The older we get, the more conservative we become?

[EddyF]

Just wondering if people believe this. I’m in my thirties and although I have always had real socialist views and I have always voted Labour, I am struggling with some of my current viewpoints which lean more to the conservative way. I think I have lost a bit of societal empathy and seeing things as a ‘dog eat dog world; everyone out for themselves’.

There are so many issues I see locally (London) that I just think not everyone can be saved. The services are stretched; high streets are depressing and people have too many needs and often those needs are not isolated and are multiple. I feel less empathetic and more “can’t you just help yourself”. There doesn’t appear to be a safety net or one that is efficient enough, which to my surprise, has harden me a bit. Maybe it is age😆

It's interesting. I saw my mum go full circle, brought up working class and very left wing, turned into the cliche that there's no better Tory than a working class lass done good. As she aged she regained her empathy and drifted back to the left, disgusted by the damage done and people left to struggle.

I'm middle aged and still left wing but have moments of thinking people should help themselves more. Then I give myself a bit of a shake and remember my privilege of having had a supportive and loving upbringing that pushed me to achieve and gave me the confidence and self belief that makes 'helping yourself' possible.

I didn’t say no policies were left or right. Nationalising/privatising have rationales that mean one side wouldn’t do them but on many topics - enough to form a portfolio of policies - the rationale can be different but the practical action very much the same.

I feel lucky in my life, others have not had such luck and they are the people I think of when I vote.
I feel this more strongly as I have gotten older.

I think that as people age they change in certain ways:

They often start to see things from a bigger picture, they have a longer lens. They have seen certain things come around before. They realise that a certain idea that sounds great is impractical.

A lot of complexities and lateral influences that are almost invisible to younger people are clear to older people.

Older people are much more savvy about other people and how likely things like behaviour change are.

They are much less influenced by peers or other "cool" groups - as much as young people like to think they are free-thinkers, as a rule they aren't. They care a lot less about others labeling them.

They can see that many traditional social structures exist for a reason - to constrain behaviour, for example.

In my experience, a lot of people as they age may have the same goals as they did when younger, but come to see many leftist political policies as unrealistic, Utopian, and likely to have a negative trade off.

Not in my experience. I have several older Quaker friends in their eighties and nineties who are continually on leftwing and pacifist matches and demos.

There are plenty of conservatives who are into environmental issues though. They are often much better on things like local agriculture and land issues, as well as conservation. It fits very naturally into a traditionally conservative outlook.

It's become a little less common, I'm not sure if that's due to media polarization, or because it's become completely associated with the solutions the left proposes which not everyone who cares about the environment believe will be effective.

I generally agree with that. I don't know how useful the left and right labels are these days, but I've certainly become much more concerned about structural inequality and seen it become more pronounced, a lot of which I would ascribe to the unfettered neoliberal capitalism of the Thatcher/Reagan era, only to be continued under Clinton and Blair to a large degree.

I am extremely concerned about the roles of the extremely wealthy in society and am not sure I see any side as having the will to counter that. I left a highly paid city job to work in the public sector and now see so many people who are essentially born without much of a chance in life. I find it very upsetting.

Yabu. I'm more left / green the older I get. Much angrier about things.

Why can't a black female leader be right wing?

A lot of black people, especially those from Africa, are very conservative. My ILs are Caribbean, and they are pretty conservative too.

There are a lot of posts here that seem to have a really odd idea of what defines right wing or conservative (which aren't quite the same in the end.)

My mum's the same - I can remember a time when she voted for Mrs Thatcher, whereas now she'll shout "twat" at the telly every time a Tory MP comes on and would never vote them again.

I have moved to the right slightly though am still just left off centre. The trans rights > women's rights subject has pushed me to the right.

I hope that I will always stay left of centre, as I'm still passionate that state should provide a safety net and protect vulnerable members of society.

Same here. I was right wing as an ignorant 20 year old. The older I get the further left I go. I’m developing more and more communist ideals as I get older

Had dreadful neighbours before we moved who encapsulated the work shy / under class Jeremy Kyle lifestyle and made our lives a misery with their grim behaviour. Witnessing that on a daily basis drained much of my middle class left leaning naive sympathy mindset away I can tell you.

I think as you get older you become more independent, more cynical and better at running your own life. Left wing politics can seem too paternalistic.

No, I've gone the other way. Seeing how inequality has increased, seeing how the wealthy have consolidated their grip on power, seeing the erosion of worker's rights, I'm now embarrassed that I was ever sympathetic to Blairs new labour.

That said, I've moved left in the old sense of 'left'. I'm not so sympathetic to the current shift to identity politics and actually don't understand why it's called left wing. Though, even here, I think the frothing at that wings excesses is largely exaggerated up by right wing commentators for political purposes.

As leftwing as I ever was and the same for my partner. 61 and 71. My parents in their 80's are becoming more leftwing with age.

I am 58 and very left-leaning regarding some issues, but not so much regarding others.

I was probably more idealistic when I was younger and had a rather simplistic view of right and wrong.

Me too. I don't think I'm going to change at 65!

If you're not a liberal when you're young, you have no heart.

If you're still a liberal when you're old, you have no brain.

Not me. Almost 57 and still left.

I'm very heartened by this thread.

Age brings experience. For most people, experience brings wisdom. And the propensity to learn from mistakes.

Therefore, it stands to reason that as you get older, you leave left wing socialist view behind. Because those views are simply unworkable. Spending other people’s money only gets you in one place. It never works. Ever. Proven time and time again. And the woke agenda has just been the cherry on top. No one, who wants to be taken seriously, subscribes to that nonsense.

Some people are always self interested. They may vote for left wing parties when younger as they perceive this to be in their own best interests but they will shift towards the right as they get older and have more to lose.

Some people don't vote according to their own self interests but according to what they believe is best for society as a whole. They might change their views in either direction, but overall, I would say that they're less likely to shift.

This is cliche and meaningless soundbites, not wisdom

Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. The voice of dimwit ‘I’m all right, Jack’ Toryism.