There is no better evidence for this than the modern recalibration of the feminist movement. In the ’60s, when feminists such as Alice Walker were comparing motherhood and family to slavery, alarmed conservatives warned of rampant abortions, wholesale child neglect, the devaluation of fathers, and family breakdown. For a while such fears seemed borne out by soaring divorce rates, increasing pro-choice sentiment (which I share), and Murphy Brown–style celebrations of single motherhood.

Fast-forward a couple of decades. Walker’s own daughter, Rebecca, has condemned her mother’s views and become an evangelist for motherhood and family. And many indices are now trending conservative. Divorce peaked at 50 percent in the 1980s and has dropped about 10 percentage points since then. A 2013 USA Today/Gallup poll shows that support for unregulated abortion is declining, with a slight majority now describing itself as pro-life, a startling reversal from a decade ago.

Such trends have prompted the former neoconservative thinker Francis Fukuyama to observe that “Great Disruptions” produced by social movements such as feminism don’t necessarily lead to a net “decrease in social capital.” Instead, the capital —cultural norms and mores—gets reconstituted, and even expands.

Why? Freedom allows individuals to sort through existing social rules, discarding ones that don’t work and embracing ones that do.