Why do Student 'lefties' go right wing in middle age???

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

There is a tendency for young people to rebel against the guardians of authority as teenagers. This may manifest as teenagers going to university as ‘Guardian reading’ (a UK liberal quality paper) left wing liberals who question authority and challenge the status quo. However a large percentage of this group will grow up to be quite consevative in middle age.

WHAT HAPPENED??

After leaving university these individuals have a choice

  1. Adjust & integrate
  2. Continue to challenge ‘the system’ (either overtly or not overtly)

The system is intrinsically CAPITIALIST so it could be argued that SOCIALIST values are a luxury…to be able to respect all humans equally as members of society.

Some would say that one can only understand what ‘family’ or ‘society’ mean when one has kids… BUT this is a limited concept…less tolerant and inclusive and consequently more right wing as ‘HUMANITY’ is not the context from which we get our principles…
For some it is not about giving fellow humans respect and a chance BUT about protecting close family and fuck anybody who threatens that…
As a socialist possibly one should think of society as an extension of family in which all sections have a right to be part of and to be treated with compassion

In terms of our choices - when we become an adult (eg after we leave uni / or come out of our rebel teenage years_) if we are settling down & thinking of starting a family our priorites may change AND

ADJUST & INTEGRATE may seem an attractive option (rather than change society) , life maye be about the desire to be a success albeit in what one perceives as a sick society…and the desire to protect your family…therefore views on crime etc change…rather than compassion for the criminal and looking at the causes of cime the attitude may change to FUCK it lock them up I don’t want burglars on the street threatening my home and family.

Also one can also continue to challenge OVERTLY eg through Politics/ Pressure groups / Media etc

One can also challenge NOT OVERTLY by living your life by socialist values but not doing anything to change society or challenge the guardians of authority.

THATCHER said ther’s no such thing as Society, only individuals and families…motivated by parents desire to look after and protect kids and family

BUT it is in the best interest of everyone to recognise our common humanity.

2

Youngsters become ‘conservative’ or ‘right’ when their parents start dying, and putting them in the will.

It’s all about wealth and the control of wealth, from one generation to the next. Politics is actually about money and wealth. Politics is actually about economy.

3

Ultimately i think its more about having kids and responsibilty for a family…it’s more about FAMILY being the priority than SOCIETY…

4

It’s to do with assimilation.

Youngsters are still incessantly questioning, trying to figure out how to be assimilated - to find their place in “how things are”. Until they do this, they “see outside the box” in an attempt to figure out where its boundaries lie so they can settle inside them. They ask questions that adults often don’t know the answers to - presumably because the parents of the parents never gave them an answer and so on.

Those who can box things more readily or rigidly can settle into the status quo much more easily - accepting the world for what it is and quickly learning how to be most pragmatic about living in it. Their ability to adjust establishes the world as “just the way things are” in their mind, and thus they come to support policies that benefit people who think like this.

Others, who either don’t have the same ability to adjust, who don’t get on with the way things are, or who are compelled to forever look beyond boundaries - they have a much harder time assimilating themselves into the system/becoming practical. These types stay Left Wing and progressive for longer than average.

Those who assimilate themselves into practical ways of thinking end up fitting in and thus supporting/conserving the world as it is. They come to favour the Right Wing. But eventually, practicalities catch up with everyone who supports progression too, whittling down their numbers. The process of “maturing” wears down one’s imagination or traps one in a “workable” slot until one becomes assimilated and starts to benefit from conservativism.

Such assimilation is also a removal from diversity, since everyone assimilates to the same status quo. Many conservative policies are removed from more educated solutions, favouring more harsh and intolerant measures, which come to seem more and more obvious as one becomes more and more removed from alternatives.

Basically, people “grow up” and abandon any progressivism in favour of conservativism.

5

As an 50 years+ person, I can tell you the answer is simpler then you think.
Its fear. You become afraid. You have built up a certain amount of assets and
you are afraid something will take that away from you. it is really not much more then that.
You fear starting over, you fear losing your present income.
at some point, you ask yourself, is this all there is? and you begin to doubt
and doubt leads to fear. all roads lead to fear when you are middle aged.

Kropotkin

6

I don’t personally know of any “student lefties” who “go right wing in middle age”, and I had no idea this was something that happened more than rarely. I do know that people become somewhat more moderate with age, because they learn to see others’ views as reasonable, and that there are many ways to view the same thing. This is typically considered something like wisdom, even if there is the drawback of relative lack of vision and passion that so often comes with youth.

7

Keep in mind that pre-college, most kids just share the politics beliefs of their parents, whatever they may be.

So, you have a child that starts off conservative (just playing the odds here). They go to college. What’s college?

College is a place where your every care and desire is provided for and you never see a bill. You are Governed by an absolute authority that works in the background to make sure that everybody has the exact same access to the exact same kinds of fun, while ensuring at the same time that having fun never gets in the way of the grander project, which is the betterment of every citizen (student). You’re even allowed to work (a number of hours approved by Central Authority) in order to earn spending money (which is paid in amounts approved by Central Authority), and have some ability to customize your living space which is provided to you by Central Authority and guarenteed to be equally spartan compared to everybody else’s living space. You wander around eating food you didn’t pay for that is always warm and ready to be eaten, sleeping in bed and using electricity that might as well come from God, and your only concern in life is to work through a series of intellectual problems that, 99% of the time, actually have nothing to do with your reality.

It’s a wonder anybody going through such an experience for 4-5 years DOESN’T come out a leftist. It is a socialist utopia.

So. What happens after college?

A giant fucking bill for all of the above gets dropped on your lap, and you are cut loose into the world to find any way you can to pay for it, or else be in debt to the Government for the rest of your life.

Ahhhhh. Conservatism/Capitalism blooms anew.

Now, one could avoid this abrupt change by making college ‘free’. It remains an open question as to whether or not the resulting taxes would cause the same thing later in life.

8

Because they become concerned with protecting their own interests over the greater good of society.

9

:open_mouth:

10

First off, I’m not so sure that actually happens. It is a commonly used heuristic but I haven’t even seen any evidence that actually supports it. But if we want to suggest that such an arc does exist, I’d say that there are numerous factors contributing to it.

I’d say a big factor is also the progressive march of society. In the social realm, rights keep expanding and new groups are even included within broader society. That naturally conflicts with a person’s own understandings and biases. So while a person may have started out tolerant by society’s standards by the time they reach middle age their tolerance is somewhere between “OK” and “intolerant”. Society has moved past them and rendered them socially conservative. A change due to relativity not actually due to change of beliefs.

Another element is entitlement. This is a fairly constant element in human psychology that basically boils down to “fuck you, got mine”. This is normally an institutional condition so it is observed in both rightwing and leftwing institutions. Unions are a good example, in that they have achieved a modicum of success and stability so they become concerned with maintaining their own success and stability rather than spreading it around. The gospel of wealth and anti-tax activists on the right are doing the same thing.

Lastly, segregation is an issue. We tend to self-segregate into like communities. Because of that, everyone ends up feeling “middle class”. Since they don’t see the extremes, it seems like equality or at least a fair degree of equity has already been achieved. At that point, it makes sense to move rightward since what is the point? Why try and increase equity/equality when they are already at a good level? In college, particularly large colleges and state-schools, people from a wide variety of different backgrounds come together which forces confrontation with inequalities present in society.

11

What a load!

First, pre-college kids (who you’re taking to be mostly conservative - presumably going along with the thread’s assumption that people do in fact often go right wing in middle age, along with your assumption that most kids share the politics beliefs of their middle aged parents) don’t see any more bills than college kids.
Pre-college kids have every care and desire provided for by their parents, who work in the background to make sure that their kids have good and equal access to fun, while ensuring they get on with their growing up and education, or “betterment” in general. They wander around eating food they didn’t pay for that is always warm and ready to be eaten, sleeping in bed and using electricity that might as well come from God, with their only concerns being their education (and presumably social relationships too…) - however far removed such concerns are from actual vocational application…

Yet somehow when pre-college kids go through this they’re mostly conservative, and when most college kids go through it it’s no wonder they’re leftist !!!

Bravo.

Second, you make it sound like Socialism is all about having the State pay for everything while nobody actually does any “real” work. No.

Capitalism needs academics just as Socialism does, or any other of the many left/right/whatever economies. They need to be funded by some “authority” because the work they do consumes money without actually paying for it - the only difference is Capitalism has this funded by the rich and/or charitable. And if they won’t pay, it just won’t happen - but that’s ok because everyone (the rich man/woman) is living how they want and that’s what’s important.

More planned economies organise the whole thing more so it is more guaranteed to happen and endure. The same goes for all the many things that societies need that can’t pay for themselves unless the rich are benevolent enough - as though being some kind of godhood who the poor must praise to have their prayers answered.

It’s no (Socialist etc.) utopia for everyone to be studying, that’s just developed world economic policy to focus on knowledge trading despite so many citizens being differently inclined. But they don’t get their say or way, we must all instead follow and appease the market(!!!)
This is the biggest problem of modern Capitalist education - DENYING children an education in what you call work that actually has something to do with your reality. The market is presumed to indicate what people want, yet it only does so for the rich - if that.

A better organised, people-oriented Socialist government could actually give the many more-practical-minded kids “real” jobs, which would make a Socialist economy work just fine, paying for the academics amongst other things. It’s only Capitalism that invents the idea that you’re either successfully academically trained or worthless, having to be “demoted” to more practical jobs that your education had nothing to do with and didn’t set you up for at all - as though that was a failure. The money is in knowledge trading afterall - and that means everything…

12

As an observation this phemonenon may be more valid in UK rather than US…It definitely holds true in UK

13

Why do Student ‘lefties’ go right wing in middle age???

because some people are just open minded enough, not perfectly or anything, to try both paths…?

14

All adolescents seem to go through a period of rebellion. Therefore, leftist politics is the perfect catechism for these people. This is why the left attract the disgruntled all of descriptions; it’s the perfect arena for a catharsis. But not only that, it’s sold to the young as “hip,” “trendy,” and “cool.” However, as one grows older and realises that a worker’s revolution isn’t going to happen (socialism), that free will is a ignorant fantasy (anarchism), that escaping male created social structures is also an ignorant fantasy (feminism), and that some cultures simply do not mix well and/or are not equal (mulitculturalism), one matures and has respect for what does work well. This is why a moderate conservativism is essential for any society to function coherently. In this sense, conservativism is fundamentally a pragmatism, but it also has a respect for the past, a respect for one’s betters, whereas leftism is essentially a hatred of all the past and present. In reality, leftism is really self-hate given that we are a product of the past. Those over 30 who still cling to leftism either, have a well paid job in a university, have a job as a social worker of some description, are destitute, are perpetual children, or have a mental disturbance that prevents them from accepting authority figures.

15

Not only do I expect myself to become more conservative, but I can also see myself becoming racist and misogynist too. How’s that for an attractive package ladies?

16

Liberals might actually donate to charity as much as conservatives if they could stop patting each other on the back for being ‘concerned’ long enough to do so. Then the numbers would back up your bullshit. :frowning:

17

I find that becoming sexist and racist actually improves my status with the opposite gender. Women love men who are racially and sexually aware, and not blinded by childish dreams, idealism, and liberalism

Males who are liberals beyond the age of 27 are incompetent or impotent, or just weak minded and weak spirited in general.

18

There is a pretty important difference you seemed to overlook. Pre-college kids are ACTUALLY KIDS. Whoops! Yes, that’s right, children absorb what their parents teach them, and they are more than capable of adopting ideals (or at least rhetoric) that contradict the actual circumstances of their home life. They tend to be more concerned with cookies than having a coherent noetic structure, you know. College students on the other hand, are adults by the standards of most cultures. Whatever word you use for them, they are of the age where they are starting (or continuing) to consider how life ought to be, and making sense of the world. If their life experience (from birth, as you helpfully pointed out) is of an authoritarian regime where everything is provided for them, then OBVIOUSLY that will have some influence of their politics.

If you buy the premise that most college students are liberal, the fact that their entire life experience consists of living under an autocratic nanny-state would obviously have a role to play. How couldn’t it?

No, I make it sound like college life is close enough to socialism to give a typical student a strong push towards leftism. What do the nuances of the position have to do with anything, unless the student in question is a political science or philosophy major (in which case they will be actively instructed as to the superiority of leftist politics)? What’s important is that the student experiences life where a strong central authority provides for all their needs and strictly enforces equality…and they come out of the experience a leftist. If you want to say there’s no connection, then go on, make me laugh!

Yes. I would suspect that business and economics majors would be exempt from the phenomenon the original poster is describing.

19

Star Travel: I find that becoming sexist and racist actually improves my status with the opposite gender. Women love men who are racially and sexually aware, and not blinded by childish dreams, idealism, and liberalism

Males who are liberals beyond the age of 27 are incompetent or impotent, or just weak minded and weak spirited in general.

K: Wow. You usually don’t come across so much stupidity in a couple of statements.
Women liking racist misogynist is insane thinking.

Liberals over the age of 27 being incompetent or impotent: liberals like Jesus, Lincoln,
teddy Roosevelt, George McGovern ( a decorated war hero) JFK (also a decorated war hero)
Oliver Wendell Holmes (survived the civil war with several wounds) FDR, John Marshall,
The list could go on, but you get the point.

Kropotkin

20

That’s border-line, my friend. That your comment seems more directed at the statement than the person is its saving grace.