmative action as example. The thing is, higher education was something considered to be attainable only by the rich. Their modern examination system was designed so that a poor student who studied hard and get high points can be on “equal footing” with the rich kids.
University admission in South Korea, Japan, China are mostly determined by score and score alone. This is their way of pursuing “equality” and therefore cannot understand why American “liberals” would prefer a system which would discriminate base on race.
I hope more people read this!