How and why have you evolved politically?

[traininthedistance]

Jews in America always say that "He who, when young, is not a liberal has no heart; he who, when old, is not a conservative, has no head."  They're all morons too, I suppose.  That's okay.  Evolution still happens, whether or not one chooses to accept its results.

Pretty sure that commonplace is neither Jewish, nor accurate.

[traininthedistance]

Jews in America always say that "He who, when young, is not a liberal has no heart; he who, when old, is not a conservative, has no head."  They're all morons too, I suppose.  That's okay.  Evolution still happens, whether or not one chooses to accept its results.

Pretty sure that commonplace is neither Jewish, nor accurate.

Technically, the Jewish version, of course, is "He who, when young, is not a liberal has no heart; he who, when old, is not a conservative, has no money."  As to its accuracy, I suppose that If you're pretty sure about something, then it must be so. 

Well, I've heard that chestnut dozens upon dozens of times, and never before has it specifically been related as a Jewish saying, or having anything like a "Jewish version".  As for its accuracy, the actual political scientists are pretty unanimous in saying that peoples' political views tend to solidify in early adulthood and by and large don't really change when they get older.  

To be fair, it's one of those chestnuts whose provenance and accuracy are entirely beside the point, though the murkiness of both kind of makes me question the wisdom of anyone who passes it on.

[traininthedistance]

I don't remember where I saw it (maybe reddit?), but someone said it was "liberal vs. conservative" in the 1800s European monarchy sense, and "liberal" should be "republican"(as in supporting a republican form of government over the monarchy).


But idk man.

I don't know about this particular historical explanation, but it does remind me of one way in which that quote can seem to make sense: if society as a whole is getting more "liberal" on various issues, but you stay the same as you get older, that's going to be interpreted as a relative shift to the right, and not unjustly so.  Magically turning right-wing when you get a job and kids is an overstated and overrated phenomenon... but "back my day we had to walk uphill both ways in the snow and get off my lawn" is definitely a mindset that (justly or unjustly) is widespread, so I'll give y'all that.

[traininthedistance]

And besides, "the People's Republik of Cambridge" is not an English phrase nor I guess in vogue at Harvard or in Boston.

Actually, it's a real bar; I've seen it. 



And "People's Republic of Cambridge" is also a phrase that gets bandied about from time to time.

I think angus is a little too sure of the universality of his own anecdotes sometimes, but he is no troll.

[traininthedistance]

As for my own evolution... the only really major shift that took place happened when I was about ten or so, when, one by one, I sloughed off all those socially conservative Catholic morality police positions, hand-in-hand with sloughing off belief in Catholicism in general.  First I became okay with premarital sex, then SSM, then divorce, and opposition to abortion was the last thing to go- it lingered on basically until I was in college.

FWIW, the thing that started me on the path to questioning Rome?  I couldn't for the life of me see why it was fair that women couldn't be priests.

Besides that, I have more or less always been a liberal intellectual snob (yes, even back when I was still in single digits and otherwise under the sway of religion).  And you know what?  I'll goddamn own it.  I've always considered the environment the absolute number one issue out there.  I've always valued cosmopolitanism and diversity.  I've always been center-left on economics, wanting a strong welfare state with good regulations but accepting the basic premise of a market economy.  I've always cast my lot with the artists and the scientists and the professors, and sought to justify my positions with their discoveries and expertise.  Sometimes, I'll change my views on individual things- I have grown to more-or-less support nuclear power, to rail against restrictive zoning (and, by extension, to take a dim view towards much of what gets called "historical preservation"), and learned to love inflation.  But I'd say that all of that is less a change in ideology/outlook, and more a consequence of, deep down, staying the same: since my axioms demand that I be willing to change my views as better evidence comes to my attention, it would be a wonder if I didn't do so.