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I’ve always thought of it was you get more conservative as you get wealthier, rather then older. The system as it is now makes it far harder to get wealthy, hence people are staying liberal as they get older.
I think it's also true for those people who lose the ability to learn and understand new things as they age (which happens a lot but not to everyone). In the everchanging world those people find themselves longing for stability and the good old times that they understand. Change becomes confusing and scary.
Also: Some people keep their positions that used to be progressive and find themselves on the conservative side much later. Example: If you are ok mixed race marriage, that used to be a progressive talking point and now is common sense. Gay marriages weren't discussed in the slightest back than. If you don't move, you find yourself on the edge of the Overton window one day.
It's really that the world becomes more liberal as it goes on. If you don't change with it, you're comparatively more conservative. It's never been the case that people, in general, become more conservative as they age, just that they want things how they expected them before, which at some point is reached and surpassed.
It’s really that the world becomes more liberal as it goes on.
I don't even think it has. It feels like we're in the same conflicts that have existed since at least the 60s era of the Civil Rights Movement.
Government spying, endless warmongering, exclusionary public policy that fixates on bigoted stereotypes, hostility towards immigrants fleeing the warmongering, looming ecological disaster...
Maybe we're more fixated on trans kids than gay kids, or Latino immigrants rather than Asian immigrants, or AIs that filter out resumes by black surnames rather then racist senior managers, or climate change rather than leaded gasoline and sulfur rain, but the fundamental problems are all still there.
How do you get more conservative in the face of that? Idk. Feels more like we're just trapped in a news cycle that fluctuates between "left is winning!" and "right is winning!" headlines.
I have a paid off house, plenty in the bank, and investments. I'm less convinced by communism than I was as a kid, but I support the progressive agenda, vote green and annoy city planners asking about pedestrian and bike infrastructure in new developments
I don't think I could be accused of conservatism, though I seem to have done capitalism reasonably
Actually maybe I am a conservative - I do want to conserve this biosphere, rather than destroying it through the radical increase in carbon burn in the last few hundred years
Actually maybe I am a conservative - I do want to conserve this biosphere, rather than destroying it through the radical increase in carbon burn in the last few hundred years
That's conservationism, not conservatism. Conservatism is about establishing and enforcing hierarchies of social power.
It was a joke :). I was playing on the dictionary definition of (little C) conservatives, in contrast to (big C) Conservatives
Modern Conservatives area actually radicals, and they unfairly leave actual conservatives (who want stability or careful change) with no representation
Then those actual conservatives need to do the hard work and actually rein in their wacko cousins.
I've just seen it as people get set in their ways. You were progressive in your youth, got what you wanted, and have grown comfortable with it. Now, you're old and the new generation wants to change things you are comfortable with, and you don't want it to change.