In Two Different Ages

In many cases, the mindset of a person who was overly strict in a former time is the mindset of a person who is overly lenient today.

...in an age where discipline is generally looked down on by society, they will allow one person to do harm to another to avoid disciplining them. 

Christians,

Would you believe that two people with the same mindset from different time periods would be strict in one age and overly lenient in another?  This is because a mindset that is less compassionate and conformity-driven will lead to the wrong type of behavior in even oppositional social environments.  In an age where socially acceptable thought involves an appreciation of the value of discipline, a mind that is conformity-driven and lacking compassion will discipline others even when they don’t necessarily deserve it or to a degree that is too harsh.

However, in an age where discipline is generally looked down on by society, they will allow one person to do harm to another to avoid disciplining them.  In both cases, a person with this mindset is harming someone to fit into society and because they lack empathy.  However, the way they do it changes based on the context of age.

Hence, many people today who would regard themselves as “liberal-minded” have the same mindset as people from another time who were overly strict.  Even now, they are causing harm in a way that could be called “conservative” in the negative sense of the word.  This isn’t a reference to the term in US politics—here, it refers to following the crowd in an insensitive way.