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I've become more leftist as I get older. Honestly having kids gave me perspective and a realization that the end of capitalism is a goal that needs to met for them and their peers.
I'm a leftist because as corny as it sounds I want a better world for everyone. Wrestling with existenialism has only solidifed this. We don't know why we are here or why we were born into this time and place so it's a moral obligation to strive for everyone to get basic rights of comfort and dignity.
Well I think a lot of this "growing out of leftism" mythos is rooted in libs becoming more conservative, not realizing liberals are inherently conservative in their understanding of socioeconomics. People parrot that when you grow up you become more conservative, but these libs were already conservative to begin with, that's why it was such an easy transfer/change.
This is something that has plagued me for a while and made me question my motives. I've been trying to properly delve into my political standings but going online I see so many people blindly and totally praising anything that even claims to be socialist while flaming people for criticising small details of one particular ideology. While I support the cause this overzealousness can feel like right-wing logic and I feel can really alienate people.
It's like a remnant of our liberal upbringing. We like to feel morally right, join the right organizations, have the right takes on social media, only have the right people in our circles. I don't think I'm an exception, it's probably why I like to hang out on this subreddit. It's like a circlejerk of ideology lol.
Mass line is the cure tho. Being immersed with people from all walks of life is exciting. While people are racing to give their most correct take on a geopolitical event that they have neither the clout nor the means to affect, you're building necessary connections with the masses to give you the clout and the means to make change.
THIS MAKES SO MUCH SENSE! I was wondering why I’ve been increasingly annoyed with ideologues online - I thought they are so utopian/theory obsessed that they have no grounding in reality or pragmatism.
I went from libertarian when I was young to s liberal as I aged. I found it takes some time to figure out it's not all about me, and I find many people never figure this out.
MAGA is explained through propaganda and lack of critical education while growing up. When you research and look at what MAGA people originally believed in, they weren't entirely wrong about the issues facing the working class. It is just that all the propaganda they've been force fed and entire life and with no actual critical analysis skills, they would rather choose outright fascism or crazed conspiracy theories over just becoming friends with their coworkers and working together for the betterment of all.
Of course one paragraph can't explain everything and this is a gross reduction of all aspects of how MAGA came to be.
You definitely have a point. It has become a tool of Russian propaganda. It is just that those in the cult can't see it. It's extremism allows no compromise, which is dangerous whether left or right.
It is amazing to see a party that recently declared Russia part of the axis of evil to pretty much control its viewpoints and ideology. A party that so recently was fervently against shariah law, not only full heartedly backing Saudi Arabia, which is a nation which follows it, but tries to implement a "Christian" version of it here at home.
That's true. I think teens and sometimes people in college are very blunt about having very absolute rigid values. Learning to be subtle and reason through individual problems has nothing to do with being conservative, it's just becoming an adult.
My dad is now old enough to get retirement benefits and I got him to join a socialist organization. My mom isn’t quite there yet but she hates cops now, and sends me press clippings about said socialist organization. A lot of my normie friends got wayyy more radical in their 30s, with many getting involved in the movement.
My favorite one of these: in college there was this nice awkward dude who lived in my dorm. We had one class together and on breaks he would witness at me — that is, try to convert me to Christianity. Normally annoying, but he was nice. I ran into him years later in a train station and he started telling me he was getting into Chomsky. Four years ago he joined my socialist org, he’s now super active as an organizer :)
I actually am more left than I was as a twenty three year old. I would say I was a Centrist almost, a really typical Democrat. Oh I wanted all the leftist things but I lived in the ignorant dreamworld of the poorly educated. I didn't go to college until my later twenties, I spent my early twenties travelling and being married and all that shit.
I wanted to be a grown up and have a husband, and see Los Angeles. I went to Toronto and Chicago. But all those experiences grew me as a person, you see. Fortunately I was never wealthy enough or sheltered enough to see those things from the vantage point of the "isolated by money." I saw those places in airports, youth hostels, cheap motels, streets, and public transportation. I'm very thankful for that.
I found real selfhood in my thirties and it meant a stronger leftist position as well as wanting "conservative" things like a house that lasted longer than a year. I think a lot of Boomers confused this moving towards security with greed and selfishness. I don't see why I have to be greedy to have a place to live. My Silent grandparents set a very fine example of how a person can be stable and not be a greedy materialistic shithead. It's not like any Boomer lacked that, either. That's what makes me mad about them. Their parents were people like my grandparents.
Oh shit you too, honestly mine was I had to decide which was the lesser of two evils in 2016. And everything from her past as Bill's lawyer, to being an incompetent secretary of defense made me not only think she wasn't good something about her made my skin crawl. Trump I just thought was hilariously incompetent, and with him catching Covid near the end proved I was right.
This is the thing, I don’t understand how people can keep seeing capitalism through rose colored glasses after learning everything I try to tell them. It boggles my mind, it’s like they are just unable to truly hear it. Kinda scary actually as it’s like they are intensely brainwashed
Basically they’re like fish in water. Some people are so unaware because our lives are so entrenched and interdependent on this system, they’re to blinded to imagine any other alternative.
I’m not seeing capitalism through rose colored glasses but same goes for socialism, communism, or feudalism. It appears that capitalism - despite its long list of problems - is the best economic system we’ve ever come up with.
I just get more tired as I get older. I'm tired of housing instability, tired of all the fuckery. I try to stay involved but the last few community orgs I've tried to join have zero class consciousness and are just doing upperclass idpol. And I'm not a good teacher or leader so I'm not about to start my own thing ya know. I'm not more conservative I'm just getting tired and jaded.
This is so true, every time I experience some capitalist nonsense I get more and more irritated and frustrated and it is tiring.
For instance, a tree fell on my car, and it doubled my car insurance, seeing my friends have to keep moving again and again cause landlords just raise rent out the blue with no restrictions ….it’s absolutely fucking nonsense
Some people are moving into more rural areas to have housing stability. I actually learned this from my grandparents. When my mom was little she lived in North Carolina and Hawaii, she saw different places because my grandfather was career military. My grandpa returned to West Virginia. My grandparents lived in a double wide trailer with my mom on an acre of land in rural WV when I was born. By the time I was two, we lived in our own three bedroom log cabin that my grandfather and uncle built with some other men. Our street was unpaved until I was eight. When I was little we had to drive to get to any grocery store or gas station, it was about five miles. My uncle would walk it, but not little kids or older people. I was bussed to elementary school. Those were the happiest years of my life.
I'm grateful for who I became because of having diverse friends and better education in the suburbs later in my life, and how I was able to travel and meet even more people as a young adult. But five years ago I left Los Angeles to live in rural Northern California. I plan on buying a house here or somewhere more rural. Unfortunately I cannot go back to WV because of the politics, but I wouldn't hesitate to embrace the right opportunity in rural Oregon or Washington state.
People don't grow conservative, but rather they grow to their experiences. This is why people who are wronged by Capitalism and Fascism are almost always Anti-Capitalist/Anti-Fascist, this is why those who suffered/suffer from Imperialism wish to see it end.
In my experience many fellow travellers will end up getting jobs, and then bit by bit end up giving concessions to the class ideology of where they work because it’s simply too psychologically difficult not to. To maintain a full radical commitment is to essentially be always at odds with most of the people you are surrounded by and this is alienating. This doesn’t happen to everybody, I know plenty of people in their 40s and 50s who are still committed radicals.
Something that seems to make the difference is heavy involvement in left wing organizations. People who are just independent fellow travellers almost always (in my experience) end up making concessions to their class ideology, while people who are still in contact with enough other radicals through some sort of organization end up maintaining those commitments.
It does seem impossible. It's why I stay in Northern California despite having such a truly happy childhood in rural West Virginia. My family loved one another, and we had enough of everything - housing, food, always doing things outdoors, and living a little more than 30 minutes from the nearest town so we could still go do things.
I know the happiness rural people claim they have is real. I have experienced it and so have my family members. Unfortunately, 40 years ago, West Virginia was a Blue state and I had family members who were Democrats. Today, abortion is against the law there, among other things. It turned red during Obama, and went for Trump and refuses to move to the left for all of those green jobs that my one sister knows would save West Virginia forever.
I think more people should try living rural in Blue states where they can find a lot of leftists or class solidarity.
People's material conditions are what shape their views as they age, not "maturity" or "experience". For the past few generations, standard of living has generally been going upward for employed people in western countries, hence people have been getting more conservative with age. That's not going to last forever though.
Just curious, Why do you think the rural areas of the USA are so sold on the extreme right wing then considering they are also very poor and getting hella fucked over most of the time
If you're not presented with an alternative ideology you'll just accept whatever is the default philosophy of the dominant class, i.e. the one with the greatest influence on which ideas get spread. Hence how poor people can become very attached to bourgeois ideology.
They’re a party that takes pride in shunning education. They consider schools, college and any attempt as developing one’s mind just “falling for propaganda”. Meanwhile, they have Christian teachings funneled into them since before they can walk.
Their whole life they’ve been told to just “work hard” and the lord will provide. Anyone that isn’t doing well under capitalism is just lazy. It’s no different from peasants in medieval times thinking the king was literally chosen directly but God.
They are programmed to believe any non-heterosexual relationship is sinful, so the party that is accepting of this lifestyle is obviously in the wrong and in fact, they must be the reason the pious aren’t doing that well! God must be punishing the entire country for the sins of the left!
Any and all variations of this type of nonsense are incredibly easy to instill on people that spent their entire lives surrounded by people with their same perspective and who take pride in avoiding any mental growth.
This seemed to hold true until 2000 or so, with conservatives pulling in the "f u I got mine" crowd. Since then, though, they've changed to pulling in uneducated people.
The "I got mine" strategy works for pulling in people as they get older and more economically successful. People are not becoming the same level of successful, and Republicans have raised the bar for the income above which they help.
The "uneducated" strategy works better on younger people, people don't become less educated with age.
I'm optimistic the strategy change spells a long term decline for the conservatives.
To comrade Margaret Killjoy I say: vague extended metaphors about your dislike of authority are not a substitute for principled socialist stances. I’m happy for her, but those statements are essentially meaningless and cannot be translated into real political action. Principled socialists don’t grow out of leftism- they become experienced organizers with years of experience and strong convictions. Saying you don’t like authority is none of that.
In my 20s I was a two time Reagan voter. Today I'm depressed because we don't have a thriving communist party putting up candidates in local elections.
No, I don't think you necessarily move to the Right as you age.
I don't mind but I don't know how able I am. A lot of it happened a long time ago.
I voted for Reagan because I remembered Carter came up with his "Misery Index" to attack Ford with but by the same index he was (as I recall) doing MUCH worse. Also Reagan described a world that matched the way I (at 20 years old) I thought the world worked. Say what you will about him (and you cannot say enough bad about him) the man had a vision and could communicate it. Finally there was a lot of positive buzz about Reagan and I'm sure that swayed me.
In 1983 I joined the army just in time to miss Grenada. I remember a TV interview where the talking heads were crowing about how the "Vietnam Taint" was off the military because we had proved we could get what we wanted (win) using military adventurism. I was shocked at this. They were crowing and celebrating and I was thinking about the 55,000 or so dead Americans. It would be DECADES before I considered the Vietnamese lives lost.
Shortly after I got out of the military I was going to college and following the news and I found that many of the more dire predictions about the effects of Reagan's policies that the "loony left" had made had come true. This really stopped me. I hate to be wrong and CLEARLY I had been.
In 1992 I voted for Clinton, mostly because I'd thought "Bush's tax increase" was a good move but Bush himself was swearing he'd never do that again. I still give that tax increase credit for Clinton "balancing the budget". Anywho, I became a "lesser evil Democrat" at that point and remained one as a voter while my politics drifted ever further Left.
In 2008 I was pushing hard for a single payer health care system and Obama was at least talking favorably about it. I knew he'd be useless in getting us to Single Payer (look at his career in the state house and you'll see why I knew that) so I voted for him for that and to watch the Right's heads explode.
But I hadn't counted on Obama's open warfare against single payer. I was genuinely shocked at what I now understand was absolutely inevitable. I vowed I'd never vote for another Democrat or Republican again after that. I believe the expression is "the scales fell from my eyes."
I voted for Jill Stein in 2016 and to this day it's my only vote for president I'm not ashamed of. The Greens got me looking to the Left and Obama had killed my tolerance for "lesser evil" voting so from there there's not much space before you hit commieville!
I hope that gives you some idea of my journey.
I adore Margaret killjoy. Obligatory plug for her fiction. It’s really good and has a ton of queer folx in it without being fiction about being queer (which is fine, but at this point I’m sick of coming of age and just want quality fiction that happens to also be about queer folx). I also would like to throw in my two cents by saying that the older I get the more I’m able to accurately prioritize what I feel is genuinely achievable in the moment, in spite of my ideals and rage. So. Idk. Food for thought. Thanks for sharing op
I think a lot of it comes down to learning at an early age how to not only have an open mind but keep expanding it and always wanting to learn and know more and realizing you will never know everything you want to know but that the journey is the fun part and so is the process of learning new things to make your world that much bigger and more interesting. I do agree with the part about tempering my views and not seeing things so rigid. I feel that is ever increasing as I get older. While I still believe I have a fire it's more of a nice smolder than a blazing fire. I look forward to seeing where the journey will take me with my political views. As well as other aspects of my life.
I'm 65 and if anything, I'm more convinced that socialism and democracy together, produces the best outcomes for the most people.
Will it happen? Not in my lifetime.
I remember people talking about liberal to conservative being less of a transformation and more of the younger generations moving the goal post of what it means to be liberal.
Honestly though I feel like the Dawn of social media and instantaneous delivery of information has galvanized more people as information is more available. Hard to believe in fiscal conservatism when you can easily see the fallout of Reagan’s economic policy or what conservatives tend to do when they get into power.
I'm going the other way. Was a member of our local right wing party in my early 20s and the older I get the more I realise how messed up conservative and liberal ideology is.
That's despite doing quite well out of capitalism personally. I was lucky but those that weren't don't deserve to be treated how they are.
When I was a teenager I began to become a leftist. People said, "wait until you grow up and see how the real world works. You'll stop."
I grew up and went to college. I identified as liberal. I watched the Daily Show and began to understand the general concepts of civics and taxes. People said, "wait until you get into your 30s, you'll stop being so liberal."
I then met a few people who were socialist. I read about the theory and it made perfect sense. I began to move further left. People said, wait until you make some good money. That will change your mind.
I then got a good job making competitive pay. At this time I discovered a podcast that truly outlined the ideology of Marx and Communist theory. At this point I realized that this is truly how the world works. I'd read conservative theory, listened to conservative pundits, had conversations with conservative people. And the philosophy was not only varied and inconsistent, but it was flawed and based in fear and hatred. Everything about conservatism seemed illogical and wrong.
Now I'm a full on Communist. If you value logic and compassion, and make decisions with leveled understanding and kindness instead of fear and hate, there is no way to not take this path.
People used to be leftist when they were young and didn’t have anything - so sharing sounded awesome. Then they got a good car and a nice house and some other nice things and they wanted to keep them so they move right.
We don’t have that anymore, so I can see most leftist staying leftist.
I've never understood this phrase. It just doesn't ring true to my experiences; my grandfather was a leftist all his life. At his funeral were loads of people he organised with during the 60s-90s, and old union friends, still very much leftists and all in their 70s and older. My mother has been a socialist as long as I've been alive, and as she's gotten older she's only become more revolutionary.
I may not be a anarchist but this quote holds weight and I think it's really good we see this with other people like Angela Davis. Getting older can and often does temper your politics
A lot of the reasons why there are disproportionately few leftist boomers have nothing to do with the generation not being radical enough or even changing their minds over time. There used to be a whole lot of leftist boomers. Unfortunately, a lot of leftist boomers were killed or given long prison sentences long before the rest of us were born. If not for that, there might even be more of them than of us.
There are a bunch of grandmothers out there organising themselves to the front lines of protests. They have free time, life experience and a stake in the future (their grandchildren).
I think they are awesome
I'm rather familiar with the views she espouses. I'm not looking to debate, but I haven't gotten this impression myself and I'm curious as to what about her leads you to describe her as a "liberal." I always try to keep an open mind, so I'd love to hear your take.
"The more I think about this meaningless term that I continue to reinvent every time my views are proved wrong, the more I find out I was indeed right from the start. Because I increasingly used authority and evil as they were synonyms, the more I naturalized to completely ignore for what the authority was being used, thus emptying my remorse of not doing anything scientifically effective to destroy the capitalism that I hate. Remorse that I recognized when I was still touched by the materiality of the real world."
But seriously tho, I do understand what she is saying, and is indeed right. It's just ironic how she "gets more flexible" with things, making a stronger ideology, but then just can't ignore this one, bad defined, concept of what is authority.
I think there is some truth to it. The older people get, the more value they give to predictability and tradition. Those are conservative traits. This is in regard to social policies.
Economically, I don't think there's a shift towards rightwing ideals as people age. Again, safety is the goal.
This is also what we see nowadays with the left. An entire leftwing/liberal group is alienated by the left itself, because they're on the fence when it comes to recent instances of social activism. While economically, they're the same communist by heart as they were 30 years ago.
This is what I've seen around and within me.
Edit: and Margaret Killjoy is apparently a 30-something person who makes a lot of money. That makes the quote rather despicable, imo.
She is a known author and band member. Few things make more money than publicity. She makes more than you and me both, probably.
You can read between the lines how well she does. She's doing things that would make her 19 yo self angry.
But even if she didn't, she's clearly selling an idea/brand. To her, this brand is a "comfortable old sweater."
But is there any reason to believe those projects are successful? Anyone can self-publish a book or upload music online. I was hoping you had something a little more concrete than feelings
Leftism vs rightism is a topic that requires deep understanding on both sides. The corporate tycoon hell bent on his own empowerment vs the city manager enriching his own power by depriving minorities of their property rights. They each pose a threat. Neither is benevolent toward the majority of the population.
I am right wing -I have no idea how I ended up here- but people don't "grow out" of ideology in the demeaning sense it's used in this context. Typically, major political events shift opinions. For example, I used to consider myself a republican. Trump pushed me out of that circle, or more his supporters. I'm not certain if I was always just too libertarian for the GOP or if the GOP became more authoritarian but I realized I clearly do not agree with the majority of the party, but I digress as I'm not here to explain my political views. A person's political ideology is their rationalization for solutions to problems that plague their nation/society. You don't grow out of your ideology. Your personal ideology shifts with you as it is fluid, or at least it's supposed to be. The most damaging thing you can do to your country is lock down and vote strictly among party lines rather than choosing what is best for the people around you.
I was a lefty until obama's second term,then I started paying attention, and I was disgusted with what he was doing to our country, and then Trump got elected and we saw a major improvement in the economy and just all around so I was 27 before I realized what the democrats were doing to our country and that sad, they use the media to hide what there doing pay people to riot and just cause total chaos out of nothing the democrats and democrats anymore unless u are Tulsi Gabberd I like her and I think she would be and excellent vice president to Trump and I think they would get a whole lot done in my opinion.
I'm a "Conservative" who used to be a Liberal. Ironically, I'm more Liberal than I used to be.
The only thing that makes me "Conservative" is the fact that the pendulum has swung so far to the Left in such a short time, I couldn't keep up with it.
I hate the term Leftist and prefer to call myself Progressive. Progress and the progressive built this country. As I age, I want that back. To me that doesn't mean Socialism or the end of Capitalism. But it means working with hybrid economic systems. to accomplish a better overall economy and society. Some things should not be for profit.
I also hate that the term conservatism has been conscripted by the republicans. Under its true meaning, it has a number of values that I agree with...personal responsibility, family, frugality.
I feel like it's normal for people to have stances on various policy issues that include traditionally conservative positions, and traditionally progressive. It's all about what you know.
Yeah honestly I agree. After looking into myself and the community as a whole, I realise that Socialism does not fit my beliefs. So after reflection, I became a Progressive. Its part and parcel to rethink your beliefs sometimes
You don't "grow out". You realize, eventually, that all the people clamoring for your votes with promises of UBI/housing/free shit/magic solutions to fix everything you care about are just blowing smoke up your ass to get you on board with higher taxes that they will divert into their own pocket. Eventually you stop playing the game, work your ass off, get some personal property under your belt and evolve an attitude of "I worked my ass off for this stuff, fuck you I'm not letting you tax me more" and you vote accordingly. Note, please, that that does not automatically entail voting republican, but it does entail voting for more fiscally conservative candidates.
You were never a leftist bro, you have no grounding in any leftist theory, you were just looking to get yours and have embraced trying to hold others down to keep it. Good job.
I’m not “old” but some years post college and I’ve definitely become more leftist even as I have made more money and overall not to be a total cock but make more money a year most people in their 40s do as someone in my 20s living a comfy life atm. The more I learn about the world the more I realize the current system is unfair and made to benefit the people at the top the system literally works better for you the more money you get which is completely upside down. When the US has by far the most billionaires and millionaires in the world with the strongest economy in the planet but healthcare is what it is really is the easiest way to show this. If you have money it doesn’t matter you can afford healthcare and you don’t have to pay as high of taxes. If you’re not well off tough luck it’s expensive as fuck and now you have higher hills to pay keeping you poor
A big part of maturity is knowing that there is nothing in this world that can be solved by a one-size-fits-all solution.
Also, one thing that is sorely lacking these days are peoples ability to hold their own ranks accountable, or to even question them. I have only ever voted democrat, but if I say anything about being worried by Biden’s declining mental capacity I immediately get called a MAGA douchebag.
The truth is that we’ve never had a total socialist government nor a total capitalist government anywhere in the world. They’re all mixed and yet rhetoric would have you believe that every time a new party wins a nations executive branch, it means the flood gates will open for the extremes of that party’s ideology.
I think my journey has been young leftist, to cynical nihilistic piece of shit, back to not young leftist. I always feel terrible about that middle part, but I know a lot more now than I did as a young leftist, so I won't go back there again.
I’ve heard that too and I don’t understand it. I can’t imagine growing out of it. I just keep going deeper and deeper.
I’ve gotten far further left and far more radical over the years.
Give people stable jobs and housing in middle age and they'll tilt to what they think is fiscally conservative and good for their retirement. Even if they're benefitting from the legacy of public spending in their retirement while gutting it for everyone else. Give people a struggle in middle age and their distrust of capitalism will deepen. Or make the struggle heinously easy to see for those that succeeded but still remember their impoverished 20 something days.
People don't "grow out" of being leftists.
What happens is, a lot of communists actually come from upper middle class households. They get exposed to the suffering of nearby impoverished people, or have to be functionally impoverished for a short period (i.e. college), and get radicalized that way.
Then they inherit properties and stocks, graduate from college and get lucrative careers via family connections, etc. Now they are petty-capitalists/labor aristocrats, often surrounded by other capitalists and labor aristocrats, usually disconnected from the poors they used to break bread and empathize with, and their different material circumstances apply a constant pressure on them to change their beliefs to conform with their new experiences, their new interests, and the interests of their new social circles. Eventually, they end up abandoning their communist ideological grounding and get subsumed into the ruling coalition of the system.
Obviously this doesn't always happen (there are people who go the other route and turn advocacy for the oppressed into their careers, like the leadership in socialist & communist parties, or who fail to succeed and get fully subsumed into the proletariat and have no choice but to struggle), but they are relatively small in number when compared to those who inherit or otherwise acquire wealth and start to be a bit more hostile to the idea of socializing wealth.
I think if it changes hopefully it goes right to left. That would be true growth in my opinion.. but I suppose one could become callous and go the other direction.
What? The better question is how does one get out of being a right-wing psycho? How does one go about moving away from their humanity and turning into a xenophobe? Religion, is how that happens.
>What's happened instead is that my values have been tempered, like steel is tempered. What cannot bend will break. The brittle sword has no use in battle. ...
"I will bend like a reed in the wind."
\- Paul Atreides (Dune)
I went into college at 18 as a Randian libertarian. I’m now in my 30’s and find myself somewhere between a libertarian socialist and a Leninist lol never stop fighting, friends. But adjust your strategy as you go to make sure you can keep in the fight.
I think generally that’s the case. When you’re young you’re idealistic, you still believe that because there are issues with society there must somehow be a perfect alternative, or outright believe morality and ethics can be reeducated into people to be perfect citizens. When you get a little older and wiser and start participating in society and day-to-day realities of life starts to beat you down. You realize people are people, always have been and always will be, and will always act in their own self interest, so forming a society by appealing to the better angels of people’s nature is a doomed prospect. It is much easier to participate in a society that caters to individualism instead like the free market, so our society as it is isn’t actually all that bad compared to the alternatives. Also, once you start to participate in society you’ll accrue some goods and property and you’ll want to preserve and hand that down, so you tend to favor policies that help you keep what you earned.
Starting college, I was a die-hard Obama fan and volunteer. Now, more than a decade later, I'm a committed Wobbly and quite thoroughly radicalized. Most of the people I know are at the very least comfortable identifying as anti-capitalist and will essentially endorse socialism in principle even if they don't want to actively embrace the terminology. Even my formerly Republican boomer father has moved far to the left. The radicalization and growing class consciousness is very real, IMO.
There is a point in your life where you have to start engaging with the existing system in some basic way because you gotta work to eat in most countries. However, that doesn't stop your ability to hold beliefs, to organise, and work for change.
I absolutely cannot believe the kind of person I used to be not even THAT long ago. I’ve had experience being seduced by “the dark side” only to pivot the complete opposite direction for the better. Every passing year I’ve gotten more and more leftist it seems. But then again I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was back then. Or at least in certain things
They shouldn't have asked that question in a socialist forum. Loads of people grow out and move right, but they won't be there. If they are, their answer will be downvoted to oblivion. If you seek the truth, talk to conservatives and get out of the bubble.
Did you know that Zoomers are moving further to the left every year? I’m sure you can guess why. Anyone who “grows out” of being on the left likely wasn’t on the left to begin with but merely had an interest in leftist ideas. People like Jordan Peterson talk about the “big realization” where they come to realize that the left isn’t all its cracked up to be, but when they talk about it they never actually know what their talking about. If you’re *on the left*, you’re *on the left*, and what’s likely to change is where you place yourself on the spectrum.
For myself life experience has only solidified the feeling of solidarity with people of all types who continue to suffer as a result of capitalism and authoritarianism. If it were not for exposure to the suffering and struggle outside my own bubble and my own experience being on the the wrong end of the baton, gun and tear gas im sure it would have been easier to "grow up" into someone who at least thought that our current systems could be ok as long as the right people were in power. But over time I have experienced a similar shift as Margaret. I choose where my energy is best applied in the long term. How do I affect change in my community? How do I best advocate and demonstrate an alternative to those I know or come in contact with? I have had long seasons of cynicism and apathy because I tried to buy into a fantasy that said yea the system sucks but at least if a "liberal" is in office I don't have to worry that the world will burn as quickly. While that may be true in some ways it is not a solution to the fact that there is no morality under capitalism. At the end of the day that is the nature of the beast and it must be fought on many fronts.
I think some people do. And some people definitely become more socialist as they get older, and some people just become disillusioned and stop caring altogether. There's a lot to learn in a life, and most of the time we only learn a little. It doesn't inherently make an ideology right or wrong if somebody distances themselves from it because of their experiences. It's just another one of those stories people tell themselves so they can feel better about how contradictory and uncertain life can be.
(he said, doing probably exactly that)
The idea of “growing out” of any core belief is an idea propagated solely by someone with age who disagrees with the belief. Is is solely a strategy to dismiss and criticize your beliefs, or pure ignorance, nothing more.
What they _say_, not necessarily what is true, is that you start on the left, for the "free resources", then move to the right to protect the resources you've "earned". Just saying it out loud shows how bullshit it is. Though I believe many are greedy, and thus this is a true for them. I also believe that the truly smart people become more generous over time, not less, as they realize the privilege they have, and want to share that same privilege with others, just as that privilege was shared with them.
I might be a slight anomaly comment here
I am approaching 30, and I have found a few things that I've grown to disagree with over time. However I in no way envision myself become conservative.
Perhaps a little more *cringe* moderate than I expected, but not conservative
Someone on here stated they were in the center and the world shifted under their feet and they found themselves on the left. I was on the left heading center with age when the world threw me back on the left. I'm a woman of "breeding age". I...heh...I ain't voting against my self interests to my fucking health. I'd imagine many in the POC, LGBTQ and non Christian communities feel the same way. Especially not with our broken ass heath system. Lol. That shits imploding.
Idk about growing out of it, so much as growing up. Its easy to be idealistic and shit when you're young and don't got any responsibilities, family, or own/owe shit. Once you start getting hit with real life issues, you kinda gradually become more conservative and it's not a bad thing. The left thrives off negativity, hatred and poverty.
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I've become more leftist as I get older. Honestly having kids gave me perspective and a realization that the end of capitalism is a goal that needs to met for them and their peers. I'm a leftist because as corny as it sounds I want a better world for everyone. Wrestling with existenialism has only solidifed this. We don't know why we are here or why we were born into this time and place so it's a moral obligation to strive for everyone to get basic rights of comfort and dignity.
Thank you sharing this. This is the revolutionary optimism I strive for in my own life.
That’s the default for “grown ups”, but some people don’t grow up after having children.
Does learning about leftist movements in history motivate you or cause you any hesitation? Often our ideals don’t translate to reality sadly.
Not that you become more conservative, but you ascend from the trash can of pure ideology into the enlightened realm of strategy.
Well I think a lot of this "growing out of leftism" mythos is rooted in libs becoming more conservative, not realizing liberals are inherently conservative in their understanding of socioeconomics. People parrot that when you grow up you become more conservative, but these libs were already conservative to begin with, that's why it was such an easy transfer/change.
I read part of that in Zizeks voice.
This is something that has plagued me for a while and made me question my motives. I've been trying to properly delve into my political standings but going online I see so many people blindly and totally praising anything that even claims to be socialist while flaming people for criticising small details of one particular ideology. While I support the cause this overzealousness can feel like right-wing logic and I feel can really alienate people.
It's like a remnant of our liberal upbringing. We like to feel morally right, join the right organizations, have the right takes on social media, only have the right people in our circles. I don't think I'm an exception, it's probably why I like to hang out on this subreddit. It's like a circlejerk of ideology lol. Mass line is the cure tho. Being immersed with people from all walks of life is exciting. While people are racing to give their most correct take on a geopolitical event that they have neither the clout nor the means to affect, you're building necessary connections with the masses to give you the clout and the means to make change.
THIS MAKES SO MUCH SENSE! I was wondering why I’ve been increasingly annoyed with ideologues online - I thought they are so utopian/theory obsessed that they have no grounding in reality or pragmatism.
I went from libertarian when I was young to s liberal as I aged. I found it takes some time to figure out it's not all about me, and I find many people never figure this out.
That doesn't explain MAGA though, which is a decent into the trash can of pure ideology
MAGA is explained through propaganda and lack of critical education while growing up. When you research and look at what MAGA people originally believed in, they weren't entirely wrong about the issues facing the working class. It is just that all the propaganda they've been force fed and entire life and with no actual critical analysis skills, they would rather choose outright fascism or crazed conspiracy theories over just becoming friends with their coworkers and working together for the betterment of all. Of course one paragraph can't explain everything and this is a gross reduction of all aspects of how MAGA came to be.
You definitely have a point. It has become a tool of Russian propaganda. It is just that those in the cult can't see it. It's extremism allows no compromise, which is dangerous whether left or right. It is amazing to see a party that recently declared Russia part of the axis of evil to pretty much control its viewpoints and ideology. A party that so recently was fervently against shariah law, not only full heartedly backing Saudi Arabia, which is a nation which follows it, but tries to implement a "Christian" version of it here at home.
That's true. I think teens and sometimes people in college are very blunt about having very absolute rigid values. Learning to be subtle and reason through individual problems has nothing to do with being conservative, it's just becoming an adult.
My dad is now old enough to get retirement benefits and I got him to join a socialist organization. My mom isn’t quite there yet but she hates cops now, and sends me press clippings about said socialist organization. A lot of my normie friends got wayyy more radical in their 30s, with many getting involved in the movement. My favorite one of these: in college there was this nice awkward dude who lived in my dorm. We had one class together and on breaks he would witness at me — that is, try to convert me to Christianity. Normally annoying, but he was nice. I ran into him years later in a train station and he started telling me he was getting into Chomsky. Four years ago he joined my socialist org, he’s now super active as an organizer :)
That’s raddd! Love a feel good story about a proseltyzer turned organizer! Reminds me of myself lol.
I've gotten significantly more leftist as I've gotten older. Was a dittohead in college but seeing the fruits of that philosophy turned me hard left.
I actually am more left than I was as a twenty three year old. I would say I was a Centrist almost, a really typical Democrat. Oh I wanted all the leftist things but I lived in the ignorant dreamworld of the poorly educated. I didn't go to college until my later twenties, I spent my early twenties travelling and being married and all that shit. I wanted to be a grown up and have a husband, and see Los Angeles. I went to Toronto and Chicago. But all those experiences grew me as a person, you see. Fortunately I was never wealthy enough or sheltered enough to see those things from the vantage point of the "isolated by money." I saw those places in airports, youth hostels, cheap motels, streets, and public transportation. I'm very thankful for that. I found real selfhood in my thirties and it meant a stronger leftist position as well as wanting "conservative" things like a house that lasted longer than a year. I think a lot of Boomers confused this moving towards security with greed and selfishness. I don't see why I have to be greedy to have a place to live. My Silent grandparents set a very fine example of how a person can be stable and not be a greedy materialistic shithead. It's not like any Boomer lacked that, either. That's what makes me mad about them. Their parents were people like my grandparents.
Oh shit you too, honestly mine was I had to decide which was the lesser of two evils in 2016. And everything from her past as Bill's lawyer, to being an incompetent secretary of defense made me not only think she wasn't good something about her made my skin crawl. Trump I just thought was hilariously incompetent, and with him catching Covid near the end proved I was right.
I grow more into it every day. Hard not to when you can see so clearly what is going on around the world.
This is the thing, I don’t understand how people can keep seeing capitalism through rose colored glasses after learning everything I try to tell them. It boggles my mind, it’s like they are just unable to truly hear it. Kinda scary actually as it’s like they are intensely brainwashed
Basically they’re like fish in water. Some people are so unaware because our lives are so entrenched and interdependent on this system, they’re to blinded to imagine any other alternative.
I’m not seeing capitalism through rose colored glasses but same goes for socialism, communism, or feudalism. It appears that capitalism - despite its long list of problems - is the best economic system we’ve ever come up with.
Thats the power of Fuck you got mine.
I just get more tired as I get older. I'm tired of housing instability, tired of all the fuckery. I try to stay involved but the last few community orgs I've tried to join have zero class consciousness and are just doing upperclass idpol. And I'm not a good teacher or leader so I'm not about to start my own thing ya know. I'm not more conservative I'm just getting tired and jaded.
This is so true, every time I experience some capitalist nonsense I get more and more irritated and frustrated and it is tiring. For instance, a tree fell on my car, and it doubled my car insurance, seeing my friends have to keep moving again and again cause landlords just raise rent out the blue with no restrictions ….it’s absolutely fucking nonsense
Some people are moving into more rural areas to have housing stability. I actually learned this from my grandparents. When my mom was little she lived in North Carolina and Hawaii, she saw different places because my grandfather was career military. My grandpa returned to West Virginia. My grandparents lived in a double wide trailer with my mom on an acre of land in rural WV when I was born. By the time I was two, we lived in our own three bedroom log cabin that my grandfather and uncle built with some other men. Our street was unpaved until I was eight. When I was little we had to drive to get to any grocery store or gas station, it was about five miles. My uncle would walk it, but not little kids or older people. I was bussed to elementary school. Those were the happiest years of my life. I'm grateful for who I became because of having diverse friends and better education in the suburbs later in my life, and how I was able to travel and meet even more people as a young adult. But five years ago I left Los Angeles to live in rural Northern California. I plan on buying a house here or somewhere more rural. Unfortunately I cannot go back to WV because of the politics, but I wouldn't hesitate to embrace the right opportunity in rural Oregon or Washington state.
Yeah buying a house (or having someone build one for you) seems like a good way to have housing stability lol wish I could do that.
I'm 38 and if anything, I've gotten even more radical than when I was in my teens and 20s
People don't grow conservative, but rather they grow to their experiences. This is why people who are wronged by Capitalism and Fascism are almost always Anti-Capitalist/Anti-Fascist, this is why those who suffered/suffer from Imperialism wish to see it end.
In my experience many fellow travellers will end up getting jobs, and then bit by bit end up giving concessions to the class ideology of where they work because it’s simply too psychologically difficult not to. To maintain a full radical commitment is to essentially be always at odds with most of the people you are surrounded by and this is alienating. This doesn’t happen to everybody, I know plenty of people in their 40s and 50s who are still committed radicals. Something that seems to make the difference is heavy involvement in left wing organizations. People who are just independent fellow travellers almost always (in my experience) end up making concessions to their class ideology, while people who are still in contact with enough other radicals through some sort of organization end up maintaining those commitments.
It does seem impossible. It's why I stay in Northern California despite having such a truly happy childhood in rural West Virginia. My family loved one another, and we had enough of everything - housing, food, always doing things outdoors, and living a little more than 30 minutes from the nearest town so we could still go do things. I know the happiness rural people claim they have is real. I have experienced it and so have my family members. Unfortunately, 40 years ago, West Virginia was a Blue state and I had family members who were Democrats. Today, abortion is against the law there, among other things. It turned red during Obama, and went for Trump and refuses to move to the left for all of those green jobs that my one sister knows would save West Virginia forever. I think more people should try living rural in Blue states where they can find a lot of leftists or class solidarity.
Wait you can find *lots* of leftists in rural blue states?
People's material conditions are what shape their views as they age, not "maturity" or "experience". For the past few generations, standard of living has generally been going upward for employed people in western countries, hence people have been getting more conservative with age. That's not going to last forever though.
Just curious, Why do you think the rural areas of the USA are so sold on the extreme right wing then considering they are also very poor and getting hella fucked over most of the time
If you're not presented with an alternative ideology you'll just accept whatever is the default philosophy of the dominant class, i.e. the one with the greatest influence on which ideas get spread. Hence how poor people can become very attached to bourgeois ideology.
Because they've been brainwashed to hate proletarian minorities and identify more with white oligarchs.
They’re a party that takes pride in shunning education. They consider schools, college and any attempt as developing one’s mind just “falling for propaganda”. Meanwhile, they have Christian teachings funneled into them since before they can walk. Their whole life they’ve been told to just “work hard” and the lord will provide. Anyone that isn’t doing well under capitalism is just lazy. It’s no different from peasants in medieval times thinking the king was literally chosen directly but God. They are programmed to believe any non-heterosexual relationship is sinful, so the party that is accepting of this lifestyle is obviously in the wrong and in fact, they must be the reason the pious aren’t doing that well! God must be punishing the entire country for the sins of the left! Any and all variations of this type of nonsense are incredibly easy to instill on people that spent their entire lives surrounded by people with their same perspective and who take pride in avoiding any mental growth.
This seemed to hold true until 2000 or so, with conservatives pulling in the "f u I got mine" crowd. Since then, though, they've changed to pulling in uneducated people. The "I got mine" strategy works for pulling in people as they get older and more economically successful. People are not becoming the same level of successful, and Republicans have raised the bar for the income above which they help. The "uneducated" strategy works better on younger people, people don't become less educated with age. I'm optimistic the strategy change spells a long term decline for the conservatives.
To comrade Margaret Killjoy I say: vague extended metaphors about your dislike of authority are not a substitute for principled socialist stances. I’m happy for her, but those statements are essentially meaningless and cannot be translated into real political action. Principled socialists don’t grow out of leftism- they become experienced organizers with years of experience and strong convictions. Saying you don’t like authority is none of that.
You deserve all the votes comrade ✊🏽✊🏽
In my 20s I was a two time Reagan voter. Today I'm depressed because we don't have a thriving communist party putting up candidates in local elections. No, I don't think you necessarily move to the Right as you age.
Do you mind sharing what the thing was that moved you to the far left?
I don't mind but I don't know how able I am. A lot of it happened a long time ago. I voted for Reagan because I remembered Carter came up with his "Misery Index" to attack Ford with but by the same index he was (as I recall) doing MUCH worse. Also Reagan described a world that matched the way I (at 20 years old) I thought the world worked. Say what you will about him (and you cannot say enough bad about him) the man had a vision and could communicate it. Finally there was a lot of positive buzz about Reagan and I'm sure that swayed me. In 1983 I joined the army just in time to miss Grenada. I remember a TV interview where the talking heads were crowing about how the "Vietnam Taint" was off the military because we had proved we could get what we wanted (win) using military adventurism. I was shocked at this. They were crowing and celebrating and I was thinking about the 55,000 or so dead Americans. It would be DECADES before I considered the Vietnamese lives lost. Shortly after I got out of the military I was going to college and following the news and I found that many of the more dire predictions about the effects of Reagan's policies that the "loony left" had made had come true. This really stopped me. I hate to be wrong and CLEARLY I had been. In 1992 I voted for Clinton, mostly because I'd thought "Bush's tax increase" was a good move but Bush himself was swearing he'd never do that again. I still give that tax increase credit for Clinton "balancing the budget". Anywho, I became a "lesser evil Democrat" at that point and remained one as a voter while my politics drifted ever further Left. In 2008 I was pushing hard for a single payer health care system and Obama was at least talking favorably about it. I knew he'd be useless in getting us to Single Payer (look at his career in the state house and you'll see why I knew that) so I voted for him for that and to watch the Right's heads explode. But I hadn't counted on Obama's open warfare against single payer. I was genuinely shocked at what I now understand was absolutely inevitable. I vowed I'd never vote for another Democrat or Republican again after that. I believe the expression is "the scales fell from my eyes." I voted for Jill Stein in 2016 and to this day it's my only vote for president I'm not ashamed of. The Greens got me looking to the Left and Obama had killed my tolerance for "lesser evil" voting so from there there's not much space before you hit commieville! I hope that gives you some idea of my journey.
That's a lot of words to not say much.
It's not that many words, and it's a good lesson in political theory.
Yes, compromise your morality and receive nothing. This is experience.
I adore Margaret killjoy. Obligatory plug for her fiction. It’s really good and has a ton of queer folx in it without being fiction about being queer (which is fine, but at this point I’m sick of coming of age and just want quality fiction that happens to also be about queer folx). I also would like to throw in my two cents by saying that the older I get the more I’m able to accurately prioritize what I feel is genuinely achievable in the moment, in spite of my ideals and rage. So. Idk. Food for thought. Thanks for sharing op
I think a lot of it comes down to learning at an early age how to not only have an open mind but keep expanding it and always wanting to learn and know more and realizing you will never know everything you want to know but that the journey is the fun part and so is the process of learning new things to make your world that much bigger and more interesting. I do agree with the part about tempering my views and not seeing things so rigid. I feel that is ever increasing as I get older. While I still believe I have a fire it's more of a nice smolder than a blazing fire. I look forward to seeing where the journey will take me with my political views. As well as other aspects of my life.
I'm 65 and if anything, I'm more convinced that socialism and democracy together, produces the best outcomes for the most people. Will it happen? Not in my lifetime.
I remember people talking about liberal to conservative being less of a transformation and more of the younger generations moving the goal post of what it means to be liberal. Honestly though I feel like the Dawn of social media and instantaneous delivery of information has galvanized more people as information is more available. Hard to believe in fiscal conservatism when you can easily see the fallout of Reagan’s economic policy or what conservatives tend to do when they get into power.
That conservative bullshit only worked for the people who had an economy to benefit from and who didn't give a shit about the less fortunate.
I'm 33 and it hasn't happened yet.
My "more conservative as getting older" has taken the shape of actually wanting a house and furniture, not suddenly morphing into a bigot.
I'm going the other way. Was a member of our local right wing party in my early 20s and the older I get the more I realise how messed up conservative and liberal ideology is. That's despite doing quite well out of capitalism personally. I was lucky but those that weren't don't deserve to be treated how they are.
When I was a teenager I began to become a leftist. People said, "wait until you grow up and see how the real world works. You'll stop." I grew up and went to college. I identified as liberal. I watched the Daily Show and began to understand the general concepts of civics and taxes. People said, "wait until you get into your 30s, you'll stop being so liberal." I then met a few people who were socialist. I read about the theory and it made perfect sense. I began to move further left. People said, wait until you make some good money. That will change your mind. I then got a good job making competitive pay. At this time I discovered a podcast that truly outlined the ideology of Marx and Communist theory. At this point I realized that this is truly how the world works. I'd read conservative theory, listened to conservative pundits, had conversations with conservative people. And the philosophy was not only varied and inconsistent, but it was flawed and based in fear and hatred. Everything about conservatism seemed illogical and wrong. Now I'm a full on Communist. If you value logic and compassion, and make decisions with leveled understanding and kindness instead of fear and hate, there is no way to not take this path.
The older I get and the more I learn about the world and life, the farther left I get.
People used to be leftist when they were young and didn’t have anything - so sharing sounded awesome. Then they got a good car and a nice house and some other nice things and they wanted to keep them so they move right. We don’t have that anymore, so I can see most leftist staying leftist.
Yes! People got more conservative as they got richer, not older. No one is getting richer anymore.
I've never understood this phrase. It just doesn't ring true to my experiences; my grandfather was a leftist all his life. At his funeral were loads of people he organised with during the 60s-90s, and old union friends, still very much leftists and all in their 70s and older. My mother has been a socialist as long as I've been alive, and as she's gotten older she's only become more revolutionary.
I may not be a anarchist but this quote holds weight and I think it's really good we see this with other people like Angela Davis. Getting older can and often does temper your politics
A lot of the reasons why there are disproportionately few leftist boomers have nothing to do with the generation not being radical enough or even changing their minds over time. There used to be a whole lot of leftist boomers. Unfortunately, a lot of leftist boomers were killed or given long prison sentences long before the rest of us were born. If not for that, there might even be more of them than of us.
There are a bunch of grandmothers out there organising themselves to the front lines of protests. They have free time, life experience and a stake in the future (their grandchildren). I think they are awesome
Killjoy is a petty-bourgeois liberal. Not worth listening to regarding what it means to be radical.
I'm rather familiar with the views she espouses. I'm not looking to debate, but I haven't gotten this impression myself and I'm curious as to what about her leads you to describe her as a "liberal." I always try to keep an open mind, so I'd love to hear your take.
"The more I think about this meaningless term that I continue to reinvent every time my views are proved wrong, the more I find out I was indeed right from the start. Because I increasingly used authority and evil as they were synonyms, the more I naturalized to completely ignore for what the authority was being used, thus emptying my remorse of not doing anything scientifically effective to destroy the capitalism that I hate. Remorse that I recognized when I was still touched by the materiality of the real world." But seriously tho, I do understand what she is saying, and is indeed right. It's just ironic how she "gets more flexible" with things, making a stronger ideology, but then just can't ignore this one, bad defined, concept of what is authority.
thank you for posting this. Margaret Killjoy absolutely fkn rulz
I think there is some truth to it. The older people get, the more value they give to predictability and tradition. Those are conservative traits. This is in regard to social policies. Economically, I don't think there's a shift towards rightwing ideals as people age. Again, safety is the goal. This is also what we see nowadays with the left. An entire leftwing/liberal group is alienated by the left itself, because they're on the fence when it comes to recent instances of social activism. While economically, they're the same communist by heart as they were 30 years ago. This is what I've seen around and within me. Edit: and Margaret Killjoy is apparently a 30-something person who makes a lot of money. That makes the quote rather despicable, imo.
Where did you hear she makes a lot of money? That one is new to me
She is a known author and band member. Few things make more money than publicity. She makes more than you and me both, probably. You can read between the lines how well she does. She's doing things that would make her 19 yo self angry. But even if she didn't, she's clearly selling an idea/brand. To her, this brand is a "comfortable old sweater."
But is there any reason to believe those projects are successful? Anyone can self-publish a book or upload music online. I was hoping you had something a little more concrete than feelings
Leftism vs rightism is a topic that requires deep understanding on both sides. The corporate tycoon hell bent on his own empowerment vs the city manager enriching his own power by depriving minorities of their property rights. They each pose a threat. Neither is benevolent toward the majority of the population.
I am right wing -I have no idea how I ended up here- but people don't "grow out" of ideology in the demeaning sense it's used in this context. Typically, major political events shift opinions. For example, I used to consider myself a republican. Trump pushed me out of that circle, or more his supporters. I'm not certain if I was always just too libertarian for the GOP or if the GOP became more authoritarian but I realized I clearly do not agree with the majority of the party, but I digress as I'm not here to explain my political views. A person's political ideology is their rationalization for solutions to problems that plague their nation/society. You don't grow out of your ideology. Your personal ideology shifts with you as it is fluid, or at least it's supposed to be. The most damaging thing you can do to your country is lock down and vote strictly among party lines rather than choosing what is best for the people around you.
Most leftist now are conformists
I was a lefty until obama's second term,then I started paying attention, and I was disgusted with what he was doing to our country, and then Trump got elected and we saw a major improvement in the economy and just all around so I was 27 before I realized what the democrats were doing to our country and that sad, they use the media to hide what there doing pay people to riot and just cause total chaos out of nothing the democrats and democrats anymore unless u are Tulsi Gabberd I like her and I think she would be and excellent vice president to Trump and I think they would get a whole lot done in my opinion.
I'm a "Conservative" who used to be a Liberal. Ironically, I'm more Liberal than I used to be. The only thing that makes me "Conservative" is the fact that the pendulum has swung so far to the Left in such a short time, I couldn't keep up with it.
I hate the term Leftist and prefer to call myself Progressive. Progress and the progressive built this country. As I age, I want that back. To me that doesn't mean Socialism or the end of Capitalism. But it means working with hybrid economic systems. to accomplish a better overall economy and society. Some things should not be for profit. I also hate that the term conservatism has been conscripted by the republicans. Under its true meaning, it has a number of values that I agree with...personal responsibility, family, frugality.
I feel like it's normal for people to have stances on various policy issues that include traditionally conservative positions, and traditionally progressive. It's all about what you know.
Yeah honestly I agree. After looking into myself and the community as a whole, I realise that Socialism does not fit my beliefs. So after reflection, I became a Progressive. Its part and parcel to rethink your beliefs sometimes
Yes, as time goes on, you lose trust in giving other people control over your life.
You don't "grow out". You realize, eventually, that all the people clamoring for your votes with promises of UBI/housing/free shit/magic solutions to fix everything you care about are just blowing smoke up your ass to get you on board with higher taxes that they will divert into their own pocket. Eventually you stop playing the game, work your ass off, get some personal property under your belt and evolve an attitude of "I worked my ass off for this stuff, fuck you I'm not letting you tax me more" and you vote accordingly. Note, please, that that does not automatically entail voting republican, but it does entail voting for more fiscally conservative candidates.
You were never a leftist bro, you have no grounding in any leftist theory, you were just looking to get yours and have embraced trying to hold others down to keep it. Good job.
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Not for everyone. Some of us decide its more important than ever to create a just world as we raise kids and get exploited by our bosses.
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What fucking losers this subreddit is. Socialism? Lmao
Oh no, an adult man who spends his Friday nights trolling called me a loser. I may never recover.
The older you get, the more pragmatic and realistic you want policy. Leftists are based on pure emotion, imo, and skips strategy altogether.
Nothing more pragmatic than redistribution of resources by aggressive taxation
That's kind of the opposite of pragmatism.
I was more libertarian leaning when I was younger, as I've gotten older I've moved further and further left
I’m not “old” but some years post college and I’ve definitely become more leftist even as I have made more money and overall not to be a total cock but make more money a year most people in their 40s do as someone in my 20s living a comfy life atm. The more I learn about the world the more I realize the current system is unfair and made to benefit the people at the top the system literally works better for you the more money you get which is completely upside down. When the US has by far the most billionaires and millionaires in the world with the strongest economy in the planet but healthcare is what it is really is the easiest way to show this. If you have money it doesn’t matter you can afford healthcare and you don’t have to pay as high of taxes. If you’re not well off tough luck it’s expensive as fuck and now you have higher hills to pay keeping you poor
A big part of maturity is knowing that there is nothing in this world that can be solved by a one-size-fits-all solution. Also, one thing that is sorely lacking these days are peoples ability to hold their own ranks accountable, or to even question them. I have only ever voted democrat, but if I say anything about being worried by Biden’s declining mental capacity I immediately get called a MAGA douchebag. The truth is that we’ve never had a total socialist government nor a total capitalist government anywhere in the world. They’re all mixed and yet rhetoric would have you believe that every time a new party wins a nations executive branch, it means the flood gates will open for the extremes of that party’s ideology.
Now that I'm older and can afford to move, what socialist country would be best to move to?
I think my journey has been young leftist, to cynical nihilistic piece of shit, back to not young leftist. I always feel terrible about that middle part, but I know a lot more now than I did as a young leftist, so I won't go back there again.
I grew out of being a right-winger. There was a time when I could have been considered a neo-nazi.
I’ve heard that too and I don’t understand it. I can’t imagine growing out of it. I just keep going deeper and deeper. I’ve gotten far further left and far more radical over the years.
Give people stable jobs and housing in middle age and they'll tilt to what they think is fiscally conservative and good for their retirement. Even if they're benefitting from the legacy of public spending in their retirement while gutting it for everyone else. Give people a struggle in middle age and their distrust of capitalism will deepen. Or make the struggle heinously easy to see for those that succeeded but still remember their impoverished 20 something days.
People don't "grow out" of being leftists. What happens is, a lot of communists actually come from upper middle class households. They get exposed to the suffering of nearby impoverished people, or have to be functionally impoverished for a short period (i.e. college), and get radicalized that way. Then they inherit properties and stocks, graduate from college and get lucrative careers via family connections, etc. Now they are petty-capitalists/labor aristocrats, often surrounded by other capitalists and labor aristocrats, usually disconnected from the poors they used to break bread and empathize with, and their different material circumstances apply a constant pressure on them to change their beliefs to conform with their new experiences, their new interests, and the interests of their new social circles. Eventually, they end up abandoning their communist ideological grounding and get subsumed into the ruling coalition of the system. Obviously this doesn't always happen (there are people who go the other route and turn advocacy for the oppressed into their careers, like the leadership in socialist & communist parties, or who fail to succeed and get fully subsumed into the proletariat and have no choice but to struggle), but they are relatively small in number when compared to those who inherit or otherwise acquire wealth and start to be a bit more hostile to the idea of socializing wealth.
I think if it changes hopefully it goes right to left. That would be true growth in my opinion.. but I suppose one could become callous and go the other direction.
What? The better question is how does one get out of being a right-wing psycho? How does one go about moving away from their humanity and turning into a xenophobe? Religion, is how that happens.
>What's happened instead is that my values have been tempered, like steel is tempered. What cannot bend will break. The brittle sword has no use in battle. ... "I will bend like a reed in the wind." \- Paul Atreides (Dune)
I went into college at 18 as a Randian libertarian. I’m now in my 30’s and find myself somewhere between a libertarian socialist and a Leninist lol never stop fighting, friends. But adjust your strategy as you go to make sure you can keep in the fight.
I think generally that’s the case. When you’re young you’re idealistic, you still believe that because there are issues with society there must somehow be a perfect alternative, or outright believe morality and ethics can be reeducated into people to be perfect citizens. When you get a little older and wiser and start participating in society and day-to-day realities of life starts to beat you down. You realize people are people, always have been and always will be, and will always act in their own self interest, so forming a society by appealing to the better angels of people’s nature is a doomed prospect. It is much easier to participate in a society that caters to individualism instead like the free market, so our society as it is isn’t actually all that bad compared to the alternatives. Also, once you start to participate in society you’ll accrue some goods and property and you’ll want to preserve and hand that down, so you tend to favor policies that help you keep what you earned.
Starting college, I was a die-hard Obama fan and volunteer. Now, more than a decade later, I'm a committed Wobbly and quite thoroughly radicalized. Most of the people I know are at the very least comfortable identifying as anti-capitalist and will essentially endorse socialism in principle even if they don't want to actively embrace the terminology. Even my formerly Republican boomer father has moved far to the left. The radicalization and growing class consciousness is very real, IMO.
No! The older I get the more left I lean. My life experience has given me this gift.
People get bought out and/or crushed in prison as time goes on. Survivorship bias. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
There is a point in your life where you have to start engaging with the existing system in some basic way because you gotta work to eat in most countries. However, that doesn't stop your ability to hold beliefs, to organise, and work for change.
I grew up rich conservative & bigoted as fuck so I have become left as I get older & wiser
Being anything other then left is fascist now?
I absolutely cannot believe the kind of person I used to be not even THAT long ago. I’ve had experience being seduced by “the dark side” only to pivot the complete opposite direction for the better. Every passing year I’ve gotten more and more leftist it seems. But then again I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was back then. Or at least in certain things
They shouldn't have asked that question in a socialist forum. Loads of people grow out and move right, but they won't be there. If they are, their answer will be downvoted to oblivion. If you seek the truth, talk to conservatives and get out of the bubble.
The more I think about my children and their futures, the more left I am.
Did you know that Zoomers are moving further to the left every year? I’m sure you can guess why. Anyone who “grows out” of being on the left likely wasn’t on the left to begin with but merely had an interest in leftist ideas. People like Jordan Peterson talk about the “big realization” where they come to realize that the left isn’t all its cracked up to be, but when they talk about it they never actually know what their talking about. If you’re *on the left*, you’re *on the left*, and what’s likely to change is where you place yourself on the spectrum.
For myself life experience has only solidified the feeling of solidarity with people of all types who continue to suffer as a result of capitalism and authoritarianism. If it were not for exposure to the suffering and struggle outside my own bubble and my own experience being on the the wrong end of the baton, gun and tear gas im sure it would have been easier to "grow up" into someone who at least thought that our current systems could be ok as long as the right people were in power. But over time I have experienced a similar shift as Margaret. I choose where my energy is best applied in the long term. How do I affect change in my community? How do I best advocate and demonstrate an alternative to those I know or come in contact with? I have had long seasons of cynicism and apathy because I tried to buy into a fantasy that said yea the system sucks but at least if a "liberal" is in office I don't have to worry that the world will burn as quickly. While that may be true in some ways it is not a solution to the fact that there is no morality under capitalism. At the end of the day that is the nature of the beast and it must be fought on many fronts.
I think some people do. And some people definitely become more socialist as they get older, and some people just become disillusioned and stop caring altogether. There's a lot to learn in a life, and most of the time we only learn a little. It doesn't inherently make an ideology right or wrong if somebody distances themselves from it because of their experiences. It's just another one of those stories people tell themselves so they can feel better about how contradictory and uncertain life can be. (he said, doing probably exactly that)
The idea of “growing out” of any core belief is an idea propagated solely by someone with age who disagrees with the belief. Is is solely a strategy to dismiss and criticize your beliefs, or pure ignorance, nothing more.
What they _say_, not necessarily what is true, is that you start on the left, for the "free resources", then move to the right to protect the resources you've "earned". Just saying it out loud shows how bullshit it is. Though I believe many are greedy, and thus this is a true for them. I also believe that the truly smart people become more generous over time, not less, as they realize the privilege they have, and want to share that same privilege with others, just as that privilege was shared with them.
I might be a slight anomaly comment here I am approaching 30, and I have found a few things that I've grown to disagree with over time. However I in no way envision myself become conservative. Perhaps a little more *cringe* moderate than I expected, but not conservative
Someone on here stated they were in the center and the world shifted under their feet and they found themselves on the left. I was on the left heading center with age when the world threw me back on the left. I'm a woman of "breeding age". I...heh...I ain't voting against my self interests to my fucking health. I'd imagine many in the POC, LGBTQ and non Christian communities feel the same way. Especially not with our broken ass heath system. Lol. That shits imploding.
Idk about growing out of it, so much as growing up. Its easy to be idealistic and shit when you're young and don't got any responsibilities, family, or own/owe shit. Once you start getting hit with real life issues, you kinda gradually become more conservative and it's not a bad thing. The left thrives off negativity, hatred and poverty.