Does this view have to be contrasted as being primarily about persistence of the state? Consider social media for a minute as an increasingly appropriate metaphor for religion. Instead of uniting people, social media has mostly driven people into various ideological echo chambers. And these echo chambers tend to engage in typical cult-like in-group out-group behavior behavior, aggression towards perceived ideological enemies, ousting of followers whose faith wains, etc. And as these groups begin to interweave with politics, it's driving a major wedge in society.
The point of this is that since we live in a society that values freedom above all, it makes sense that we allow these sort of organizations and associations. At the same time, I think it's increasingly difficult to argue that things from religion to facebook to twitter are having a net positive impact on society. In times when we were more homogeneous, this was different. When most of everybody holds a common and shared identity, there is no real out-group, and the identity can help create unity and unitedness. But as we become more diverse, the lack of a shared identity means we end up splintering off into a variety of large ideological cliques which view themselves as mutually incompatible (even if that's not necessarily entirely true). And that causes a lot of problems.
And so if we had a governmental system that was based more about utilitarianism, rather than ours which is based more on the fundamental value of freedom, it seems to be logical to work to prohibit these sort of things - even with 0 consideration given to the fate of the state itself.
We're not becoming more diverse, what is largely happening is that communications and transport technologies have made geography irrelevant. Now your cultural opposite may live next door, rather than in another city or country.
This has led to the degradation of real community; you could equally argue that transport is the issue. The point is that if you enable people to maintain cultural identies across geographical boundaries, you will cause the breakdown of local solidarity.
To argue that we must therefore develop some sort of bland global monoculture is as terrifying as it is depressing.
The point of this is that since we live in a society that values freedom above all, it makes sense that we allow these sort of organizations and associations. At the same time, I think it's increasingly difficult to argue that things from religion to facebook to twitter are having a net positive impact on society. In times when we were more homogeneous, this was different. When most of everybody holds a common and shared identity, there is no real out-group, and the identity can help create unity and unitedness. But as we become more diverse, the lack of a shared identity means we end up splintering off into a variety of large ideological cliques which view themselves as mutually incompatible (even if that's not necessarily entirely true). And that causes a lot of problems.
And so if we had a governmental system that was based more about utilitarianism, rather than ours which is based more on the fundamental value of freedom, it seems to be logical to work to prohibit these sort of things - even with 0 consideration given to the fate of the state itself.