An enormous portion of Burke's (and the conservative) worldview becomes clearer in light of the importance he places on the basic facts and character of human procreation, and an enormous portion of Paine's (and the progressive) worldview becomes clearer in light of the desire he evinces to be liberated from the implications of those facts and that character. Almost all of what we loosely call "the social issues" have to do with the dispute about whether such liberation is possible and desirable and, because it raises the question of the relation between generations, that dispute also shapes a surprising portion of our other prominent debates. Burke takes the human person to be embedded in a web of obligations that give shape to our lives.

Yuval Levin, The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left, p. 103