Re:The Making of the American Gulag
by rayiner on Wednesday October 09, 2019 @06:30PM
(#21208875)
We don’t have data on what millennials will believe 20 years from now. What we do know is that baby boomers are much more conservative than millennials are now, but were no more conservative and possibly where more liberal back when they were the age millennials are today. So we can infer that millennials, as a group, got more conservative as they aged.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that any given person got more conservative as they aged. But most people must have done so, because the group as a whole did.
Of course this is, as you say, based on self identification. But conservative and liberal are best described in terms of self identification, because they’re relative terms. As recently as the 1990s, a “conservative” view of the family would have meant two parents of the same race. Today, that wouldn’t be a conservative viewpoint, but a far right or reactionary viewpoint. Given how quickly the acceptance of gay marriage has accelerated (much faster, after Obergefell, than the acceptance of mixed race marriage after Loving), a “conservative” view of family could soon be two people, regardless of sexual orientation. (And that doesn’t only move in one direction, either. In the 1960s, a “liberal” might have actually believed in government ownership of the means of production. Today, most “liberals” identify “socialism” as a strong welfare state within a free market framework.)
Of course, that doesn’t mean that any given person got more conservative as they aged. But most people must have done so, because the group as a whole did.
Of course this is, as you say, based on self identification. But conservative and liberal are best described in terms of self identification, because they’re relative terms. As recently as the 1990s, a “conservative” view of the family would have meant two parents of the same race. Today, that wouldn’t be a conservative viewpoint, but a far right or reactionary viewpoint. Given how quickly the acceptance of gay marriage has accelerated (much faster, after Obergefell, than the acceptance of mixed race marriage after Loving), a “conservative” view of family could soon be two people, regardless of sexual orientation. (And that doesn’t only move in one direction, either. In the 1960s, a “liberal” might have actually believed in government ownership of the means of production. Today, most “liberals” identify “socialism” as a strong welfare state within a free market framework.)