Periodically we get arguments here around the word "liberal", with people identifying themselves as "conservative" going on about "liberals" as engaged in some kind of left-wing conspiracy.

But what never seems to come up is another debate that's been going on for years, in another part of the forest, among political philosophers. It's identified as being between "liberals" and "communitarians".

And the interesting things is that in that debate many of the attitudes and assumptions are reversed. So, for example, the saying now associated with Hillary Clinton "it takes a village to raise a child" would count as classically "communitarian", whereas Margaret Thatcher's "there is no such thing as society" would be classically "liberal".

But it isn't as simple as just reversing the labels, because a lot of people holding to attitudes and assumptions that get clumped together as "liberal" or "conservative" in the liberal-conservative debate would find themselves on the same side as some of their former opponents once the territory of debate was switched to the battleground of liberal-v-communitarian.

And that is consistent with the way I'm sure people engaged in an arguments here may often find themselves at odds with others who are ostensibly on the same side.