Do Leftists eventually turn Right?

[Darth Buddha]

Someone said (Shaw, Clemenceau, Briand?) that if you are not a socialist in your twenties, you have no heart. But if you are still a socialist in your forties, you have no brain.

My query is different, and objective. Which way do people tend to move generally? And among movers in either direction, who is "worse" (who as a new arrival becomes more Catholic than the Pope)?

Ex-Leftists who grow up and convert to the Right? Or ex-capitalists who convert to an understanding of existence?

And why do people move? (Were you once a Leftist, or a Conservative? If so, what made you change your opinion?)

Generally people move toward the left as they are further educated. It's a well known demographic that even the right doesn't contest: they just villify the "intelligentsia" as snobs and/or elitists. I have seen that some fields of education lean more one way or the other. Natural scientists of the "hard sciences" and engineers tend more to the right. Probably because they needn't concern themselves with out terms in their equations (not always a safe approach, as evidenced by the fate of the Challenger crew). Social scientists and epidemiologists tend more to the left, as most social sciences can't really pin down causality one way or another AND they get to see the impact of race and social class on mental health, medical care, etc.

I've noted women tend to move from the left to the right, generally, when they have kids. Men tend to lean more to the right overall, and get more so as they become more materially driven and then fearful of change in old age. Fear of death drives older folks to the church, which is another source of drift to the right.

[Pliny]

Generally people move toward the left as they are further educated. It's a well known demographic that even the right doesn't contest: they just villify the "intelligentsia" as snobs and/or elitists. I have seen that some fields of education lean more one way or the other. Natural scientists of the "hard sciences" and engineers tend more to the right. Probably because they needn't concern themselves with out terms in their equations (not always a safe approach, as evidenced by the fate of the Challenger crew). Social scientists and epidemiologists tend more to the left, as most social sciences can't really pin down causality one way or another AND they get to see the impact of race and social class on mental health, medical care, etc.

I've noted women tend to move from the left to the right, generally, when they have kids. Men tend to lean more to the right overall, and get more so as they become more materially driven and then fearful of change in old age. Fear of death drives older folks to the church, which is another source of drift to the right.

Sorry. I think there is a word there in your first sentence that is not right. Shouldn't that read. "Generally people move toward the left as they are further indoctrinated." I wouldn't contest that.

Actually, since the question is about left and right in politics it demonstrates an "educated" concept of the political spectrum. Left socialism and right fascism are both, in their extremes, totalitarian states. Are these democracies choices - which form of socialism is preferred?

The problem is that politics is mostly discussed within the context of left and right as they are defined. Ultimately, left and right today offer the same thing to a democracy - leaving office with a larger and more intrusive government than when they took office, and the illusion of choice.

[SirSpanky]

I have seen that some fields of education lean more one way or the other. Natural scientists of the "hard sciences" and engineers tend more to the right. Probably because they needn't concern themselves with out terms in their equations (not always a safe approach, as evidenced by the fate of the Challenger crew). Social scientists and epidemiologists tend more to the left, as most social sciences can't really pin down causality one way or another AND they get to see the impact of race and social class on mental health, medical care, etc.

As an engineer, I'll say that we don't tend to the left in general. Our vocation is as diverse as any regarding political orientation, whatever that means.

[Riverwind]

Generally people move toward the left as they are further educated. It's a well known demographic that even the right doesn't contest: they just vilify the "intelligentsia" as snobs and/or elitists. I have seen that some fields of education lean more one way or the other. Natural scientists of the "hard sciences" and engineers tend more to the right.

I disagree with that. People with more education usually take a more nuanced view and rarely see issues as black or white. At times this approach can appear to be a left leaning since the people who insist on over simplifying complex issues often advocate right wing positions. In a places like BC where the left wing is the most dogmatic you will find that people with more education are likely to take 'right wing' positions.

You will also find that most science/engineering types are right wing economically because they understand the science of economics. On the other hand, most of these people have little patience for socially conservative right wing views that are rooted in religious belief.

That said, there are always exceptions.

[AndrewL]

If anything i have only come to resent the narrow conception of left and right politics. But if i am forced to decide I view myself as a conservative on the economy, and a liberal WRT social programs and the environment.

As far as politicians go I have never seen any reason to trust or support them, from any party. Thoughtful and intelligent people dont usually ruin a conversation by focusing on cheap ideological political spectrums that are increasingly irrelevent.

Andrew

[newbie]

Sorry. I think there is a word there in your first sentence that is not right. Shouldn't that read. "Generally people move toward the left as they are further indoctrinated." I wouldn't contest that.

Pretty hard to indoctrinate open minded people.

[Slavik44]

Nostalgia has always been a powerfull drug, its what makes an 1986 oldsmobile like new. I suppose as people get older they look back on the glory days. And when your seventy years old and your trip to walmart is the highlight of your day the past really is buatifull. It is why people can actually end up getting re-married to someone they divorce. After some time you forget certain bad aspects and focus on the joy you expirenced. You see things through rose coloured glasses. I am not saying this applies to everyone, as people switch affiliations to both left and right and this happens at different stages and times in life.

Personally for me I would say what has caused me to shift directions is the principle of Liberty. Liberty being defined under the Declaration of the Rights of Man as such that it consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law."

However I will admit I have struggled in bringing such a principle into matters of economic importance. I find it much harder to determine where to draw the line that seperates protecting economic freedoms and impeding those freedoms. I can be sympathetic to the goals of the left, but disapointed with their waste, I can be sympathetic to the right when they cut the fat, but disappointed when they cut the meat as well. I find it even harder to find a political party that is in line with both my social values and my Economic values.

But ultimately I try to use Liberty and Compassion as guiding principles and critical review of my beliefs based on those two principles is what brings about such change in my political leanings.

[ClearWest]

What makes people go right or left? My thoughts:

Independence (right) versus Dependence (left).

People begin formulating their opinions at a young age. Also at a young age people are very dependent on those around them--their parents, their friends. And when they're fresh out of high school things can get difficult for them. So they develop a very socialist-like desire for dependency on others. Thus they start at left. People who start out on the right are likely becoming that way because they're following their right-wing parents.

When people are older they begin to realize that they can take care of themselves, and they become more independent. Most of these people will take pity on others who are going through the same thing that they went through, and desire to help them. Some, unfortunately, go about this by supporting more government social programs. Thus a shift to left. Others realize that things work out better when people achieve their own wealth, as was the case in their own lives. Thus a shift to right.

[Pliny]

Sorry. I think there is a word there in your first sentence that is not right. Shouldn't that read. "Generally people move toward the left as they are further indoctrinated." I wouldn't contest that.

Pretty hard to indoctrinate open minded people.

Maybe we better determine what an "open mind" is first.

Open-minded seems to me to imply the careful weighing of data to make decisions about things. Does it imply ever finding anything out first hand?

Actually, open-minded to me isn't particularly a positive attribute. A lot of assumptions come out of open-mindedness based upon ones' favourite source of information, or one's acceptance of authority or one's position or social status.

In which case open-minded people tend to not give much credence to things that may upset the status quo.

They usually have to wait for their peers opinions. Which explains why heliobactar pylori took ten years to be determined to perhaps have some causal effect as regards ulcers and some stomach cancers and even some pancreatic cancers.

Gosh! The media is strangely silent about that. They seem to really light up when a drug seems to reduce cancer in a control group by fifty percent. That would be only one out of a thousand in the control group and two out of a thousand in the placebo group. It doesn't say anything about cures even - just prevention. It didn't prove a thing really. But a "cure" for cancers caused by the heliobactar pylori bacterium gets a mere mention. Are we so open-minded it fades into the wood-work.

I guess being open-minded means our health care system should not be touched and the American healthcare system is so bad. When in reality the world standing for both systems is fairly close. Canada 34th and America 37th, I believe. (Stats are at the WHO website.) But don't dare dis our healthcare. Nor can we comment on the quality of education without being lambasted about the hardships of teaching. If they actually taught instead of "moulded" their behavior, which is the point, we would be better off.

[newbie]

Pliny, it seems to me you are over analyzing. Being open is just that, not taking everything you hear, read and see as gospel truth; seeing the other side of the story, not buying the status quo but questioning it, testing it. To me it is a very positive attribute. There is always the danger of indecisiveness, but consider the negative and narrowness of being close-minded. That to me can breed intolerance, hatred and much anger and frustration. Just a different look at it.

[Pliny]

Pliny, it seems to me you are over analyzing. Being open is just that, not taking everything you hear, read and see as gospel truth; seeing the other side of the story, not buying the status quo but questioning it, testing it. To me it is a very positive attribute. There is always the danger of indecisiveness, but consider the negative and narrowness of being close-minded. That to me can breed intolerance, hatred and much anger and frustration. Just a different look at it.

Certainly an open-minded response.

As you say open-mindedness harbours the danger of indecisiveness. I cannot think of a better system for indoctrination than encouraging complete open-mindedness, perhaps a more direct system, but that may require some form of physical persuasion or heavy pressure constantly applied.

I hope you are not confusing closed-mindedness with truth? Knowing something as truth and accepting something as truth are two different things. Opinion must be seperated from fact. One is close-mindedness and the other is knowing.

Moral relativity does its best to encourage open-mindedness. No one can be entirely right or entirely wrong.

It invites equivocation and indecision. Better for authority to make a determination rather than think for ourselves. We may arrive at a conclusion that leaves us alone and out in the cold - a scary thought for the open-minded.

[newbie]

Moral relativity does its best to encourage open-mindedness. No one can be entirely right or entirely wrong.

It invites equivocation and indecision. Better for authority to make a determination rather than think for ourselves. We may arrive at a conclusion that leaves us alone and out in the cold - a scary thought for the open-minded.

You advocate this? Accepting any actions to be moral without judgement?

[BubberMiley]

If someone choses to drive a hummer, who cares, its their choice to drive what they want? It doesn't hurt you at all, they pay more in taxes and gas.

What they drive is really of no consequence to either you or I.

Actually, no.

Heavy vehicles like Hummers wear down the roads at a much greater rate, which stresses the property tax burden on everyone.

Have you ever seen the results of a collision between a vehicle the size of a Hummer and a Geo Metro? That is of great consequence if you're driving the Metro.

And without getting into the whole pollution thing, your food supply is contingent on oil supply. Not only do you need oil to get the food to the consumer, you need oil to feed the green revolution that has allowed us to have enough affordable food to survive. If oil is unavailable for fertilizers and pesticides, people will simply starve.

Oil is a limited resource and we have come to depend on it greatly. It's time to stop wasting it.

[Pliny]

Moral relativity does its best to encourage open-mindedness. No one can be entirely right or entirely wrong.

It invites equivocation and indecision. Better for authority to make a determination rather than think for ourselves. We may arrive at a conclusion that leaves us alone and out in the cold - a scary thought for the open-minded.

You advocate this? Accepting any actions to be moral without judgement?

No. I am saying these things are the result of open-mindedness.

[August1991]

Generally people move toward the left as they are further educated. It's a well known demographic that even the right doesn't contest: they just villify the "intelligentsia" as snobs and/or elitists.

There's some truth to that idea.

Most educated people in western countries, university graduates, professors and so on, are left minded. They vote Liberal, NDP or Democrat. It is the educated people who vote for Trudeau, Clinton or Layton. The educated are "progessive". The uneducated vote for Reagan, Howard, Mulroney, Bush Jnr.

In a similar sense, Harper's a Tim Horton's kind of guy; Ignatieff and Dion are Starbucks/Second Cup.

[M.Dancer]

Someone said (Shaw, Clemenceau, Briand?) that if you are not a socialist in your twenties, you have no heart. But if you are still a socialist in your forties, you have no brain.

Churchill

[August1991]

Someone said (Shaw, Clemenceau, Briand?) that if you are not a socialist in your twenties, you have no heart. But if you are still a socialist in your forties, you have no brain.

Churchill

These quotes make for good story-telling but popular myth has falsely attributed them to Churchill.

Link

The same site refutes other myths about Churchill.

[August1991]

Andrew Coyne, back on the Web, offers his view on this:

At some point in his first or second year, the average undergraduate comes to a dreadful, shocking, thrilling, intoxicating realization: Everything I was taught to believe until now is a lie. We're not the good guys. We're the bad guys: the West, white people, my parents, whatever. Grasping this insight is the key to enlightenment, and enlightenment is the key to, among other things, pulling chicks.

As time passes, most of us move on to a more balanced understanding of life. But that first rush of exhilaration at having pierced the veil, at being granted the power to see through the lies that hold others in their thrall, never really leaves us, and retains its ability to shape our thoughts throughout our lives.

He even offers up an explanation for Kimmy's question about conspiracy theorists:

In its most benign form, it presents itself as a harmless contrarianism, of a kind to which this column might occasionally succumb. But under pressure, worked and reworked through the recombinant loops of the obsessive mind, it can progress through various strains of Marxism to conspiracy theories, UFOlogy and worse.

[PolyNewbie]

Sometimes lefties sell out and go to the dark side. But Right vs Left isn't really that anymore. People on the left learn that the "left" is a false ideology (made up by central bankers) and that we are really want "right". But the political arguements have changed from left vs right to right vs fascism. Many people argue and support fascism without realizing it and think they are arguing a "right" point if view IMO.

[Canadian Blue]

Well, I've actaully made more of a movement from the right to the center left in the last two years. Here's the thing in Canada, its hard to really say whats conservative, liberal, socialist, and centrist. The conservatives are still governing a country which has the most liberal laws and policies regarding gay marriage, abortion, welfare, immigration, criminal justice system, and multiculturalism.

I think the whole left vs right debate is abit useless. Each one can bring forward a valid point, and each one deserves to be heard. The left wing has helped bring forward some positive change, and the same can be said with regards to the right wing. Nothing is absolute.

PN where about is that huge beam particle weapon or whatever it is?

[PolyNewbie]

The particle beam is just a bigger version of what you have in your kitchen - a microwave oven.

[Ladyjen]

The human race has to have "righties and lefties" as we need the balance to survive as civilized societies. The righties keep the world's economy going and the lefties ensure that they do it humanely. Long reigns of heavily weighted conservatism results in the majority living in poverty which leads to anarchy. As witnessed with the USSR, a long reign of communism resulted in enmasse human rights violations and extreme poverty.

My contribution to the balance, is to support the left. I would not go so far as to say that the all the posters who lean to the right are wrong but (IMHO) I view their philosophies as tangible contributions in sustaining the balance of our survival.

Having said all that - I for one, would love to own a Hummer but as a person who runs a government funded social program, that will never happen, they don't pay me enough!

[Canadian Blue]

Ladyjen, thats one of the smartest posts I've read on here since I joined.

Ladyjen are you a social worker?

[jefferiah]

How come there are no Uppies and Downies? I guess there are Uppers and Downers...oh well but those are drugs...anyways....I think that assertion about the educated voting left and the non educated voting right may be a bit presumptious. And actually I would say that being educated has nothing to do with dealing in the real common sense world anyway. Intellectualism is abstraction (though very valuable), and uneducated people often have a much more practical, unconditioned view of things. Seriously life does not conform to abstract formulas. You cant learn life in a book. Intellectual knowledge is only as good as the person writing it. And to say that the educated vote is better than the uneducated is not very far shy of elitism.

[jefferiah]

yeah most canadians are tim hortons type of guys. why not vote for a tim hortons guy? he is probably more in touch with canada than a second cup guy.