Debunking the myth that people get more conservative as they get older

[Chew Toy McCoy]

DL;DW. People don’t get more conservative. They remain set in their ways and beliefs from when they were younger and the conservative party is slower to progress but eventually does.

My personal feeling is some older people resent younger people having more freedom than they did when they were younger and a big part of that is the freedom to be more happy and comfortable with yourself. If you didn’t have certain things or feel a certain way you were at least miserable about it.

An obvious example for me is people continuing to live with their parents at an older age. When I was younger you were just considered a loser if you didn’t move out by your early 20’s and that was pushing it. Period. Of course you could continue to be a categorical loser once you moved out but at least you weren’t living with your parents and that alone gave you a level of success. So while I acknowledge things are substantially harder economically now I think young people should at least continue to feel like a loser. It’s what you do in civilized society.

 

[Herdfan]

Could be that people aren't what changes As younger people get old their views don't really change, but the younger generations are more liberal and therefor the older ones look like they are getting more conservative.

I know as conservative as many on here think I am, I am no where close to as conservative as my parents and not even in the same universe as my grandmother.

 

[AG_PhamD]

There’s been a bunch of research into this, much of it not particularly that great of quality, but I think it’s fair to say like almost everything in life, there are a number of reasons for this perceived phenomenon. Some people in fact become more conservative as they age. It’s also true younger generations tend to be more progressive and push the Overton window. And people’s outlook on life is obviously greatly influenced by their experiences growing up, which can vary greatly from generation to generation. It’s also true that many people’s ideology becomes more liberal as they age and are influenced by changing social norms.

For example, it wasn’t long ago (less than a decade?) that opposing gay marriage was a relatively common stance among mainstream liberals. That of course is no longer the case. And even a lot of conservatives could care less about gay marriage, though that’s clearly not the case with a sizable cohort of them. But the sense I get from many of those who oppose gay marriage, it really comes down to religious and definitional technicalities, but many of these people don’t really care otherwise who people choose to love. Rewind not too far into the past and homosexuality was almost universally considered deviant behavior and medically accepted as a psychiatric illness.

Sadly some of these negative beliefs still exist today, most commonly in conservative circles (but not exclusively). But I would say generally speaking peoples opinions, including those of older ages, are far more liberal in this instance.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

I think another factor is as people grow, follow a path, and acquire certain things they think life owes them smooth sailing at some point. So if you were told 30 years ago that if you do certain things along the way you’ll be guaranteed other certain things at the end of the tunnel you’ll be pretty pissed off if things don’t turn out that way after your investment. Then you’ll start looking around at what other people have who didn’t have to put in that same investment and really not care about economic changes. You did what you were supposed to do.

As a warning to the older generations, the current young generation really doesn’t have much to defend or protect. People are getting less and less for their hardwork and I’d argue a lot of them are working harder and longer than previous generations to get a lot less for it. You’re going to see a lot more anger and a lot more FREE STUFF being demanded as the exploiting class refuses to budge.

 

[Herdfan]

People are getting less and less for their hardwork and I’d argue a lot of them are working harder and longer than previous generations to get a lot less for it.

Might disagree here. Some of the perks and work rules my daughter's company has would have never flown when I started working.

She has in theory, unlimited PTO. Most my age had to work a year to get that first week. Her company will shut down December 16 and not go back until something like the 4th. She got every Friday afternoon off between Memorial Day and Labor Day. The food is free in the office. Most people had a vending machine that never worked.

If she needs to take a couple of hours in the middle of the day to go do something, as long as she doesn't have a meeting, they don't care.

Now she does have a good job with a large Ad/PR/Branding firm and is not working at Starbucks, but still.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Might disagree here. Some of the perks and work rules my daughter's company has would have never flown when I started working.

She has in theory, unlimited PTO. Most my age had to work a year to get that first week. Her company will shut down December 16 and not go back until something like the 4th. She got every Friday afternoon off between Memorial Day and Labor Day. The food is free in the office. Most people had a vending machine that never worked.

If she needs to take a couple of hours in the middle of the day to go do something, as long as she doesn't have a meeting, they don't care.

Now she does have a good job with a large Ad/PR/Branding firm and is not working at Starbucks, but still.

Living in Silicon Valley there are a lot of jobs that are the gold standard of work perks, but I don’t know if that can be said about most of the country and I can see those things start to be clawed back while the fed wages class warfare to put workers back in their place. I suspect we’ll see more Elon Musk style “You disgust me, you spoiled lazy assholes” notes from the management class. Also a lot of these open and understanding schedule polices are a deflection from the hours needed to be worked. So you get to be more flexible with your 60+ hours of work a week. Lucky you!

But as far as getting less for more work, I also mean economically. Fewer and fewer people can afford to buy a house or retire and those who can aren’t just driving a forklift like the generation ago who could afford to do those things. Mentioned this before, but my uncle bought a house, supported 2 kids and a wife who didn’t work, and put 1 of them through college just by being a paper route manager his entire career – the guy who drove a truck in the wee hours of the morning to dump bundles of newspapers on corners for kids to deliver with their bicycles. If anybody is still doing that job today they are probably renting a room in a house with 5 other roommates at best because that’s all they can afford.