Chicken or Egg?

Over the past few years I’ve been able to observe first hand the devolution of a person into a liberal.  My findings are not surprising but I thought I would share them with you.

It is, I would think, not very hotly disputed that a person’s political outlook, particularly when young, is largely shaped by upbringing.  A young person brought up in a conservative household is likely to start out as a conservative.  What, then, changes them into a liberal?

Liberals, many of whom are college educated, love to sneer with intellectual elitism at the undisputable fact that a large number of proto-conservatives end up becoming liberals after four years of immersion at a liberal arts college.  In their minds, this somehow proves that only stupid people are conservative because young people are very likely to become liberal during college.  And since college means education, they make the leap that only uneducated people are not liberal.

Of course it doesn’t take a genius to conclude that if one is allowed to blame upbringing for conservatism and portary that negatively, one should not simultaneously be allowed to exalt liberal indoctrination at college campuses as though it were the product of free thought.  If the family environment creates a conservative, and the college environment creates a liberal, shouldn’t we view any “creation” process in equal terms?  Of course not, because a small house in the hills of Appalachia is a den of ignorance to be derided whereas the shimmering ivory Berkeley campus is a palace of worship deserving of all praise.  In the eyes of a liberal, anyway.  Once made, a liberal must fall over themselves to help these poor unforunate ignoramuses who live in places other than metro areas think and be just like them.  Interesting contradiction, don’t you think?

Anyway, I have  observed a person raised in a markedly conservative household who attended college only brielfy, as she was abruptly expelled for failure to actually do course work.

Since I have known her, she becomes more liberal by the day.  And I find that each liberal virtue she extolls seems to originate in her mind only after the virtue is in someway relevant to her.  I won’t go into the details – use your imagination.

Another less positive way to put it would be like this: the more she fails at life, the more liberal she becomes.  It would appear that her liberal beliefs emerge only to justify a course in life she’s already chosen to take.  Her beliefs did not arise independently.  They exist only as an excuse to justify actions in the past.  Or as a justification for why she isn’t doing what the rest of us are doing, such as respectably contributing to our civilization.  As opposed to whining about it.

I’ve seen the same thing in my socialist cousin.  The more inept she becomes, socially, physically, economically, the more socialist she becomes.  She is unable to fit into regular society because she is unintersting, unattractive, and she majored in something stupid which has no possibility of providing a career even lucrative enough to support herself in the most meager of ways.  She’s been out of school for over a year now and to my knowledge does not have any kind of gainful employment.  Having come from a reasonably respectable background, she is unwilling to be poor and work a minimum wage job.  She has a colllege degree!  Therefore, instead of making something of herself, she’s going to bitch and moan about the “capitalist” system which explains why in the game of life she is a loser.  The problem isn’t her, it’s the rules of the game.

The same can be said about exhibit A.  It was made clear to her from an early age, and not only because her parents said so but because the entire world said so, that life has rules.  If you want to live, you’ll eat.  If you want to eat, you need money.  If you want money, you need a job.  And so on.  You might call these notions “dated” or “antiquated” or even possibly “conservative” but you’d be better calling them “common sense.”

In order to achieve these things – namely, the machinations that produce a comfortable life – we prepared her as best we could.  Gave her a high school education (which is free), gave her the chance at college (which she subsequently squandered), and plenty of advice (which she ignored).  Now she exists in a type of limbo with no real plans for the future, or at least none that could ever be actualized withot the help (read: charity) of someone who does play by the rules of life and did succeed where she failed.  In other words, created the means to live, like money, a place to sleep, a healthy work/life balance, and so on.  In other words, won.

The more she realizes these facts that all of us already see, the more liberal she is getting.  She is falling into the same trap that my idiot cousin is falling into, namely, “it’s not me, it’s society.  We need to change.  We need to progress.”  Right.  Of course.  Same shit, different flies.  You couldn’t or wouldn’t play by the rules so you need to change them for everyone to suit yourself.  If only you had that power.

Unfortunately there are thousands, if not millions, of people like this who simply cannot succeed in the game of life for a variety of reasons and they incorrectly conclude that the rules need to be changed to better accomodate them when in reality they should just be honest with themselves and admit that they, not society, are in fact the problem that needs to be solved.

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