How did we become liberals? Nature vs. Nurture

[joeprogressive]

Is it possible to be born with a predisposition to a political party. I followed a link to freeperland and read for about 5 minutes before I began to feel ill. Who are these people? They are truly sick and twisted. What fuels their ignorance? Ubringing, genetic mutation, greed, or all the above?

The people that I know to have very high IQ's, are almost all liberal. They typically are less enthusiastic about organized religion. This coincides with Thomas Symington's correlational studies about those that are most conservative and frequent church more often are typically dumber. This would indicate a genetic component dictating their behavior. However, money can often take precedence over intellect, it seems that those with high intellect and have high incomes will typically be conservative, indicating nurture can be a strong predictor.

The only conservatives that I know that have converted to more liberal stances are those that had a life changing experience such as a major medical problem or bankruptcy. Meaning, they had to step outside their gated community and see what the real world is really all about.

I would like to know how members evolved into their political ideology. Personally as I get older, wiser, and accumulate more wealth, I have become even more liberal than before. This contradicts what my conservative family said would happen to me.

[Divernan]

1. Two democrat grandfathers

I know why my grandfather who was a coal miner was a union suppporting democrat. I don't know why my grandfather who was a bank president was a democrat - but god bless his good honest heart. When his bank was wiped out by the 1929 stock market crash, that good man took 25 years but he personally paid off every depositor of that bank. I know both men considered honesty to be the keystone virtue of a decent human being - clearly no place for either of them in today's republican party.

[joeprogressive]

3. I agree, nurture was strong influence for those growing up in 30's

I think most that lived through the great depression have to be sick about Bush's attempt to dismantle all of FDR's good works. I'll never forget taking pictures at the FDR memorial and listening to a conversation by three 80 something seniors talking about how there will never be another FDR and how bad they thought Bush was for the country.

[CoffeeCat]

2. I come from a very conservative, "religious" family...

...and all I can say is that I'm glad I escaped the brainwashing.

My father was a hard-right conservative--who once yelled at Tom Harkin because my father didn't want to "waste money" remodeling his business to conform to new Americans With Disabilities standards. My father often joked about the homeless and complained that teachers were paid too much. He was also a racist--big time.

Of course, he never missed a Sunday of church, but refused to donate to charities or help needy people. They were "lazy"

I believed our family's dogma. It was so ingrained in us. I used to be a materialistic little imp. Then I went to college and I began to see reality. It took about a decade out of the house to evolve into a real human being.

Our family was horrendously dysfunctional. It was rotten behind closed doors, but to the world--it was presented as the perfect family with nothing wrong. My father's money, politics and devout, on-his-sleeve religiosity were devices used to keep the secrets hidden and the denial solid.

In my case, escaping from an abusive family led me toward liberal ideals. So glad I escaped.

[joeprogressive]

4. Jim Wallis' book, "God's Politics", puts it all into perspective

These people are Christians for one hour out of the week and totally miss the meaning of the Bible.

[SammyWinstonJack]

23. There's a thin line between Sat. night and Sun. morning. n/t

[GOPBasher]

5. That's a really interesting story. Have you ever posted that

on its own thread? If not, that would be something to consider. I think that story is a real good read for anyone on DU.

[joeprogressive]

8. That is a great story

I am sooo glad you escaped. I think that is why we are the minority party right now. It is easier to be a sheep than to have the insight needed to escape. I also formed many of my ideas when I was in college. Not from liberal profs but by being one of the very few in my dorm that read the newspaper every day.

When I got out into a career that dealt with many low income and sick people without health insurance, my beliefs were solidified. Republicans have no perspective. The only ones I have the slightest respect for are the ones that truly came from nothing. It is always amazing to me that the ones that play the "they deserve it because they are lazy" card are the ones that grew up with everything given to them.

[realFedUp]

6. Seems to me liberals want the truth, conservatives want lies

generalization, but I've found it to be
true.

[Vinnie From Indy]

7. Conservatives LOVE Money and Liberals LOVE people.

Simplistic generalization, but mostly true.

[joeprogressive]

9. That is a very true distinction

But they are very good at concealing their hate for those that have the least. Once again, what Bible are these people reading?

[flaminbats]

20. conservatives hate to love..liberals love to hate

Neocons hate to love even conservatives like Zell Miller and Herman Talmadge for being Democrats.
Liberals love to hate even liberal Democrats like Ted Kennedy and Gary Hart for being flawed humans.

[paula777]

10. That's a very interesting question

My mom is a liberal, my dad a right-winger. The bosses that I have had in the last 10 years have been extremely wealthy and very liberal. My current boss has a Ph.D. and an IQ of 160+ and he's extremely liberal. Maybe it's instinct for some to lean to the left and others 'get it' through education.

[joeprogressive]

11. Could I ask what their profession was?

Just curious to know to prove my theory that rich liberals have been exposed to something that made them see the light or they are extremely intelligent or both.

[paula777]

12. Three different bosses ...

2 of them ran an advertising agency (media buying firm-not the creative end). Neither had a formal education (no degrees, but they were very intelligent and created a multi million dollar company which they ended up selling to a huge conglomerate and then started another agency. My current boss runs a managment consulting firm.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. My observations about rich liberals is

that they have some life-changing experience that makes them aware that there's a world outside the country club.

In one case I know of from my generation, it was spending a junior year abroad in Spain under the Franco dictatorship and seeing the risks her fellow students took in dissenting.

In other cases, it was going into the Peace Corps or Vista (as a temporary escape from the draft) and seeing what the world looks like from the bottom.

For Robert Kennedy, his life-changing experience was going to the Mississippi Delta with a Senate investigative committee, seeing the incredible poverty there, and listening to people tell how they had to struggle just to stay alive.

I was a middle-class conservative in my earlier years, mostly because my family, much of which came from Latvia and the eastern parts of Germany, was staunchly anti-Communist. I just accepted the rest as a package.

My conversion to the left side of the spectrum came in stages:

1. Coming to see the Vietnam War as wrong. When I saw that people whose intelligence I respected were against it, I had to investigate further.

2. Having a campus job in a library collection on Third World economics. My job was to maintain the collection, which was little used, so I had three hours a day to read up on the economic histories of these countries.

3. Being an unemployed Ph.D. and working as an industrial and clerical temp on and off for three years. I learned how hard it is for some people to survive and what utter pigs some employers are.

4. The Reagan years completed the process, as I saw Reagan doing everything I now knew to be wrong.

[Divernan]

14. RE: extreme intelligence

In my family (see my post above), my dad (son of the coal miner) graduated from Notre Dame at the age of nineteen with a bachelor 's in electrical engineering and went on to high levels of management - but remained a lifelong Dem and community leader. My son graduated summa cum laude from Yale, master's from Stanford and could have stepped right into a big money job. He became an environmentalist, has never owned a car, etc., but his work has been published in 20 languages.

I was raised to believe that the world should be a better place because I passed through it. I raised my kids the same way, and to see themselves as citizens of the world, and they' each make meaningful contributions to that goal through the lives they lead.

I was also raised Catholic, and though long gone from the church, I try to live by the values I was taught, most simply the golden rule.

[joeprogressive]

15. You must be very proud of your son

Not just for the academic achievements but the choices he made afterwards. You should also be proud of yourself, as these were lessons he obviously learned from his parents.

One of the smartest guys I know voted for Bush. One of the only truly gifted intellectuals that I know that voted that way. When I asked him about it he said he was liberal but was inheriting a large sum of money and that was his only reason for doing so. I respected his honesty. He thinks Bush is a moron.

[Divernan]

17. Maybe there's a dominant "greed" gene.

If he's brilliant, your acquaintance is putting his money in Euros, because the dollar is never going to recover from Bush"s malign neglect. By choosing to define power in terms of military, not economic, might, Bush has condemned this country to lose its super power status. China has established more powerful economic ties to Latin
America, for example in the past year than Bush has done in 4 years.
The thing is, if your acquaintance already has lots of money, why does he choose to support a politician whose policies destroy the environment, public education, the job market, the quality of health care, etc. You know, some millionaires are going to be in some terrible accident like an auto crash, and die because they get taken to some understaffed, underequipped, underfunded hospital. You can't live your entire life in a gated community.

[paula777]

19. I wish more people like you would breed ...

the world would be a better place

[Greyskye]

16. My wife and her brother are both adopted

They share no parents in common. Their adoptive parents consider themselves Christian and liberal (they voted for Kerry).

My wife is extremely liberal.
Her brother is extremely conservative.

My wife is very intelligent, is college educated and has had a couple successful careers. She's currently a teacher.
Her brother is very intelligent, and works as an 'engineer-scientist' for a major high-tech company.

My wife grew up religious, but as she's grown older has become more 'spiritual' and less 'churchgoing'.
Her brother considered himself an atheist as he was growing up, but now considers himself Christian.

I certainly wouldn't be surprised by a genetic predisposition toward particular political ideologies. It would help explain why two kids raised in the same household by the same parents could have such radically different worldviews. Needless to say, political discussions are forbidden during family gatherings.

[Kber]

18. Not sure

"The only conservatives that I know that have converted to more liberal stances are those that had a life changing experience such as a major medical problem or bankruptcy."

Actually, I know at least 2 died in the wool conservatives who have become more liberal in their old age - but both claim that it is the republican party that has jerked to the hard right while they have "drifted" gently a little to the left.

Both, btw, are highly intelligent men who, while not having the life changing event you talk about, have come, through a bunch of experiences, to favor democratic and liberal policies. Both are convinced the dems just have better ideas.

I'd call them "practical liberals" vs. ideological liberals.

[Deja Q]

21. Given my childhood, it's a damn oddity I am a liberal.

But I wouldn't change and I know better anyway.

Nature is interaction with others.

Nuture is how one is raised in a family; family being a closely knit group of people who know each other well who have bonded, by word and by letter, to stay together to raise the offspring. It needn't be "Christian" man/woman marriage. It's a sane group of people in the 'family' that matters. So many "Christian" marriages have one or nutcases playing the role of parent. (it also explains the greed of those running the Reagan generation. :7 )

[Arugula Latte]

22. Excuse the language, but it was that now-dead piece of shit Reagan

I was fourteen when that bastard got elected. My parents were snookered into voting for that asshole. (They were sort of namby-pamby socially liberal Repubs at the time -- later switched to Dems. -- yeah!) I was appalled at Reagan's anti-environmentalism and his eagerness to turn back progress. I had him pegged as an evil simpleton from Day One, and he turned me into a rabid anti-Republican (I'm probably more of a Green in philosophy but I vote Democrat every time).

Geez, I see I've called Reagan a piece of shit, a bastard, and an asshole. They say you shouldn't speak ill of the dead but I make an exception for Reagan!

[rniel]

24. i was about 20 years old

Watched faux news pretty regularly and never voted and didn't know where I stood for sure. I took a government course at my community college and by the end of that I knew which reality I believed in.

I've always had this sense of empathy for others and respect for truth and justice. I couldn't stand it when people abused power and picked on those smaller than them.

But really more than anything after Bush was elected that's exactly when I found myself moving even further to the left.