Quote:
Originally Posted by kurto
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.
I can remember a fellow student who was one of my favorite liberals. Jewish, white, ou of state, smart, and fiery. She would protest consrvatives, hand out condoms and aids pamplets, and all the correct liberal causes. We were in a social/political thought class on the early moderns(Machiavelli-federalist papers), and she was going all in for Clinton at a dinner party our professor had for us. He asked her what she wanted him to do.
Build a bridge to the 21st century.
And he asked her where would that bridge go, and she had no answer.
That's where liberals fall down for ordinary people. They preach "correct" sentiment without the ability to explain what they want to accomplish. They can paint a picture of things that are obvious injustice, but can't make a case for why. You can't say, make the rich pay their fair share, and not be able to explain for what. Or make the case for gay rights, poker rights, defendant rights, and not tie it to their rights.
It's easy to get kids in midstream just by showing injustice. But, it's incomplete until you can teach them to communicate a picture of the justice at the destination.