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Have your political views changed as you've grown older?
If so, what were your previous beliefs, what did they evolve to, and what do you think has caused the change?
I am curious about your general disposition, but it would also be interesting to hear how that applies to specific policies.
About 10 years ago I was a right-wing for a while. Turns out I had untreated ADHD. I was cured as soon as I started on Ritalin. True story.
ADHD makes it hard to see the big picture.
I'm glad to hear that Ritalin cured your ADHD. How does that relate to your right-wing beliefs? What views do you hold now?
Precisely. ADHD has no cure as far as I know.
Yeah. The medication helps a lot, but it's no miracle pill. There's not even a consensus on what causes ADHD, nor how it actually looks (in the brain). It'll be a long way!
You know, I also used to be very right wing, I also have moved much closer to center, and I also started treatment for ADHD just before this (also ritalin). For me I think it helped me with empathy. Before my meds I was more logical and I struggled with the human aspect of political issues.
I find this fascinating since much of the right wing in the US is built upon the identity of religion, which in general is known to appeal more strongly to emotion.
I think I understand the second half of that sentence, that considering the human has lead you to be more empathetic to the plight of others not so privileged, but can you explain more why you think becoming less logical has changed you from right wing to centrist?
I should explain better. I'm not less logical than I was before, it's more that empathy has been applied to my logic.There were many human issues where my view was rooted in a lack of empathy. I grew up in a very conservative and religious family. I still strongly maintain my Faith, but I realized that Christianity isn't tied to a political view or party (contrary to what I was led to believe).
My ADHD makes it hard to think of things outside of myself (kind of like the way some people on the spectrum struggle). I've now stepped back and actually tried to put myself in other peoples shoes and I'm more compassionate. Much of this has also come from a better understanding of what Christianity is really supposed to look like. It's about Grace regardless of peoples actions, its not something earned.
Ah okay, thanks for the insight. I think we all get better at this as we age, since we are bound to meet, become friends and fall in love with a larger number of people, exposing us to the variety of human life that exists and helping us to understand how it might feel in someone else's shoes a little bit better.
Yeah... ADHD actually mess with the way we feel emotions. It's not just a cognitive disorder.
Oh man yes 100%!!! It feels like most people don't understand this. I've heard the technical term is "Emotional Liability", which basically means that emotions are disproportionately strong for the situation. It's like I could only feel the most extreme version of each emotion.
I was never just happy, it was manic euphoria. I was never just sad, it was bottomless depression. I couldn't be irritated, only completely frustrated.
Getting the meds have done more for my relationships with my family and spouse than anything else, and that alone is worth it!
Yeah. I'd like to hear an answer to this too. Seems likely a very interesting thing to have happen.
I answered shortly below, but I'll write a better response when I get some time! ;D
I'm curious too, as someone both with ADHD and who has been a staunch leftist since I started developing a political consciousness--before I was treated for it. My views if anything have gotten even more left-wing as I've aged (so much for people turning conservative as they near their thirties, I've gone from basically a progressive US Dem as a teen to a libertarian socialist who is flirting with anarcho-syndicalism in my late twenties), so I'm interested to see how ADHD interplayed with a person who started out as right wing.
I also have ADHD (and a chronic case of leftism, but my being medicated didn't really affect that). I have a lot of experience with ADHD making me completely blind to the faults in my opinions.
Quite simply, I did not want to analyze beliefs I held that I felt were somehow wrong. I was raised in an environment where even thinking about this out loud would have brought on a lot of negative attention, negative attention made even worse by RSD (Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria), a co-morbidity of ADHD. So, I developed cognitive dissonance, which was basically impossible to work through.
It only took six months of being medicated to finally recognize those defense mechanisms, and shortly thereafter I got in with a therapist specializing in my issue, we trudged up a lot of suppressed memories, and I finally realized that I'm trans. There's a lot of bad that comes with heavily suppressing something so fundamental about who you are. I've even read that ADHD may theoretically be caused by prolonged stress related to holding contradictory beliefs, and that it's sort of a defense mechanism against having to confront them.
God damn that's interesting and amazing. To think that all these things combined made you who you were and because we now have the experience and knowledge to see through some of that you are now a completely different person and probably more "you". It really makes me happy to hear about people finally getting to the bottom of their (some times unknown) frustrations and problems. It must be an enormous relief. Not that it's that black/white and a done deal by then but just to get that close must feel special.
I'm extremely skeptical of claims like this one. Expressions like "defense mechanism" can be useful in the therapeutic environment, but I cannot imagine how such a metaphysical construct could be responsible for an actual mental disorder that is treated through medication.
Defense mechanisms are a very real part of behavior. I didn't say that ADHD was one, but that it was like one.
It's disturbing that you seem to think "actual" mental disorders that are treated through medication aren't caused by trauma, or that you seem to be skeptical that what I went through could be significant enough trauma. Trauma is a major component of mental disorders, and the way that people defend their selves is often a major part of how their disorder manifests. This idea doesn't in any way invalidate your experience with ADHD, even if you aren't aware of or simply don't have a trauma you think could impact your ADHD.
And this idea doesn't in any way imply that ADHD will only affect certain subjects, or will vanish at successfully working through it's cause. My ADHD affects every aspect of my life and I'm dependent on medication to fix it, so I certainly wouldn't push any idea that says it's anything less than that.
Hey buddy, I didn' mean to allude to your personal experiences, and I'm sorry for writing in an insensitive manner. Trauma is a very real thing, my skepticism is restricted to some applications of the concept, okay? Hope you're well ;)
The thing is, I think, that moderate left is usually characterized by an increase in empathy, while positions more to the right (at least currently) hold less empathic positions. ADHD decreases the empathy that the treatment restores... so it wouldn't make much sense for the medication to create right-wings.
I am, of course, not a doctor, and I'm absolutely talking out of my ass.
I could never imagine that such a silly comment would generate such interest! I'm afraid the answer might be a bit obvious, but I'll try my best!
Just like with any mental disorder, the symptoms of ADHD vary greatly from person to person. They go way beyond just being agitated and inattentive. I'll list some things I realized after being treated:
As a consequence of the last point above: the kind of right-wing thought I entertained for a while was characterized by a lack of emotion/empathy that was in syntony with my ADHD symptoms. I have always been more of a leftist, and shortly after the start of my treatment I went back to this side of the political spectrum.
I used to have very left-leaning views and firmly believed all conservatives were evil and wanted the worst for the world. While my views mostly haven't changed I have calmed down on my hate for the right. I do think those in power with such views are doing a shit job, but just because someone happens to have right-leaning views doesn't automatically make them scum to me anymore. It's a pretty crap view to have sometimes because most of my friends are very liberal and they see me as some sort of conservative because I don't automatically hate anyone who isn't on the left.
I don't know about hate, but I'm curious what led you to that viewpoint in light of recent events. We've spent a couple of years really unmasking US Conservatives - a lot of the deplorable views that were hidden behind dog whistles and veneers have been moved into outright vitriol, and it doesn't seem to alienate anyone.
I've honestly had much the opposite experience - I've seen how angry, hateful and vitriolic a lot of these people are and it legitimately unsettles me. Watched people fall in line behind people doing awful things, and they're cheering on the awful things because it's "their guy" and he's attacking groups they don't like. Watched people who have tut-tutted on moral high grounds completely abandon it when people on "their side" do something they'd normally condemn. Seems like we have an entire political party based on hating things and trying to piss of the people who want to make things better. I struggle to find anything good to say about people who hitch their wagons to that.
Because it's a vocal minority, and most everyday conservatives are normal people. There are vocal parts of the left that I equally despise and most of the things you mentioned are tactics of fringe leftist groups as well. There is a difference between a republican and a conservative. I'm not putting out an "all sides are the same" argument, because I don't believe that is true as I hold mostly liberal beliefs, but I concede that other people are entitled to their opinions.
Like I mentioned, I think the conservatives leading the US currently are batshit. However, the conservatives I interact with daily are almost all open to discussion and hold views that I would consider in the realm of normal (while I may disagree with them.) I feel like people on the left who are adamantly certain that the other half of the country wants nothing but the worst for our world spend too much time on the internet. r/the_donald, r/great_awakening, and the like represent a very small percent of conservatives.
And regardless of everything I said, in my opinion, nothing good comes of having an unshakable hate for other people. Not trying to be a bleeding heart or anything but it just strengthens the divide. Those people may seem crazy, but there will ALWAYS be people with crazy political views in comparison to yours.
That's the problem. The vocal minority thing. A couple years ago, you could believe that. Guys saying extreme things were on the fringe. Now the guy saying extreme things is the President with incredibly high approval ratings from his own party.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/01/trumps-approval-ratings-so-far-are-unusually-stable-and-deeply-partisan/
"An average of 84% of Republicans say they approve of Trump’s job performance, compared with an average of just 7% of Democrats, according to Pew Research Center data collected over the past year and a half. This 77-percentage-point gap is even larger than the partisan divides seen in average ratings of Obama (67 points) and Bush (58 points) during their presidencies. (A Pew Research Center report last year documented the parallel growing partisan divide in political values that has occurred over the past decade.)"
The vast majority of Republicans love Trump and approve of what he's doing. His batshit is exactly what they like and want. The amount of Republicans who don't approve of him is an overwhelming minority. A hateful, mean spirited simpleton is holding a much higher approval rating than his more "normal" Republican predecessor. What the data shows is your angry, extremist version of the Republican party is very much the normal representation of the party. Trump represents the Republican base. The more he attacks assault victims and calls Mexicans animals, the higher his approval goes amongst Republicans. The myth of the plain Joe Conservative who didn't sign up for all this craziness is exactly that - a huge minority in a party that is overwhelmingly loving the horrible shit.
It's not a matter of having an "unshakable hate", it's objectively looking at evidence and saying wow, a whole chunk of our country holds horrible beliefs and loves horrible, hateful behavior. This is not okay and they should not get a pass on it.
Trump unmasked that Aunt Patty who is nice enough on Thanksgiving, actually loves that he's throwing Mexican "animals" into prisons and wants to jail those ungrateful uppity thugs who won't stand for the flag. It exposed just how toxic and awful a lot of these people's beliefs truly are. The worse Trump gets the more they love him. They should have to own that, but everyone is letting them launder their hate. They wouldn't say to a Mexican that they're an animal, they just vote for the President who says they're animals and puts children in cages to deter them and send them back to their own country. They don't want to be called racist, they just want minorities gone and to have bad things happen to them, as long as they personally don't have to do it.
Yeah I can't argue too much with what you're saying, the numbers are there. The man is clearly if not an idiot, a complete asshole with no empathy. I think my points are too anecdotal to be used in a good argument. I just know all the republicans I know are pretty normal people who don't exactly love Trump but hated Hilary.
You're fortunate. People I know who seemed pretty normal and cool are now constantly raging out and posting Trump talking points. It's weird and disappointing.
The question is whether he's doing his job well, not whether you think he has some issues he needs to work through. While I disagree with both points, I can see how someone who's divided on the issue but loyal to their party might say "yes, he's doing his job" while still thinking that another conservative could do the job while pissing off less people or in general being less of a bad person.
Glad you've been able to mature and respect people with other views. I try to remember that no one wants the worst for the world. We generally all want the best for the world, our communities, and for ourselves, but everyone has a different opinion on how to get there.
A very right wing politician in my country once said "we were all communists when we were young", implying that moving further and further right as you grow older is the natural state of things and nothing to be surprised by. I remember thinking how ridiculous that sounded back then. This was more than a decade ago - I was still reliant on my parents financially and I couldn't imagine how someone could abandon their principles just because they suddenly have money and political power.
Today, while my stance on social issues remains strongly left, I find myself being somewhat hypocritical on financial areas. While I'm not even remotely close to being rich, I still benefit from a financial system that caters to people like me. This system allows me to have a lifestyle beyond the means of most people in the same industry. Very recently, the government announced that a discounted income tax policy I've been benefiting from will be reduced to a much shorter duration, reducing my annual net income by ~18%. Everyone I know who benefits from this policy is pissed about the change. There have been many political lobbying campaigns that tried to alter it so existing beneficiaries would be grandfathered in at the older, longer duration.
From a left wing perspective, the policy is ridiculous - between two people doing the same job at the same level (even at the same company!) the government subsidizes one and not the other. Ideally, the whole thing should be revoked completely. And yet, I can't bring myself to argue against it, knowing how it will effect me personally. I feel guilty, but not enough to do something about it.
So yes, I suppose I did move a bit further to the right as I grew older.
I've fluctuated a bit even though I was always voting left. However I've actually become more left leaning over time. I was pretty moderate for a while and shifted to being liberal in my early 20's and now in my 30's I'm a socialist.
Did you mean to post this as a top level comment?
It was more intended as contrary to what you said in your comment about the idea that people move further right as they grow older. I've heard this said by a few people but I don't know if I entirely agree and I've seen more examples of the opposite over people I know and people in my family. I can see as society progresses if you don't continue to challenge your beliefs then you will eventually be left behind and seen as conservative so maybe that's where it is coming from.
Although being economically conservative or liberal is a whole different thing. I honestly see people that become economically conservative as they get older as having a "I got mine" sort of attitude, although not necessarily consciously, and tend to vote a little more to protect their own wealth rather than having a safety net for others.
I heard this adage about becoming more conservative as you age from my older family members during a period when the US economy was booming, the wage gap was a lot smaller, a single income could support a family of four, and we had a budget surplus. Both my parents and I received sizable tax cuts in last year's legislation. The difference is that I actually care more about government programs funded through taxation that support the greater good than I do about benefiting myself at the expense of everyone else. Supply-side economics just will not fucking die despite the Mount Everest level of evidence that it increases income inequality, benefits a small % of citizens, and does not lead to economic growth.
I'm in a similar boat as you. My father has traditionally been conservative (though I suspect he's become somewhat more liberal recently), but I have been against tax cuts because I saw first hand what happened when my schools lost a substantial amount of their funding and saw some really amazing teachers get laid off, class sizes increase, maintenance cut back, and teachers increasingly relying on students for classroom supplies.
I'm proud of paying my taxes in full, even the often-ignored NC consumer use tax. (Basically, if an online retailer doesn't collect tax, you're supposed to self-report the dollar amounts and pay sales tax on them.) I know plenty of people who know about it but don't care, but I am proud to itemize my purchases and pay the state what I owe and help keep our government running.
Got it, thanks.
Yeah, this is probably it. On major financial issues I still tend to vote left, but for the issue I've mentioned in my post, I justify it to myself by saying, while it is unfair, so few people benefit from the policy (it's maybe 1% of employees in the country) revoking it wouldn't help others that much.
Yeah it's hard to blame people who are just looking after their family first. As you get older you might have children or grandchildren that rely on you so it's not an entirely selfish decision.
Cusping on 40 here and I've gone from a staunch conservative voter in my 20s to a bleeding heart liberal in my 30s. I've seen the benefit of spending on infrastructure, healthcare and education, especially through a recession. I think our carbon tax is most effective when you take the revenue and put it towards green subsidies rather than making it revenue neutral. I was affected by our government changing our flat tax to a progressive tax and still thought it was the right thing to do. The only thing I wish our left leaning (or right for that matter) government would do is spend more time with evidence based spending, though so far I'm not entirely unhappy with how our government has done in the first term where in over 44 years that the conservatives haven't ruled my province.
A German Physician and Comedian once said "if you're not leftist when you're 20 you have no heart, if you're still leftist by 50 you have no brain"
I honestly am curious to the original source of the quote, but I definitely don't agree with the sentiment. Basically declaring that a societal good is a childish, naive idea, and the only smart move is selfishness. It's not just cynical, but also not really true. You can't find a lot of examples of societies being successful by pushing rich get richer policies and stopping investment in their infrastructure, healthcare and education.
I'd just like to point out that the above quote did not make any claims about selfishness being desirable, nor did it declare that societal good is naive or childish. It was talking about leftism. Even if we assume leftism = societal good, to say that not-leftism is selfish is pretty bigoted
If one end of the spectrum is looking out for society as a whole, what is the other end of that spectrum if not looking out for yourself?
The quote implies that only smart choice is being not a "leftist". It's an inherently insulting quote to one point of view. But to state the opposite opinion of the quote is "bigoted"?
bigoted
adjective
having or revealing an obstinate belief in the superiority of one's own opinions and a prejudiced intolerance of the opinions of others.
You automatically assume that leftism is looking out for societal good, so you feel your beliefs are superior. You then claim that anyone who is not leftist must therefore be selfish and only be looking out for themselves. This is a pretty prejudiced intolerance of other people's opinions. "Anyone who disagrees with me is selfish" is not a tolerant worldview.
I get why you say that but I think it's because it is often perceived as said by a "leftist" with a hint of irony and a jab to conservatives and their stereotypical old man thinking. At least that's how I perceived it when hearing the phrase the first time many years ago. By turning it around it's directly aimed at the right with no irony and that makes it more "unfair". Maybe I'm rambling I don't know.
I was about to quote/paraphrase the same saying, except I'm almost certain I originally heard it in the opening of a movie monologue. IIRC it was an old (~60s?) Russian movie and used in a serious (not comedic) context, but can't remember much more than that.
The saying has always really stuck with me.
Lol yeah, I went from not caring, to trying to understand conservatism, to becoming a classic neoliberal before/during/right after the 2016 election, to becoming a socialist nowadays... whose only not a communist because I haven't read enough about it to yet consider myself one.
Definitely growing leftward.
I'm 31. The older I get, the more I find the things that I was taught at a relatively young age being challenged. Basically Enlightenment-style ideas about how society ought to work, how sunlight is the best disinfectant, and how reasoned debate in the public sphere on all issues leads to wise decision by democracies, etc. Contrary to the notion that people get more conservative as they get older, I've moved further and further to the left as I see that most social problems are caused at their root by variations on capitalism, bigotry, and imperialism; and that what I was taught about communism in school was (of course, looking back on it) a highly biased account from the most anti-communist country in the world.
At about 15 y/o to 18 y/o I was very libertarian, with the idea that everyone can achieve anything given they apply enough effort. At 18 my views were starting to change, when I started to read about the effects of welfare programs our left wing govt. had in my country, the terrifying situation USA citizens live with their health and education expenses, etc.
Since then, our string of left-wing governments was starting to disappoint me, partly due to allying themselves with notoriously corrupt right-wing entities, and being (or becoming) corrupt themselves.
A while after, these allies committed a "soft-coup", ousting our president with lawfare, resulting in her vice-president, who is from a right-wing party (that alliance I talked about) taking over.
Additionally, there was (and still is) a growing pro-military dictatorship sentiment in the nation.
This all pushed me into distrust of government and corporations (who had a huge role in assisting this soft-coup), driving me from social-democracy to democratic-socialism and then to anarcho-communism. Nowadays I only see my views changing if something less radically left-wing than I believe in happens and proves to be good for society
Where do your parents fall in terms of fiscal/economic policy vs. social policy? Are they further left/right on either, or are they fairly centrist all around? Have their views evolved significantly as you've grown up?
The main change that I've overcome with age is me dropping ideology for principles. I found out that no matter what ideological group I sided with on some cases there were always compromises that I would have to either take or leave in order to be a "part" of an ideology. These days if something concerns me I just read on the topic, listen to arguments and develop my own stance on the issue, and if something doesn't concerns me I wouldn't pay it any mind, because I find political stuff very tiring. It takes a long time to develop an argument and to view it from all sides of the debate, almost like developing a skill, however there is usually little to no use to your arguments for or against something if you aren't planning to run for the office.
While I've been moderate-to-liberal for a good long while now, my personal politics took a hard left turn after my child was born. The timing could be coincidental to the birth of the Trump era, too. I proudly accept the label "liberal", though I prefer the term "progressive".
Interesting, I have always known 'liberal' views and 'progressive' views to be different.
To most on the Right, they’re essentially the same
That is an assumption and sweeping generalization and comments like that have no place here.
I disagree, in my opinion only people in the extremes of political ideology generalize and blindly group other political groups.
I cannot tell if you're joking or not. Part of the human condition is to stereotype others broadly. It's a biological defense mechanism - fast movement in the grass equals snake, be afraid.
Not at all joking.
In politics it is the extremes of political ideologies that blindly group other political groups and generalize their beliefs. You will never see a moderate or centrist doing something like that. It's only when you are on the outer fringes of a political ideology that you will start stereotyping on such a large scale.
Politically stereotyping on a massive scale is very different from the human instinct for survival.
My experience is that everyone draws large conclusions about groups of people. I think you may be fooling yourself if you think yourself immune.
Drawing conclusions and sterotyping are not the same thing. There is a difference between making small conclusions based on observation and experience and making sweeping generalizations based on political bias.
Everyone has personal bias and draws conclusions from their experiences, not everyone stereotypes on a large scale based solely on their political ideology.
Can you explain? It certainly seems to me that they are used interchangeably, both as pejoratives somehow.
Historically, liberals were long economic and political centrists, believing in people-led government (as opposed to monarch-led) that checked the excesses of the market, but that encouraged a relatively free market. In the US, monarchism (the traditional arch conservative position) was largely dead, but liberalism stayed alive and well. But as with many things, upon their victory, liberals splintered between those who valued central authority and those who preferred more local autonomy.
It’s strictly the case that both Democrats and Republicans are descended from this schism and both have significant, liberal roots. However, Democrats are the only ones called liberals anymore. In the cold war it was impossible to align yourself with socialism and expect to be politically relevant, the “the left” in the US rebranded. Afterward, Republicans embraced religious conservatism in the 80s and haven’t looked back.
Meanwhile, the progressive movement developed as a response to industrialization, as more of Americans society urbanized and humanitarian crisis after another popped up. Their foci have always been on government’s moral role in people’s lives in some way or another, but they’ve long been fighting uphill battles. In the 1870s, the progressive fight was women’s suffrage and prohibition, both they would slowly see gains with at the local level until national successes at the end of the first world war solidified their shaky alliance with the democrats. It was this alliance (liberals, socialists, southern federalists, progressives along with unionists, hence that "umbrella" people often talk about on the left) that would solidify Democratic control of the House and Senate for most of the 20th century. While the modern progressive movement largely seems to lack the focus on addressing the stresses of new technology, they’ve retained the moral outlook on the role of government.
Edit: phone typing is hard.
Thank you!
That's so odd to me. Maybe because we had a progressive conservative party in Canada in the 90s that's really a renamed conservative party, but liberal and progressive have been opposites in my head.
Though progressive conservative is a bit of an oxymoron.
They are used interchangeably, but doing so is incorrect and anyone doing that is uninformed.
Being a Progressive means;
"favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, especially in political matters"
So you can have both a "Progressive Liberal" and a "Progressive Conservative". Or even simply be "Progressive", but not aligned with any ideology.
Where as, "liberalism" is a specific ideology and in the US means you are left leaning.
As example, my political ideals would be considered "Progressive Centrist" because I want things to change and reform (Progressivism), but I agree with aspects of both ideologies (Centrism).
The confusion comes because Historically (in the last 100 years in the US) Progressives have been mostly aligned with Liberals, but that doesn't mean they are the same.
How can one be a "progressive conservative"? Isn't that an oxymoron as u/Catt says?
BuckeyeSundae already gave a really good explanation. Just wanted to clarify, I was more referring to the words themselves being an oxymoron. The PC party itself, was more central than their previous counter part. In Canada at least, it's quite common (I'm using common loosely) to have new parties spawn off that are basically identical to their parent party with the exception of a handful of issues and policies.
One reason I would say is that religious conservative pertains almost exclusively to values (and identity issues), rather than technological opposition. You can advocate for change, improvement, and reform as a religious conservative because you might also be an economic libertarian (which means you would advocate for changes or reform in economic policy that you see as improvements). In fact, the progressive movement's origins are very firmly and overtly rooted in arguments of religious conservatism and national purity (in terms of cultural identity). This is one reason why modern progressives will talk about how white feminists in the 1920s were kind of race baiters (because they were).
Political identity is complicated! Labels are only partial explanations of the nuanced views that most people hold on many issues.
Yeah I guess if you look at it on a per-issue basis it makes sense. I was thinking in a more general, and maybe too literal way, as in conservative = keep things the same, progressive = change things.
I consider myself conservative. Personally I don't find that my beliefs and ideals have changed much. I find I'm less adamant to assert that my views are correct, I think that's more to do with being less passionate about debating such things. I have been told that I have changed by people that know me so maybe it's a change that I just don't personally see. I try to be more open to listening you the opinions of others though I'm sure I have a lot of work to do yet. Hopefully that shows more as time goes on but I'd have to refer you to the opinions of others about me to get a more accurate gauge of if that's true.
Overall, I have gone left as I've aged. I started off as a teen with a very weird mix of political leanings mostly because my parents didn't really force anything to on to us. So, I picked up some stuff from them, most notably the cultural conservatism of Catholicism (pro-life, homophobia, etc) and other stuff I must have gotten from various media like George Carlin stand-up CDs and stuff like that which someone how made it over to me. Without a cool older brother or cousin or someone like that to guide me, it took me a while to find good political thinkers that were expressing ideology more than just reactionary positions that our two party system forced liberals and conservatives to adopt.
But by my first presidential election, I was already fairly left. I voted for Nader (in a swing state and do not regret it). But even then, it took me a couple years after that to get over some of the cultural stuff left over from Catholicism, even if I had left the church before I left for college. Some of that stuff just stays drilled in your brain until you really examine it. I was probably what most would consider a social democrat for most of my 20s. However, in my 30s I started getting much better about reading actual thinkers and not just like Al Franken and Michael Moore. I got in David Graeber, Foucault, Noam Chomsky and more really heavy philosophers.
I don't know what I'd consider myself at this point. Definitely socialist and anti-capitalist. But there's so many little camps inside leftism and I find it not super interesting to find the exact one that fits me and am much more interested in just general left unity and fighting back against fascism and neoliberalism more.
I can get behind this philosophy 100%. I'm somewhere on the Left either SocDem or further, but I'm 100% of the opinion that neoliberalism and fascism need to die.
My political views have adapted to new information, mostly. Through middle school I was really into communism, thinking the governments that implemented it and became corrupt did it wrong. Then I started learning about how the communist governments of the world failed, and simply how people behave, and realized it would never work.
I shifted towards being more of a social democrat after flirting with libertarianism (which I think if fundamentally flawed because it only accounts for the best qualities of people, and we aren't perfect). I think the democratic system is, so far, the best system of running a government (maybe not the American system), but I also feel that people need our inherent corruption to be considered by the government, while the government allows the people the freedom to correct for a corrupt government (democracy). Rather than a state-controlled economy, I feel the government has a responsibility to regulate the markets to protect consumers, the environment, and the rest of the world. I feel that we should, as a society, offer help to any who need it and will accept it, and provide a means to protect those who have made mistakes or failed, so they may recover from them, be it bad financial planning or getting addicted to a drug.
I also developed some issues with political identity that only got worse after Trump won. I'm not blaming him, but American society's response to election, which to me comes down to two things: internet politics, and real-life politics. Internet politics are what I think of as the dialog that happens that is solely driven by the alt-right archetype and the SJW archetype fighting a war against each other. Unfortunately, after Trump, this political discourse I finally started getting away from began hemorrhaging into real life, leaving very little in the way of grey area, or even reasonable political discourse. If I had issues publicly talking about political issues before because I didn't agree with certain key talking points everybody on the left seems to espouse, now I would be labelled a Nazi and potentially find myself on the internet and find people trying to take my head because I'm white male with a buzz cut who thinks we need to take a second to re-think gender identity or race relations, while also being thought of as a illegal-immigrant loving cucked liberal snowflake because I don't think the best course of action is deporting everybody who came here illegally. To be seen as valid by either side, it's an all-or-nothing proposition anymore.
The last point is one that started before Trump (I started seeing this happen in 2008 with Obama running which created all sorts of problems concerning race in the US), but as a result of these issues I refuse to use the terms "liberal" or "progressive" to describe myself because anybody I've seen describe themselves in this way is extremely toxic, and prone to calling for violence against those who disagree with them.
I was a hardcore libertarian in high school and college. Socially liberal but fiscally conservative. Over 30 and now very progressive. Socially and fiscally liberal.
Seeing how the system is rigged to give opportunity and benefits to the lucky few made me realize poor people aren't lazy or stupid. They're just unlucky. In fact, they probably work harder and smarter than rich people. But they weren't given the same opportunities to maximize their returns.
I was a socialist libertarian (classical anarchist) when I was younger, from high school through my Master's or so, vaguely aligned with Noam Chomsky. I did have an interest in post-left anarchism, as well, and in particular I was moved by Bob Black's famous "The Abolition of Work". Basically, I was convinced that the goal of society should be more freedom: freedom from institutions, freedom from capitalism, in particular, and overall freedom from institutional hierarchies. I was obsessed with thinking of ways to do away with hierarchies, as I hated the idea of subjugating people.
There were a couple things that bugged me right from the start. The big one was that capitalism is patently quite good at generating wealth (the comforts of life), and that's not necessarily a bad thing, if it can be constrained. A lot of anarchists of the sort I was reading were primitivists and had this idea of "oh yeah we won't have sports cars or things like that, but nobody needs those anyway", which always caused a lot of friction in my brain. Like yeah, obviously we don't need those, but let's think this through a little more about what precisely we'd be flippantly be giving up and why. So I started working through a lot of things like "would we still be able to get bananas any time we want? I'm quite fond of bananas. I know the banana industry is very exploitative now, but maybe there's a way...."
The other big thing that happened was in my early- and mid-30's, I started questioning where I would get meaning in my life. Not just intellectually, but it was a real problem I was facing personally. I basically had a life of perfect freedom (well maybe not 100%, but effectively pretty close), but I wasn't satisfied with that perfect freedom, and it was bothering me. Everything was fun, but it wasn't meaningful. I started exploring meaning of life a little bit, and one of the people I got a bit of help probably isn't very popular here (Jordan Peterson). I started thinking about things that imposed upon my freedom: job, family, church, marriage, family. Basically all the things I thought were dark and evil from when I was younger. Well, I'm not old yet, so I can't say definitively it was the right path to follow, but it feels right so far. And it crept into my politics a little bit.
Some things I have kept from my youth:
Some things that have changed from my youth:
Overall, I've become more comfortable with government and law and order. I just wish we'd get a forward-looking government that would think about this whole automation thing we (could) have going on.
Not much I have to say (always on the left). That said I think I've got a more deterministic view of politics/society in which nobody really controls and understand much what's going on. I've also became more radical on climate change, and grown a dislike for the "anti-science" greens (anti-GMO, etc). The constitutional question ("who decides what and how") also became more central in my thinking (which can be subsumed as "most constitutions are utter shit and not much can be done until we change them").
When I was younger I considered myself to be conservative. Like any young person, I really had not done any soul searching, or evaluation of my own for these beliefs I held, and so brandished them like an identity.
I was young when W. took us to war with Iraq, and I loved it. I thought it was so badass that the American military was going to go over there and kick ass. I didn't know why they were going, why we were at war. I knew it had something to do with 9/11.
I have since evaluated my beliefs and values, and I have come around to a more progressive stance on politics. I think that military intervention is necessary in some contexts, but as a last resort. I think that the American military intervention should probably have some sort of consistent application, but I'm sure the people in the Pentagon know much more than I do about world threats, so I leave it to them. I think that corruption can be a player in when/where we use military might, so I think that's an important issue to watch closely; who has the most to gain from military conflict? Were those people able to have any outside influence on the decision to get into conflict?
Healthcare and general human wellbeing are important things for me. Somehow those values are only espoused, in general, by one wing of the mainstream political spectrum in America. Left. And so, that's where my votes go. More inclusive healthcare, ideally universal, making public education free up through the Bachelors degree, campaign finance reform, separation of church and state, expanding personal liberties (ending the war on drugs). Oh, also, climate change. I believe in science, so there's that.
Yes I think they have. Although, it's difficult to explain. My views are broadly the same, the reasons for my changing my opinion are to do with how the system is implemented here in Europe rather than what I actually believe.
I live in Sweden. I'm an immigrant. I fully believe the EU should help refugees from places like Syria, etc....
However, a couple of years ago when refugees were pouring into Europe the EU agreements didn't function they way they should. The result was a massive influx of refugees into Sweden. I think for an extended period of time it was around 10,000 a day entering the country. Eventually the Swedish government had to close the border so they could properly manage those arriving.
I agree with that decision. Not because I don't believe in helping refugees, but because other EU countries didn't stick to the agreements about how they should be managed.
If EU member states had of acted in accordance with EU policy then those refugees would have been spread around the EU and we could have easily handled the influx, but instead they were let pass through and an awful lot of them who ended up at the Swedish and other borders.
I also understand the need for a proper EU military now, my opinions changed on that in my early/mid 30's, but it's even more apparent with what's going on now.
Earlier in my life I was for the Euro as a currency, but now I've seen the damage it has done to smaller countries I've changed my opinion of it.
I am and always have been opposed to neoliberal politics or any extreme.
I'm a firm believer that it's the government's job to provide services and look after it's citizens - the state works for the people, not the other way around. Those views remain the same.
My values driving my political views haven't changed, so in many ways my views have not. However, if and how I believe they should be implemented has. For example, I still think piracy is wrong, but I don't believe we should be letting lobbyists drive our laws to the point where I think the idea of enforcement should basically be abandoned (with a few exceptions).
I always felt like things should be pretty laissez faire and that individual's rights should be paramount. I spent a lot of time in an isolated rural area and my father definitely instilled me with quite a bit of "leave me alone / live and let live" type of sentiment.
As I got older and learned more about things other than the social issues such as economics and foreign policy, I started trending towards libertarianism. I don't like to label myself as I feel that is a step towards becoming an idealogue, but my principles tend to align with that school of thought.
In my 20s I was probably what you would consider "moderate" or "centrist" for the US. Lots of the typical "oh they're all bad" mixed with nay saying complaints about problems. Basically my lack of context and limited worldview meant I figured everyone else was exaggerating issues and wondered why people didn't just suck it up and get through stuff, like me, an intellectual. I also didn't really want to put too much thought into stuff and thought being aggressively neutral was kind of a cool outsider thing to do.
As I've become more self aware and realized other people have perspectives, I've become a lot more sensitive to issues that don't necessarily directly effect me and also realize that the entire "Tough it out, figure out your own shit" strategy doesn't work great on a societal level. So I've become much more of what I'd consider a progressive and what is typically called liberal in the US.
Yes, significantly.
In my teens I was in the youth wing of the Progressive Conservative party in Canada (this is during the 1990s before the merger with Reform), considered myself a libertarian, thought Canada should have U.S. style gun laws, and was generally speaking extremely contrarian. I'd probably be considered a typical Reddit style edge lord by current standards, right down to being a fat nerd with an embarrassing beard and some pretty horrible, ill-informed opinions.
I would say that my political stance is much more socially liberal as an adult. On other topics, I would like to think I am merely better informed than a teenager. I wouldn't characterize my economic beliefs as belonging to any particular ideology, but rather focus on what demonstrably works for the greater mass of people. This generally means a belief in common sense but not onerous regulation, a healthy disregard for those who advocate for economic change on ideological grounds (right or left), and a desire to see a society that makes life reasonably decent for the bulk of its members, which essentially means middle and working class people.
Up until about 30 I was very right wing. I loved Rush Limbaugh. I gave the GOP credit for balancing the budget during the Clinton years. They seemed like the responsible party.
But since then I have grown more and more to the left. Partly because I can understand how a community/government can provide some benefits more efficiently. Partly because I've been burned by so many private corporations I feel like they need more regulations not less. Mostly because the GOP has proven to be incapable of running our government. They are certainly not now, nor have they ever been, fiscally conservative.
Yeah, used to be against gay marriage, and anti abortion. Mainly as a result of being a "Born again Christian".
Wasn't able to vote in 2000, but if I could have I probably would have voted for Bush.
Now I am for gay marriage, and pro-choice. Voted for John Kerry in 2004, and Obama in 2008. Didn't vote in 2012 because I was really fed up with politics in general and didn't really care.
Local and state elections I usually vote Democrat.
I grew up in an intensely socialist milieu in Wales (my mother's family were all mine labor organizers), and then in the early '90s we moved to Palo Alto, where the dominant belief was (is) conservatism with a moderately-socially-liberal facade. Exposure to that made me a grumpier socialist, but age has also mellowed me out toward low- or middle-class conservatives that honestly vote as they think they need to in order to get by.
I went from liberal in my preteen years to anarcho-communist today. To be fair, I never really liked government, so anarchism was bound to be my natural course eventually.
Same with me.
As I grow older I find myself growing more left. However, I'm still fairly young.
I'm relatively far left (democratic socialist-syndicalist), but as I've gotten older and been forced into a corporate management role, I've had to take a long, hard look at hierarchical power relationships. Too many people still have strong power dependency, as they aren't equipped or inclined (usually, after years of punishment for any attempt to assert themselves) to make their own decisions and plan effectively. It's a long, hard slog to get my subordinates to stop being so damn subordinate, and learn not to fear taking action without being given specific orders. [In the broader political sphere, this was the nominal excuse for a "dictatorship of the proletariat" in Marxism, and I want to steer hard away from anything that compromises democratic and human rights principles.]
Ken Wilber's Spiral Dynamics model (simplified version) has had some influence in how I think about the woeful organizing capacity of most left-wing groups. Abandoning interpersonal power differentials and avoiding even the slightest hint of oppression that might arise through the elevation of expertise, seems to be a recipe for ineffectual politics.
There are some interesting models available from holacracy, permaculture, and "Doughnut Economics" for addressing the problem in organizations, but I'm not yet seeing anything that can model policy for nation-states effectively.
So, essentially, I'm more pragmatic about ideology than I used to be, but the underlying values haven't changed.
Not really, no. I may have become a bit less passionate about my ideals, but my ideals remain the same - we are all equally valuable. Humans are worth a lot more than just their economic output and any view that only looks at economics will inevitably fail. Nature is beautiful and should be preserved as well as we can. I may not have phrased them the same way throughout the years, but those are the values I hold and I doubt they will ever change. They generally put me quite a ways left of center.
My political views haven't really changed as I've gotten older. That is changed from one side of the spectrum to the other. I consider myself pretty left-wing, and some of my views are getting more extreme as I get older. I have little patience for nonsense, and that is reflected in what I believe.
Teen centrist edgelord > typical progressive democratic > socialist here
Honest question: because it really varies.. what do you mean exactly by “socialist?” It seems to mean different things in various locales.
For example, when a 2018 American says “socialist,” they often seem to mean something along these lines.
What does it mean to you?