Quote:
Originally Posted by Omar Comin
Seems like you're saying that young people don't really know what they believe in, with political leanings being irrelevant.
I can only use the experience of myself and my circle when I was younger but I would say this is relatively true. I know that none of my friends knew a thing about politics all through highschool and literally never talked about anything beyond school, girls, music & movies.
In college was where the first time I started paying attention to social and political issues and found people discussing as much.
I would offer that much of political thought is much like religion... you follow what your parents tell you until you get to an age where you take a deeper interest in this stuff and question it.
Even in college, I think much of the left vs right stuff is dominated by general social issues - how do you feel about gay rights? Abortion? Safety nets? You may also have friends going into the service and you start to think about people dying in war and how do you feel about that?
I'm in my early 40s now and while I'm probably slower then many, I'm still learning about issues and trying to figure out what makes more sense.
I would guess that most really young people who have a firm label for themselves are largely only vaguely aware of what all the issues are that they are siding with and identify with a group as opposed to the nuances of their philosophies.