The apostasy of me. Or not.

[constance]

George W. Bush was in my town today, and my mind is on politics tonight.

I won't even start talking about how quickly he can make the bile rise in my throat (it's practically a Pavlovian response by now, I would think), or how his shell-game politics leave me feeling as though my intelligence has been insulted almost beyond bearing every time he opens his goddamned mouth and at the same time questioning the intelligence of all the people who lap up every word he says the way my dog licks up cat puke if he gets to it before I can. How it's taken years of... Nope, not going to talk about it any more.

Instead, I'm going to talk about a conversation I had with my father when I was in college. I was being probably unbearable and sanctimoniously liberal about something or other, and he informed me that he'd been a liberal once too, but that time and a family and a mortgage had changed his mind. That I would change my mind, too, once I entered the real world and had adult responsibilities to face.

And tonight it's nearly twenty years down the road, and undoubtedly my father would claim that I'm maintaining an unhealthy grip on my Neverlandish talent for avoidance and idealization. But the rest of the world thinks I'm toeing the line pretty well, I thank you. I have adult responsibilities now. No marriage, nor is there likely to be one, but I have a house and a car. Pets. I pay my bills on time, all of them. I'm middle-class! I go to work and pay my taxes and contribute to my 401(k) account! Hey, I even know how to punctuate 401(k)!

But I'm still a liberal. I don't think my affiliations are going to change, either. I don't feel as though I'm closing myself off from the beliefs I once held. They've become tempered by practicality, sure, and I'm more circumspect than I used to be, but I think I'm only less hotheaded now, not more reactionary. Possibly in some ways I've become more liberal, as I've become wiser and more compassionate and less self-centered over the years.

My father wasn't even ten years older than I am now when he made that pronouncement to me. Really, don't you think that if my conversion had been going to happen at all, it would surely have started happening by now? I think my father was wrong, and I won't insult him by ranting about yellow-dog democrats and lame-ass frat boys too busy drinking to know their own minds, much though I'm tempted to do so tonight, all soured as I am by insanely listening to five minutes of GWB before turning the television off.

Instead, I'm just wondering: what about you? Have you become more conservative as the years have gone by? More liberal? Have you changed in political essentials at all, as you've left your college years behind?

Comments

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

I would say I have become more nuanced and pragmatic, but not really more conservative. I was raised in a pretty liberal environment, so I did not have any big left-wing conversion when I went off to college, and I never felt much need to thumb my nose at the establishment just to get a response, nor to embarass my family. Even as a teenager, I just wanted to do what I wanted to do, and I didn't seek to shock anybody.

A big contributing factor, I think, was that my father died when I was 13. He was a WWII veteran, and though he always voted Democrat and would have hated Bush (did hate Reagan, who had been our governor), there were a lot of specifics we would never have agreed on. But when my mom was suddenly left a single mother of three, she got politicized pretty quickly, especially about women's issues. Of course I am not happy that my mom went through hard times, but I think it has made it easier for her to understand my experiences as a single working woman and not to expect that things would work out if I were more mainstream.

Tofty, you don't say anything about your mother's politics. My observation is that sometimes tough times make men want to identify with a tough leader, and it hardens them and makes them less forgiving. But for women tough times more often lead to increased empathy and openness. As Aubrem says above, becoming a parent can change your values system in certain specific ways, especially toward feeling more protective. But for me, caring about children (in general; I don't have any of my own) means caring about fairness and free speech and equal rights and peace and affordable health care for everybody more than ever.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

My mother is a complicated question, politically speaking. I suspect that her official political position -- solidly right-wing -- is gleaned mostly from my father's position. She's not active politically, really, and never has been; but she is a humanist, and for this reason, I think that if you were to question her about her positions from an unbiased perspective, about social issues especially, she'd come across as being much more liberal than she would if you were just to ask her about her voting habits.

:::

for me, caring about children (in general; I don't have any of my own) means caring about fairness and free speech and equal rights and peace and affordable health care for everybody more than ever

Yes. Yes, indeed. :)