[The Immortal Goon]

Churchill was an amazing politician and a good writer.

And a fervent imperialist.

Short of that, he wasn't much of an ideologue and ended up on the side he thought was going to win, for the most part. I read somewhere that he didn't even actually make that quote, which makes sense to me too.

Young people will veer to the left because it's right and they have less to lose.

After you have something to lose you're more likely to compromise to keep it.

And Lightman, in a more general sense, is correct as usual.

[Metee]

It should also be noted that western academia is notoriously left wing. Universities are hotbeds for socialist, feminist, green, LGBT and other social justice movements.

[The Sabbaticus]

An American intellectual from the 18th century had written a short piece on why people steer towards the right. It coincides with the phases of a person's life. I can't recall the name though. I believe he ended up getting gunned down.

[Cartertonian]

It should also be noted that western academia is notoriously left wing. Universities are hotbeds for socialist, feminist, green, LGBT and other social justice movements.

You make a valid point, Metee, but what you need to do is understand it. For context, you should know that I'm left wing, not young (I'm 48) and among other things I'm a research academic.

The defining characteristic, in my view, of academia is not a search for knowledge but a search for understanding. Academic practice - particularly at the postgraduate level - is built around processes that guide toward understanding, rather than merely to the acquisition of knowledge. If I wish to assert something in an academic work I must first find evidence for and against it and then demostrate through reasoned argument that shows I understand that evidence why I have arrived at my conclusion. In this respect, academic practice is very similar to the 'thesis, antithesis, synthesis' Hegelian Dialectic upon which the right wing's nemesis - Karl Marx - based his writings. Therefore it is incumbent upon academics to clearly demonstrate that they have a broad and detailed grasp of all the evidence in respect of any given issue and that they have arrived at their conclusions and recommendations in a logical, reasoned way without overt bias.

Now, here we get subjective and I put that out there for transparency's sake. In my 8+ years' experience on this board and its sisters, most (not all - I try not to over-generalise) right wingers tend to be dogmatic and uncomfortable with anything that challenges their views.

(I make no correlation with intelligence, by the way. There is a big difference between raw intelligence and how any individual chooses to employ their intelligence and why they make that choice. Many right wingers are highly intelligent.)

If my experience above is representative of most right wingers, then it is unsurprising that so few seek to enter academia, where they would be not merely expected, but required to challenge their own core beliefs and to not merely acknowledge the existence of alternative evidence but to study that evidence sufficiently to demonstrate understanding of it. That is going to be profoundly uncomfortable to dogmatists.

As to why the young tend (in Western society, fuser ) to be more left wing, a lot of sound observations have already been made.

TIG makes a good point:

Young people will veer to the left because it's right and they have less to lose.

After you have something to lose you're more likely to compromise to keep it.

As you get older, the gap between the ideal society you would like to see and the real society in which you have to live appears wider to the point, perhaps, of seeming unreachable. Personally, I take the longer view. It's kind of like planting trees, knowing that you will never see them grow to maturity but that future generations will benefit from their shade. I don't identify as a communist (I call myself a Left Libertarian) but if I did I'd say I was an Evolutionary Communist, rather than a Revolutionary Communist. We saw in the old Soviet Union what happens if you are impatient and try to force the implimentation of your ideal.

Welcome to PoFo, by the way.

[Metee]

-snip-

Welcome to PoFo, by the way.

Thanks. I would go as far as to argue that the modern left is perhaps even more prone to avoiding anything that would require them to question their beliefs - I assume you're familiar with safe spaces, which are most certainly a left-wing phenomenon. In fact, many right-wingers may feel unwelcome on campuses due to a hostile atmosphere created by left-wing students. See: UNC and Ben Shapiro. This is obviously not behavior all left-wingers engage in and differs country by country, but the social justice crowd is notorious for censorship and attempts to no-platform people who do not fit their agenda.

I'm in my early 20's and my circle of friends on Facebook is dominantly left-wing, with a few supporters of the centre-right liberal party.

[Cartertonian]

Thanks. I would go as far as to argue that the modern left is perhaps even more prone to avoiding anything that would require them to question their beliefs - I assume you're familiar with safe spaces, which are most certainly a left-wing phenomenon. In fact, many right-wingers may feel unwelcome on campuses due to a hostile atmosphere created by left-wing students. See: UNC and Ben Shapiro. This is obviously not behavior all left-wingers engage in and differs country by country, but the social justice crowd is notorious for censorship and attempts to no-platform people who do not fit their agenda.

You're welcome.

You're right that there are dogmatists of every stripe, which was why I was keen to point out my subjectivity in observing that it seems to me to be mostly those on the right who are unwilling to challenge their own beliefs. There are certainly those on the hard-left here and IRL who dogmatically trot out the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin et al as if they were Holy Scripture and that's no less dogmatic and wilfully ignorant than any other intolerant view.

Furthermore, I agree with you that the mindlessness of these idiots who block free speech on campuses is moronic and actually damaging to their ultimate cause.

Thinking more widely, part of the problem is that in our Western 'democracies' we still base our political discourse around adversarial, 'debating society' principles. superficially one might argue that this is a reasonable, robust and appropriate way to debate an issue before legislating about it, but I see it as fundamentally undemocratic. Think about it; you have someone (I'm thinking about our UK parliament at the moment, by the way) on the Rabid Right propose their ideologically motivated drivel and then someone on the Looney Left stands up and opposes, with their own ideologically motivated drivel and then those MPs that have actually bothered their arses to turn up for the debate get to go through the voting lobbies. But there is no mechanism to take the Rabid out of the Right's idea and the Looney out of the Left's idea and come up with something balanced and reasonable to put on the statute books. There is no lobby for 'half of 'aye' and half of 'nay''. You are forced to vote one way or the other - for a Rabid idea or a Looney alternative. Where is the, 'thesis, antithesis, synthesis', in that?

Relating back to the OP, then, as you get older you realise the only way to get on in this less-than-ideal world is to nail yout colours to one of the only two masts that are available. Personally, I find 'Looney' to be marginally less offensive than 'Rabid'.

[The Immortal Goon]

I'll also point out that things like trigger warnings and safe places are almost always opposed by academic faculty, it's the students that tend to want such things.

The faculty actually tends to have organizations put together specifically to fight these kinds of things because academic freedom is so highly coveted.

As Cart said, the process tends to be more to engage and understand the framework of the objections, so you don't get a nice clean picture of the police being called or anything...

I had a long discussion about trigger warnings with some students that never made sense to me.

I have a syllabus, if they don't like what's going to be in class that day, do I need to repeat it verbally?

If I do say that there's going to be something about, say an example of incest in history, what are the consequences of bringing it up? Is a victim of incest that specifically feels shame about it really supposed to stand up in front of the class and leave the room for a few moments, broadcasting the event to 60 other people?

And other things. The students that wanted trigger warnings didn't have very good answers for those questions so I still refuse to do trigger warnings. I would hope that such an engagement, repeated constantly and over time, would eventually bring us to a stronger understanding together of where these demands came from and what they mean.

As Cart correctly indicated, this is a little bit different than the typical right-wing response which would be to deny it completely and possibly let the issues fester.

Incidentally, the hardest part of my dissertation was to have to come to a place where I could understand and even partially sympathize with unionist and imperialist notions in Ireland. I did it, but it wasn't particularly easy to face myself along with them.

[Metee]

Relating back to the OP, then, as you get older you realise the only way to get on in this less-than-ideal world is to nail yout colours to one of the only two masts that are available. Personally, I find 'Looney' to be marginally less offensive than 'Rabid'.

I have thus far in my short time being politically active avoided subscribing to ideologies or calling myself any sort of -ist. I did have a streak of agreeing with right-wing populist parties (Sweden Democrats, UKIP, etc) but have since dropped that for the most part. I like to leave my options open.

I'll also point out that things like trigger warnings and safe places are almost always opposed by academic faculty, it's the students that tend to want such things.

I am not a university student - rather, I attend a university of applied sciences and have thus far not come across anything dealing with trigger warnings or safe spaces in my studies, so I hope the same is true for our universities and they have not yet been infected with this garbage.

[mikema63]

It's not common in science classes because science classes very rarely deal with social issues.

You do get creationists occasionally in bio 1 or a PETA type who wants to argue about animal testing but its really not on the same scale.

[jango1985]

Thinking more widely, part of the problem is that in our Western 'democracies' we still base our political discourse around adversarial, 'debating society' principles. superficially one might argue that this is a reasonable, robust and appropriate way to debate an issue before legislating about it, but I see it as fundamentally undemocratic. Think about it; you have someone (I'm thinking about our UK parliament at the moment, by the way) on the Rabid Right propose their ideologically motivated drivel and then someone on the Looney Left stands up and opposes, with their own ideologically motivated drivel and then those MPs that have actually bothered their arses to turn up for the debate get to go through the voting lobbies. But there is no mechanism to take the Rabid out of the Right's idea and the Looney out of the Left's idea and come up with something balanced and reasonable to put on the statute books. There is no lobby for 'half of 'aye' and half of 'nay''. You are forced to vote one way or the other - for a Rabid idea or a Looney alternative. Where is the, 'thesis, antithesis, synthesis', in that?

What you are describing is the sin of "democracies" vote pandering and mob rule if there is a big mob of you your obviously right if you lack that big gang you're wrong? True debate legal systems are called common law legal systems. Democracy(mob rule), representative democracy(oligarchy by mob rule) have to say and do things that appease the majority who know nothing about politics or law.

This was already stated but I would like to say it differently, conservatives have formed beliefs, youth by their very nature haven't hence they define liberalism.

[noemon]

I agree with what Lightman said but need to note that people often confuse leftism with hipsterism because a lot of champagne socialists are hipsters in the bad sense.

[Ummon]

djs love bjs

[Donna]

Misinterpretation of the meaning of history, mostly.

[layman]

Supporting progressive causes and fighting the status quo is risky. Older people are more risk averse due to the nature of getting old but also in that they have more to lose. Mortgage, kids etc.

also,

- leftism is more idealistic and less pragmatic - at least in perception
- leftism is more social and left people are more sociable
- leftism gives more opportunity to virtue signal - face book perfect for this
- western culture influences young people more and is generally left wing - think hollywood in the USA or the comedy of my youth such as spitting image & black adder, ben elton, steven fry.
- far leftists seen as both edgy and socially acceptable - see che tshirts

[Luna]

He opposed Nazism, but there were obvious reasons for him to do that. Opposing an illiberal ideology doesn’t somehow make you a liberal, otherwise Hitler might be thought of as a liberal for opposing Stalin. Capitalism also isn’t unique to liberal ideologies, I’d say nearly all countries in history (as well as today) have been capitalist to varying degrees. Fascist states could even be capitalist if it’s in the benefit of the state to have that.

1) Stalin, unlike Churchill, was not a liberal. Communism is not a liberal ideology. Burkean conservatism and British imperialism (except maybe in the Oswald Mosley sense) are, considering they rest on a backdrop of private property.

2) All countries have had a mercantile class, so if you're defining that as "capitalist to varying degrees," sure. The dominant mode of production being capitalism is a very recent thing, and the main thing that defines liberalism. Churchill fighting Hitler is, in that sense, less of a good argument because Nazi Germany also had private property. It was illiberal in its non-democratic government structure instead. A better argument is the fact that Churchill made no push against the parliamentary structure of British politics, but even more importantly, supported a socioeconomic system based around private property.

I agree with the second post of yours. I'm not sure where the "rights for Africans" thing is coming from. Churchill's actions in Kenya were very much in the British imperial tradition, and not very different from what he did to the Boers or Kurds. He was an asshole.

As for the topic, Lightman, Paradigm, and Cartertonian have it covered. As you get older, you tend to become more wedded to the status quo of a given society and more cynical. Even geriatric right-wing leaders with non-status-quo ideas like Ron Paul use the phrase "my ideas are young."

I think the right entering into fever swamp territory argument is also decent, but that's where the right is seeing growth as well. "Jesus faked the big bang" is not likely to go anywhere; evangelicals breed a lot, but considering the large number of those kids who leave it's not enough to make up for their segment of the Boomers dying off. "Let's deport all the Mexicans and jackboot down on the blacks" is growing as the white majority is threatened, and becoming a worrisome nativist force with far-right illiberal tendencies. Even it appeals more to the older and more conservative generation who grew up in a very different society and see the changes as all the more stark, though.

[Political Interest]

As for the topic, Lightman, Paradigm, and Cartertonian have it covered. As you get older, you tend to become more wedded to the status quo of a given society and more cynical. Even geriatric right-wing leaders with non-status-quo ideas like Ron Paul use the phrase "my ideas are young."

A lot of this is to do with the fact that as one ages they eventually give up. They lose any hope of changing the established system and simply resign themselves to it.

[yiostheoy]

Most people I know who are in their 20s and early 30s are always quite left wing. If they are radicals they go in a radically left wing direction. If they are moderate it is always still a sort of centre left disposition. Most are very liberal on social issues and immigration even if they support free market capitalism as well.

What makes young people so attracted to social liberalism and mass immigration?

Most likely because they were schooled by left wing intellectual teachers.

[NOESY]

"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently." F.N

[MistyTiger]

The left is more future-oriented and less religious. Liberals tend to want to bring innovation to the US like a cross country speed rail which the right is against because it would mean less money for oil companies.

I want a hydrogen fuel cell car but that will be awhile since I do not live in California and my state loves gas stations.

Another reason is that young people are fucking morons.

But but..I cannot help it!

[Stormsmith]

I also agree with Light man.

Up to 2000, the states seemed to be divided into civil rights lefties and McCarthyesque righties who loathed commie pinkos and included socialists in their ranks.

In the 1990s, as everyone knows, Bill Clinton easily won 2 terms and could win two more just based on his economic policies. 2000 to 2008 put Bush in office. As successful as Clinton was, Bush was a disaster.

Shortly after Bush left office, a study was done measuring socialism. Researchers were astonished to find a 30% increase in people 35 and younger who accepted socialism enthusiastically. This was just as they were seeing their heavily mortgaged homes being foreclosed, to say nothing of unnecessary wars, shrinking job market etc. If you were reared in a right wing home, it's more likely you'd grow up being right wing, but the shock of the Bush failure appeared to influence a change. Witness the success of Bernie Sanders. And look at the number of young folks who supported him.

Oddly, there were a few things that looked they were scripted for the sixties, starting with the Occupy Wall Street and ending with Congressman John Lewis' sit in.