The Teenage "conservatives"

In response to this: http://www.politicalforum.com/political-opinions-beliefs/253797-teenage-socialists.html

Why is it not surprising that most of the self-identified "conservatives" I meet on the internet are quite young. I don't believe age is the ultimate tell-tale sign of somebody's maturity level and intelligence, however it's undeniable that a young age often correlates with an immature and naive sense of how the world works and operates, due to the lack of real-world experience.

Teenage "conservatives" are usually living at home and lack any real-world experience. They believe in the naive notion that "if you work hard enough, everyone can make it", certainly reflective of a lack of real-world experience.

It's my belief (and hope) that some of these people will eventually adapt to the real world and realize that capitalism is the ideology of failure. Denying workers freedom and rights under the notion that everyone can become an exploiter if they work hard enough. Becoming a responsible adult will hopefully change their perspectives with time and experience.

Here are some confessions by former conservatives turned socialists. I asked about it on a left-wing forum I frequent. Their experience with conservatism correspond quite well with my experience of conservatives:

Vorchev says:

Anarcho-Brocialist says:

#FF0000 says:

ÑóẊîöʼn says:

Ocean Seal says:

And then there is two big stories I will post below.

 

TheGodlessUtopian says (1/2):

 

Continued (2/2)

 

Red Commissar says: (1/2)

 

Continued (2/2):

 

Wow, I guess you established that teenaged conservatives are not poor sick bastards.

 

Well, you have the basic premise correct, but you have the parties backwards. For starters, how many "teenage conservatives" are you even crossing paths with since most teenagers form their opinions from pop culture and pop culture is almost exclusively left wing. That's why most people don't become conservatives until later in life. Because after they get jobs and pay bills and start families, they see how the world really works and they realize it's not the way tv has sold it to them. It requires a bit more effort and responsibility. And they grow up.

And this post is reflective of the stereotypical teen angst mentality and cynical need to "fight the system" that comes from just being young and uneducated and needing to rebel against something. It's more based on feelings than anything else.

Here's the truth. Working hard by itself won't get you ahead. Working hard and working smart is what will build the life you want. The people who find fault with the hard work = success formula are people who either A) don't work as hard as they say they do or B) are not humble enough to admit when they don't understand how to do something. Ego is not your friend. It will project all of your own flaws onto the rest of the world. And not only is this factually incorrect, but it is tremendously disempowering as it is a lot easier to change yourself than it is to change the world.

If you really are moving toward maturity and wisdom, one day you'll eventually reach a point where you'll realize that it is useless to try to control other people and that the only thing you can truly control is how you respond to your own environment. I can tell from your post that you're still stuck in that clingy need to micromanage society. You're trying too hard to control things. You're trying to play God. That's all collectivism really is at its core; an attempt to play God. You have to let go. Because in reality, you can't control anyone but yourself. The sooner you realize this, the happier your life will be. It's actually the most liberating ephiphany you can have.

 

Let's break this down:

What parties?

The quantity is not what is discussed here, though I come across them online quite frequently. I doubt most people base their views on “pop culture.”

How does TV sell it to them?

So saying that it is naive to believe “anyone can make it if they work hard enough” is reflective of “fighting the system”? That makes no sense. Rebelling against something usually takes shape in petty crime, not cleaning one's room, and in rare cases extremism. Holding a position that is widely accepted as true, and is in fact mainstream is not reflective of a “fighting the system” mentality.

Well given the fact-free politics of so many on this forum, it could very well be applied to those conservatives. “Based on feeling.” Sure...

This is so naïve and detached from the real world it's laughable. Because if pushed to its logical conclusion we again arrive at the same conclusion: if you work hard (and smart) enough, and if you really want to, anyone can make it. In other words, the majority of the world doesn't want to have a decent and dignified life and would rather slave away to enrich their boss.

Such a naive mentality is derived from two experiences:

Either the person claiming this is the exception to the rule and managed to climb out of an unfavourable position by working hard and therefore wrongly assumes anyone can. Or alternatively, the person lives sheltered from the real world in a safe suburban environment seeing only the positive.

In other words, you are either dumb or lazy (or both) when you are poor, correct?

So it's primarily individual wrong doings that cause poverty then? After all you say “they project all of their flaws onto the rest of the world.” Therefore it's not the fault of the rest of the world, but of them. The logical conclusion, therefore, is that the thousands of people that starved in Eastern Africa were themselves to blame. They didn't really want to live.

Let's forget about the part where food speculators drove up food prices making them unavailable to the starving people. No, it's not the world's fault, it's those slackers who don't really want to live. (otherwise they would work hard and not starve, it's brilliant circular logic indeed).

And obviously, to oppose food speculation is reflective of young, naivety. Adults and mature people embrace a system that has people die for profit.

Again, blaming individuals for slacking I suppose. 20% of Greece's population that lives in poverty should just work harder! You should become the Minister of Economic Affairs in Greece.

I feel tempted to say that you should put your avatar's finger where the sun don't shine, but I'll rise above that (or maybe I didn't). There is nothing I said that even remotely indicates I advocate such an arrangement. Quite the contrary. Control other people? Indeed, that's the true formula of getting ahead in life. That is how you get rich.

CEOs, high chiefs in multinational corporations, bosses. They don't work especially harder, no more than the average working man does from a developing world (or even the developed world). In fact, the workers in developing worlds work harder than almost anyone in West. (This alone refutes your whole world view). They become rich by controlling people, by having power over their lives.

Bosses are precisely that which you criticise: controllers of people (hence the name boss). And because the bosses of corporations have all the power they can decide with that power to grant themselves more money.

Power is what makes you rich, not hard work. And this is exactly what I criticise, whereas you embrace the idea of controlling people to get ahead. Oh the sweet irony. I advocate workers' self-management, you advocate privately, little dictatorships known as corporations.

My, and everyone else's, environment is the product of the prevailing material conditions, of the bosses who control economic conduct undemocratically, and who are not accountable except to their shareholders, of the politicians who are detached from the real world (as are you). Therefore the manner in which I am able to respond to my environment is limited by powers beyond my control. In fact, here you wonderfully exposed the very motivation of my anticapitalism, while trying to criticise it. In order for me to be properly in control of my own life, I need to reshape my environment.

That would be you. I'm trying to abolish hierarchical control.

There is two forms of collectivism, vertical collectivism (authoritarian) and horizontal collectivism (non-hierarchical). I advocate the latter.

You can actually if you are in a position of power, like a politician or a capitalist boss (the once you admire—by lack of a better word—apparently and ironically).

Your entire world view is contradicting by the real-world. A man working 14 hours a day in labour-intensive, unhealthy factories clearly works harder than the boss of the factory who merely signs contracts. Yet the worker is poor, the capitalist rich. You can get ahead by gaining power in economic structures. Alternatively, one could get ahead if one were to become a journalist or scholar, but this requires a certain amount of intelligence and analytical capabilities not everyone is capable of. Or one could win a lottery or inherit money.

Thus, ways to get ahead: gain economic power and control over workers; winning the genetic lottery; winning actual lottery or inherit money. The rest of the people is reduced to pons to be told what to do. As Bob Black explained:

 

Most teenagers don't know anything at all and based on total ignorance take liberal positions.

As people get older and learn more about how the world works, they tend to become more conservative.

 

Yeah, we know that is what you believe. Just repeating such assertions is not productive. Given the complete mainstream absence of American-styled conservatism in Northern-Western politics, does that mean Europe is a bunch of naive teenagers?

 

Well, I was a conservative as a teenager, and now I'm a free market, anti-state, radical libertarian. So what's that?

I don't think age has anything whatsoever to do with rightness. I've seen plenty of people who seem to become less sophisticated in their thinking as they age. Youth may be more inexperienced and contrary for the sake of being contrary. But elderhood is more bigoted, set in its ways, over-cautious, and myopically opposed to any idea not safely within an archaic and narrow status quo. This is perhaps especially so nowadays, when young people make much greater use of the Internet and therefore are much more likely to have exposure to alternative sources of information.

 

Reported.

 

*eyeroll* What is this, elementary school?

 

And yet older people who have figured out over a lifetime that change is not in and of itself necessarily good are generally more conservative than younger people. After a while you begin to get a grip on what things work and what things don't.

 

How old are you, if you don't mind me asking?

Do you watch tv? This should be self-explanatory.

I have no doubt that this is detached from the world that you inhabit. Because you have already illustrated how you live in a disempowering reality. One that is entirely in your own head, I might add. Even though it feels real to you. You prefer to look for reasons why you can't do things instead of finding ways to actually get them done. It's the difference between being an excuse maker and being a problem solver. But you are not alone. Most people lean more to the excuse maker side simply because it requires less effort. It is easier to justify why you do not have the life you want than to actually do the things necessary to build that life for yourself. Most people would rather have sympathy for failure than success. This is called mediocrity. Mediocrity is the lifestyle choice of the masses.

It's not quite that simple. Some people are simply products of learned helplessness. If you've had a lot of things done for you, your work ethic is probably going to be (*)(*)(*)(*). And so the idea of pushing yourself to meet and exceed your potential is going to seem alien to you because you're used to operating at half capacity. And pride, not stupidity, is the other primary thing that holds people back. A person with a low IQ can still learn from their mistakes, make corrections, and improve their circumstances. But a prideful person can't learn anything because their whole MO is to protect their ego. Protecting their ego is more important than succeeding. If they fail at something, they have to find someone to blame. They are fundamentally unable to objectively look at what they are doing and determine what is working and what isn't and make adjustments. They have a very desparate need to be right all the time. And because of this, they can't grow. If you can't grow, you can't accomplish anything.

^You see what I mean? Look at all the disempowering negativity in this statement. Everything you believe is full of "it can't be done."

Look, no one controls the circumstances they're born into. And some people do get dealt a terrible hand and get born into places in the world with no upward mobility like the places in Africa you speak of. And you know what? I'm actually all for helping those people out. Because I recognize the difference between what they are dealing with and the silly little first world problems that people in America deal with. And I'm not really sure that you do. Because you're not just complaining about the horrid conditions of third world countries. You're complaining about first world paradises like the United States which have an abundance of opportunity that the people starving in those third world countries would kill for. And you don't even appreciate it. You're so spoiled that you still feel "exploited."

Since you were the one who brought up Africa, it only seems right to say this. Why don't you go live in Ethopia for awhile and then come back and tell me how bad it is here. See if that doesn't put some things in perspective.

 

political position: far-left
ideology: communism
ideals: proletarian internationalism, freedom, emancipation.

Says it all. The other thread struck a nerve I guess.

 

What do you think collectivism is? Unless you are freely allowing people to opt out if they don't want to participate, YOU ARE CONTROLLING WHAT THEY CAN AND CAN'T DO. You are forcing them against their will to contribute to something they have no desire to be part of. Conversely, in a capitalist system, you cannot be controlled by anybody without your own consent. You have the freedom to choose your work environment. At any given time, if you don't like the circumstances at your current job, you can go find a better one. You even have the freedom to start your own company or be independently employed if you so desire. You see, you pinkos complain about being "exploited" and yet you never take responsibility for agreeing to work for these people. Stop and let that sink in for a minute. Bask in the freedom of choice that you take for granted everyday.

This is that ego projection I'm talking about. You're pointing the finger at someone else for your own choices.

You've never been in charge of anything in your whole life, have you? Not a coach of a softball team, not a shift leader at Burger King, probably not even the alpha dog of your social circle. You don't even have to answer that. I can already tell just from the way you think. This is a great example of that lack of real world experience that we've been talking about. In real life, the boss works harder than everybody else. That's why he's the boss. Because he has the most responsibility. Anything that goes wrong falls on him. If you screw up your job, maybe you get fired. If he screws up his job, the whole company folds. The higher up on the totem pole you climb, the harsher the demands, the greater the pressure, and the more competent you must be. If you think being a CEO is easy, take a look at the vast graveyard of once mighty, now defunct companies that fell victim to their own poor business decisions or inability to adapt to a changing business climate - Borders Books, Hollywood Video, Tower Records, World Championship Wrestling, etc.

Yeah, good luck with that. Whether you realize it or not, what you're trying to abolish is Darwinism.

Fair enough. So if you don't favor of authoritarian collectivism, you don't have a problem with people choosing not to be part of your system, correct? Here's my question. Why not just start your own little voluntary collectivist sub-sect and leave everybody else alone? You can do that within the context of a capitalist society, you know.

^And yet again we come back to the disempowerment. I'm beginning to see why you're a communist. Because you have a very bleak view of the world and you see yourself as very helpless...... almost infantile. It's a shame that you can't realize how much of this stuff is all in your head. Right now you are unnecessarily wasting your life by not taking advantage of all of the opportunities around you because you can't even see them. And that's really too bad. I hope you continue to grow and mature and you are eventually able to see what you need to see to empower yourself.

 

Collectivists REFUSE to acknowledge the inherent authoritarianism within all collectivist socioeconomic constructs of scale.
they REFUSE to acknowledge "fair and equitable" dissemination of collectively "owned" production requires a central power stucture.
they REFUSE to acknowledge that all power structures are inherently prone to expansions of authority, expense, and corruption.
They REFUSE to acknowledge the inefficiencies surrounding engineered and enforced "fairness and equality".
They REFUSE to acknowledge that their "utopia" will ultimately, and always devolve into a dystopian police-state.

Dreamers and moochers, all.

 

That's because, unlike you, we actually know what we're talking about.

No, we don't.

That's because, again, we know what we're talking about.

I have never mooched off anyone, nor will I ever. So bite me.

 

Police-state? Who are the ones that want to reduce the state to merely police to protect the private property? Who are the ones that don't fight the mini-dictatorships that are the corporations?

 

IMO, "utopian" idealism among the young stems primarily from 4 things....

1. The young are seeking mates, so they're FAR more social...social interaction is literally the center of their universe.

2. "Know-it-allism" and its sibling, "Rebellionism"...they generally refuse to acknowledge basic, fundamental truths that don't align with their's or their peer group's narrow experience set and world views.

3. They loathe the fact that their out-of-the-box "societal value" does not provide the means, trappings and financial security...the "plumage"... to attract the mate and station of their choosing....

and 4. Envy of those who possess such....either wanting what they have, or this "competition" brought more inline with their "attractiveness".

 

See: #2

 

I was thinking the same thing. Good to see my thread flushed a few of these teenage socialists out of their parent's basements.

 

Cornelies: "Why is it not surprising that most of the self-identified "conservatives" I meet on the internet are quite young."

Amazingly, your thread failed in the first sentence but you then went on and on and on. My first thought was you must have been constipated for a really long time.

Most conservatives are not only older but more mature than are far-left liberals. I meet adolescents who are 65-years old and they're invariably far-left. The characteristics of adolescence is an incredible faith in their own half-baked ideas and they can go on and on and on with drivel that they consider very, very important. They also feel quite sincerely that they're special and someone should support them. They don't need to be self-sufficient. No one does. No, that mysterious "they" can support them.

When a thread starts with an incredibly inaccurate and dsihonest first sentence, why go further?

 

I agree, this was more or less a 'retort' of that other thread.