A popular narrative suggests young people are liberal and getting more liberal. Thus, social media buzzed when a chart surfaced in spring that seemed to suggest 12th-grade boys had become overwhelm…

While many believe young people are becoming more liberal, data shows that 12th grade boys are nearly twice as likely to identify as conservative compared to liberal. Around 25% of high school seniors identify as conservative while only 13% identify as liberal. In contrast, the share of 12th grade girls identifying as liberal has risen to 30%. Many factors may contribute to this trend, including the rhetoric of Donald Trump which appealed to disaffected young men, and the focus of progressive movements on issues of gender and racial equality which some young men perceive as a “matriarchy.” However, most high school seniors claim no political identity, and many boys in high school do not actively discuss

  • Titan@beehaw.org
    22·
    1 year ago

    Same. The world seemed so simple back then, until I matured. I suspect a lot of people are emotionally stuck

    • UncleClerk@aussie.zone
      19·
      1 year ago

      I can also relate, a classic libertarian utopia sounds great until you realise poor people exist. I think a lot of individuals are just afraid of personal growth because it often means admitting you were wrong.

      • jcarax@beehaw.org
        7·
        1 year ago

        Well, it’s not something you just institute overnight. Just like with communism, if you try that you’d end up with a pretty big mess, because people will manipulate the framework for their own personal gains. Instead it’s something you work towards slowly, through education and efforts to balance the system until it’s not really needed anymore.

        The keys always have to be:

        1. People legitimately caring about their neighbors, and supporting each other through good times and bad
        2. People working towards progress for the sake of progress and their community, not for personal gain

        Our actions weave into the fabric of society, and future generations are formed from that same fabric. It takes time to shift how our nature manifests into actual behavior.

            • argv_minus_one@beehaw.org
              4·
              1 year ago

              Are the history books capitalist propaganda too, then? Because I’m not aware of any instance in history when a stable society emerged with no governing authority and no one taking advantage of anyone else. To my knowledge, at least one of those things always ended up happening, and quickly.

              Most humans are selfish and jealous by nature. Not all, but most, and it only takes one jerk to ruin it for everyone. Any system that ignores this fact, and does not have some strategy for dealing with it, is doomed to failure.

              The only way I foresee your vision ever becoming reality is if a technological revolution enables a post-scarcity economy, as seen in some science fiction like Star Trek. This could remove the main driver for humanity’s selfishness. Maybe. But we aren’t even close to having the technology needed to accomplish that.