Talking politics to DC - what do you do?

[ReanimatedSGB]

It's more a 'would you have done a better job' (so I can steal your ideas for the next time this comes up) than AIBU but anyway...
DS is 13 and has always been keen to ask questions and discuss stuff.
The other night, we were waiting for a train and he spotted a sticker someone had left on a lamp-post saying 'Brexit is a Right Wing Coup'.
So he wanted to know what that meant. And I had to try to explain to him what 'right wing' and 'left wing' mean when talking about politics. I tried to make sure I didn't just feed him pious nonsense about rightwing being 100% evil and leftwing being The Future. I pretty much said that rightwing politics are more about individualism and keeping the populace under control, and being self-sufficient, and traditional values, and that leftwing politics are more a matter of the government overseeing stuff and making sure everyone has what they need even if they are poor, and working together. And I told him that there are screaming arseholes with obnoxious ideas at either end of the scale, and that the nicer people are mostly nearer the middle.

Go on, what would you have said?

Sometimes conversations like this are good for prompting you to find out some actual facts.

I give a lecture about this every year. I’d simplify it for DS2, and just summarise it for DS1 (since I was at university when I was his age).

A good fact is that the terms came from the French National Assembly during the revolution with republicans sitting on the left and monarchists on the right.

What does ‘keeping the populace under control’ mean? That doesn’t sound consistent with the free market? More a lefty collectivism thing.

Congratulations on not saying the right are 100% evil though. Pat on the back for insight.

id encourage them to find out more about it if theyre interested at that age, rather than try and dumb it down for them.

Yeah, those Chinese Communists, keen on controlling the populace.... they'd be left wing. And the USSR before them.

He's 13 though. How can anyone of this not have come up before now?

I reach university students and the majority of them have absolutely no clue about politics whatsoever. It’s amazing.

They’re not politics students. Luckily.

Keeping the populace under control honestly

I just have visions of chairman mao and his forced March's or making everyone give up thier only cooking pans and steel, iron to use in his grand schemes... Banning flowers and how some people in our government apparently like his little red book or stalin and his gulags.. A day in the life... Being kept under control or north Korea, or any Eastern Europe nation that had secret police sitting on hallways in hotels, the stasi... Mass control of people's lives...

Sorry op went off at a tangent... Perhaps just tell him to never trust what people say, go and research and that even his own mum can get confused

Have a look at Simple Politics (website, Facebook).
It gives clear, unbiased information about all sorts of things to do with different philosophies.
If you like (or he likes it) it on FB you get little feeds about what each party believes, and campaigns for. You also get little round ups of what is going on in Parliament each week, but in tiny bite size pieces.
On the website you can obviously look at as much or little as you like.

I think a useful way to explain political ideas is to talk about left / right in economic terms, as you did, but to also talk about libertarian vs authoritarian positions.

Many left-wing people are highly authoritarian. They believe that society benefits if there are lots of rules about how individuals are allowed to behave, and what they are allowed to think and say. They are very ‘closed’ in their thinking and want to censor people who disagree with them. See the feminism section of MN for many examples....

Some right-wing people are also authoritarian, eg the Daily Mail style ‘bring back national service, and the death penalty’ view. Other right wing people are libertarian. They don’t believe in society. They hate any rules and restrictions on the individual’s freedom to think, say and do whatever they want at all times. They support removing all restrictions on things like drugs, guns, prostitution & gambling. They believe in small government, very low taxes and unrestricted free markets, including for healthcare and education.

Most people are somewhere in the middle of these extremes, fortunately....

That we would be better off without them all.

13 is a bit of a late start to politics, isn’t it?

Rather than imagining the political spectrum as a straight line, it might be better to describe it as an incomplete circle or a clock-face. The right-wing is on the right-hand side (3am) and the left-wing on the left-hand side (9pm). The central ground is at 6pm. The very far right and the very far left are not that removed from each other, both up near 12 o'clock with totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.

He's certainly aware of current affairs and they watch Newsround at school. It's possible the school don't let them get on to party politics in case someone's offended - or their parents are.

But thanks for the tips. I will direct him to Simple Politics.

How about doing some online ‘who should I vote for?’ style quizzes, or the political compass test?

For those saying 13 is a bit old. I regularly had to explain this stuff to my friends when they were in their 20s. Most understand a bit more now they are in their 30s but only a small bit!

Also, DS is probably on the spectrum (waiting for a referral at present) and in some ways quite young for his age, which might be another reason why that aspect of 'politics' has only just come up.

lol at the right wing frothlets

good job SGB

🕺

Doesn't his school hold mock elections? When Theresa May called the election last year, DD helped organise the school one and ran as a candidate. She is studying Politics A level, so is very aware of what is going on and has always been interested.

Each candidate delivered their pitch in an assembly and the whole school (staff and students) was encouraged to vote. The house with the best turnout won something. DD came 2nd, with a far greater % than happened at Westminster.

They also held a mock Brexit referendum in 2016 and local politicians came into school for a debate and general election in 2015. Sadly, whilst the kids get loads out of it, the results never mirror the local or national results...!

It's fine to say 'I think x party are a bunch of dicks' as long as he understands the difference between fact and opinion and is permitted to hold a different opinion to you.

13 is a bit of a late start to politics, isn’t it?

Really ?
I'd have said it was on the younger end of normal to start thinking about Political parties. I'd have thought most don't really give it much thought before 15 or 16 - potentially a bit more 'in their face' if there happens to be an election on when you were 14 - 15ish.

rightwing politics are more about individualism

Nazi Germany was famously full of individuals ....

and keeping the populace under control

And Soviet Russia had no secret police and gulags ...

I've always thought that "left" and "right" eventually meet up at the back of a circle.

Generally as you stray from the centre, "the state", "the Fatherland" become more important than individual liberties.

They hate any rules and restrictions on the individual’s freedom to think, say and do whatever they want at all times

Isn't that closer to anarchy ? (Or Rastafarianism ?)

I am inclined to agree about the circle metaphor. just didn't think of it while standing on a tram platform, cold and wet and tired. but thank you all anyway.