this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2023
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My parents told me that when I was in college but the absolute opposite has happened. I think it is true for a lot of folks.
The reason older generations tell us that you get conservative when you get older is because that's what truly did happen for them. It's their genuine life experience.
They started off as young liberal hippies with only weed money to their name, and then as they got older and settled down they became wealthier, and surprise surprise, when you have wealth then you start acting and voting in ways which help you keep that wealth for yourself.
It isn't happening with younger generations in part because we're inherently more liberal but also in part because that wealth the older generations saw never appears.
I mean a system in which you grow rich as you grow older, no matter what (exceptions aside) would do that, and if that's the expectation you'll grow more conservative thinking children don't understand that everyone gets to have a good life "except the bad people" (in this case it can be both a genuine belief or a dog whistle) but if you contrast it to the world we have seen where wealth is hoarded by a select few and at an unprecedented scale you can grow jaded even if you do make wealth somehow unless you buy into the current right wing propaganda.
You can't even touch your 401k until a few years before you die, so it would be weird if that was someone's primary concern.
Had a Dittohead math teacher tell me, “I’d learn.”
I had barely begun to understand the importance of the labor movement around the world. Hadn’t yet read Howard Zinn. Thought gay was an insult and that people would reject fascism forever.
I guess I learned.
Well TIL what a Dittohead is hahaha
51yo Gen X here ...
The thing I don't get is that I see the logic to the theory of why someone would become economically conservative as they gain wealth, but it doesn't quite track becoming socially "conservative" as well.
I'm doing well enough, and of a demographic, that I should fit the curve of becoming more conservative. But in addition to more assets as I've grown older, I've gained empathy due to personal and observational experiences in my life. Not surprisingly to me, that's shifted my social politics to the left. Perhaps a little surprisingly, because of my growing sense of empathy, my "keep what I got" emotions are more than counter balanced by my "we need to help others" emotions and so my economic politics are also shifting left.
There is no conservative movement that isn’t tied to social conservatism. There are not enough true fiscal conservatives anymore because that just doesn’t work in today’s world - so they have to pander to maniacs and evil people to get their votes.
You're not alone. I have moved farther left the older I get and the more I learn.