Why Do So Many of Us Grow More Conservative as We Grow Older?

[fantome profane]

I feel grateful to usually have 3 or more choices. To be honest, the last few elections I've voted strategically for the party that had the best chance of defeating the party I really didn't want to win. If I voted by conscience, I'd vote Green, but they have such little chance, it feels like a wasted vote.

I use to think I would vote green but then I looked more closely at some of their social policies, and was frankly horrified.

 

[sun rise]

I started out more conservative than my parents, being for Eisenhower in 1956 but of course I was very young then. Then I started drifting left to be more like my socialist parents. Then as I saw state ownership in the Soviet model failing, I moved to a more moderate position. I even considered voting Republican in 2008 but for the most moderate Republican who never went anywhere in the primaries (I forgot his name). Then as I've seen the right get more and more unreasonably fanatical and extremist starting with their anti-Obama birther craziness including wanting to directly attack my retirement (Social Security/Medicare plans) along with adopting white nationalist positions, I swung back to hard left on most things outside of seeing business competition being helpful in most places but not for health care. At this point I see the national Republican party as a danger to democracy.

Does that seem as confusing to you as it did to me as I wrote it? I think of it as noticing what did not work and where my ideas were proven wrong and doing course corrections. There is no one who represents my policies - restrain growth in debt by cutting tax cuts for the rich, cutting defense spending and restraining corporate give-aways. I'm socially liberal on most items but not an "anything goes" type. Actually there is one politician who represents me: Governor Jerry Brown who leaves office with a surplus in cash and a track record I mostly agree with.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Is there even any real evidence to support the claim? I've always thought it more of claim for those who want to pat themselves on the back while elbowing someone in the nose.
As for me, I'm way more Left at 31 than I was at 21.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

We also get the 'anybody but' voting strategy

The true winner of the American 2016 presidential election.

 

[Vinayaka]

I use to think I would vote green but then I looked more closely at some of their social policies, and was frankly horrified.

Like what? My vote was more just to show them that there is enough people out there with that voice that they should have a voice. But then I'd be in favour of our elected house make-up being a bit more aligned to popular vote. Democracy the way it is can be brutally unfair to a large number of people at times.

 

[sayak83]

"If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain". – Usually attributed to Churchill, but quite unlikely to have originated with him.


It's a safe bet that most people, as they grow older, will grow more conservative. Yet if that's so, then why is it so? Of course, one is free to agree with Churchill (or whoever really said it first) that it boils down to brains. But I don't buy into that for a few reasons.

Near as I can see, there are least three things that could manage to change a person's politics as they grow older -- assuming they are not flighty and whimsical people in the first place. The first, and perhaps the most consequential change, might result from a change in their core values. But I think we can dismiss that one right at the start here.

While that might happen with some folks, both the science I've read on that subject, and what I've observed of myself and others, lead me to believe most of us have pretty much carved our core values in stone by the time we're in our early twenties.

The other two potential reasons we might change our politics strike me as much more likely to happen to anyone of us. First, we might learn a lot of facts -- in practice, a whole lot of facts -- that are both new and important enough to us to effect a major change. Second, we might reinterpret the facts we already know in new and important ways. Or we could do both.

When I was in my mid-forties, about twenty five years ago, I started going in the opposite direction most of us expect, moving from right to left on the spectrum. Although I started learning quite a few new facts, I think it was mainly the result of reinterpreting what I already knew.

So what started it all? I am sure that most people -- no doubt cheered on by that insufferable @Terese -- have already reasonably concluded that, in my case, it could only have caused by a catastrophic deterioration of apocalyptic proportions in my neural connections -- given the alarming political views I have developed since then. But I'm shocked! Shocked that anyone would think that, for it simply is not true. By which I mean, of course that happened, but that's not all that happened.

Simultaneous with that catastrophe, I began thinking about politics -- really thinking -- (no joke) for probably the first time in my life. Up until about age 45, I had no real interest in the subject, excepting in a very limited sense. Mostly the sense in which I now and then went through periods when I took pleasure in listening to the likes of Rush Limbaugh crush the sworn enemies of all that was good and decent about America. "Go Rush! You're the only one on my side, the only one who tells it like it is!"

Of course, I'd read a few books at university, but I'd read them selectively. So selectively, they always confirmed what I already wanted to believe, even a Marxist text or two.

It was quite slow going at first when I finally got around to politics. I would read a few articles, a book now and then, but I spent most of my effort on thinking things through. Interpreting them, then reinterpreting them, then reinterpreting them again. Looking back, it would have been both a whole lot faster and easier if I'd known where to start, or had had any hint of what to look for.

Admittedly, I'm a slow thinker when it comes to mulling over new things. It's only been within the last six years or so that I've felt I was finally getting somewhere, getting a reasonably accurate, fact-based understanding of what politics seems to be mostly about, and what's really going on in the world - especially when it comes to sorting out probable fact from most likely fiction in economics.

What's really going on in the world? Must you ask? Aliens, of course. Space aliens. Isn't it at all obvious to you?

And everyone of them dresses like @SalixIncendium. Suspiciously like Salix.

So, why do most people grow more conservative as they grow older? Do we learn more, figure out more, change our values, or some combination of those? Could it be that we just tend to get "set in our ways", and develop an aversion to changes of all kinds? Or are there other factors at play here?

Comments? Questions? Mouth-frothing denunciations of everyone else's political views? Gentle and helpful reminders that I once again forgot to wear any pants when I walked down to the corner store before posting this?

I think corporate culture is conservative. As a person works in a firm, the corporate culture slowly brainwashed him/her to align with their conservative interests. At the end of the day people become loyal to the ideology that gives you the daily bread... especially if a worker's union is absent as is increasingly the case throughout modern capitalist economies.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

As a relatively liberal, non-religious Texan (yes, there are some of us here) I have longed for a "none of the above" lever in the voting booth.

I have seen it suggested that this be an option, and if enough people choose it, an election be reheld with new candidates. I realise this would present logistical difficulties and problems with term limits, but it seems like a genuine option for fixing some of the problems in our political system.

But can you imagine any politician of any political flavour attempting to implement it or support it and possibly reducing his own power?

 

[Revoltingest]

I'll define "conservative" in this context as being set in one's ways.

As one ages, one can look back upon choices made, & see a pattern.
Some approaches led to better results than others. If one adopts the
better approaches (eg, taking more time to make important decisions),
then one will be in this sense be "conservative".
Thus, we can make new mistakes, instead of repeating the old ones.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

As a relatively liberal, non-religious Texan (yes, there are some of us here) I have longed for a "none of the above" lever in the voting booth.

A fringe party called "None of the Above" ran for a few seats in the recent Ontario election. I think they were hoping to trick a few people who felt this way.

None of the Above Direct Democracy Party - Wikipedia

 

[Milton Platt]

A fringe party called "None of the Above" ran for a few seats in the recent Ontario election. I think they were hoping to trick a few people who felt this way.

None of the Above Direct Democracy Party - Wikipedia

That's kinda cool......not a very inspiring platform to get elected upon, though.

 

[Milton Platt]

I started out more conservative than my parents, being for Eisenhower in 1956 but of course I was very young then. Then I started drifting left to be more like my socialist parents. Then as I saw state ownership in the Soviet model failing, I moved to a more moderate position. I even considered voting Republican in 2008 but for the most moderate Republican who never went anywhere in the primaries (I forgot his name). Then as I've seen the right get more and more unreasonably fanatical and extremist starting with their anti-Obama birther craziness including wanting to directly attack my retirement (Social Security/Medicare plans) along with adopting white nationalist positions, I swung back to hard left on most things outside of seeing business competition being helpful in most places but not for health care. At this point I see the national Republican party as a danger to democracy.

Does that seem as confusing to you as it did to me as I wrote it? I think of it as noticing what did not work and where my ideas were proven wrong and doing course corrections. There is no one who represents my policies - restrain growth in debt by cutting tax cuts for the rich, cutting defense spending and restraining corporate give-aways. I'm socially liberal on most items but not an "anything goes" type. Actually there is one politician who represents me: Governor Jerry Brown who leaves office with a surplus in cash and a track record I mostly agree with.

I'm sorta with you on most of that, actually. I have become blind to party lines, I just try and vote for the most sensible candidate I can. That does usually puts me to the left on most things, except perhaps that I am somewhat conservative fiscally. As to the two major political parties, I think they are both essentially morally and ethically bankrupt.