Everyone has political beliefs, ideas, and attitudes. You can't avoid that. But where, exactly, do your political beliefs come from? Do you simply absorb them from family and community? Are they instilled by churches? Are they explained by the surrounding culture and economic system? Or is it something that we're born with?
It's an interesting question and not one that's easy to answer.
A forum member writes:
Is it true as the Gilbert & Sullivan song says that everyone of us is born either a liberal or a conservative? What causes people to cling to their belief even though it is contrary to their self-interest, (such as unemployed Republicans who will vote conservative no matter what)?
Is it a matter of embracing (or reacting to) the politics of our parents or community? Why do most people tend to move from liberalism to conservatism?
My theory is that the formative time in most people's life when political beliefs harden is between the ages of 15 and 25, when we are most idealistic and most open to new ideas, even ideas that are regressive. Those ideas take hold and crystallize into prejudices.
It takes a significant emotional personal event to crush that belief structure to lay the foundation for an alternative belief. Thus, the collapse of the middle class in the Weimer Republic was the predicate the rise of Naziism. Does this make sense?
I think that there may be something to this. I suspect that we're all either born with certain personality traits that incline us to being conservative or liberal or we acquire those traits and inclinations through early childhood experiences. They aren't yet "political," they are just underlying traits that make one direction or another far more likely.
Then, the actual political beliefs will form and grow in that foundation - and I suppose they do probably form in the age range of 15-25. But what do you think? Add your thoughts to the comments here or join the ongoing discussion in the forum.
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