Talking big issues – no need to go into minutiae, unless you’d really like to.
On the whole I think I’ve become more compassionate and empathetic. Especially when it comes to gender and sexuality. In my teens and early twenties I still had some level of homophobia and transphobia, at least for what I was aware of the concept of transgender identity (at the time, I probably couldn’t distinguish between it and cross-dressing). And I certainly had misogynstic views, which were exacerbated by my overwhelming desire for romantic connection (i.e. I thought there was nothing more important in life than sex). I now believe that our society is very patriarchal, continuously sending messages to children that reinforce traditional gender roles, as well as harmful concepts like slut-shaming and negative body images, which generally are more harmful to girls.
I was never particularly religious or spiritual (raised in a non-religious but also non-atheist household), but I still recall having vague internal-monologue “prayers” or angry cries to God in trying times. Those have long disappeared; I can’t recall any sort of religious or spiritual thought or feeling in many years.
I’ve become much more aware of racism and bigotry in society. As a youngster I thought American society, and the American system in general, was largely fair and equitable. I no longer think that, even as I’ve become more and more financially successful and comfortable – I think a very large portion of my success in life can be credited to luck, with a smaller part due to some inherent talent and good decision-making. Now I think that American society, and the American system, is far less unfair and inequitable than it was 50 or 100 years ago, but it’s still profoundly unfair – on a 100 point scale, I think we were at about a 10 in terms of fairness in 1850, maybe a 30 in 1900, a 40 in 1950, and a 55 in 1975, and perhaps we’re at a 65 or so today… but 65 is still an F (or maybe a D-, depending on the scale), so we have a long, long way to go.
Oh, no doubt. If anyone claimed that they haven’t changed in their viewpoint since their 20’s I would find that very disturbing. We are constantly learning as we age, and adding new experiences. In addition, our society and culture is constantly adding new voices that we would not have heard before. How we receive the new voices definitely highlights personal value systems, but in any case causes each of us to develop a reaction, whatever it may be.
Like the OP, I have been around long enough to see that a lot of what was the norm in my younger years is reprehensible now, rightly so. Part of that is my personal growth, part is societies growth.
I find that I was constructed to celebrate the progress we have made, and have willingly adopted the new norms that provide expanding justice to previously unheard voices. I am deeply troubled by those that find this progress fear-inducing and feel the need to lash out and constrain the “others”.
I’ve become entirely and deeply convinced that prejudice and bias and oppression is a huge operating force that impedes the lives of most people, and that we all cooperate to some degree, and it’s vastly important to fix.
My understanding of what’s important in life has narrowed to love, and to how our love impacts suffering and joy in other living beings. Everything else is in the footnotes.
I’ve become more mainstream. When I was 20, I was Green Party and now I’m a Democrat (technically, I’m a registered independent so I can choose my primary, but I vote nearly straight ticket Democrat-although I usually pick out one Republican in a minor local role to vote for just so I can say that I’m not straight ticket.) I’ve become less libertarian. I identified as an anarcho-communist and now I want to see a stronger role for government. I probably view things with more nuance now. I was a Tolstoyan pacifist, but since having kids, I’m not so sure anymore. Religiously, I’m more religious now than then. I was an atheist and now I’m a mainline Christian, so there’s that. I’m less likely to protest and more likely to organize, although I do both. I was black-bloc-ing for awhile and I’m pretty sure that was an error-although maybe not. Who knows?
I’ve not really become more racially aware since I was a teenager during the Rodney King riots. I think that Clinton might have lured us into a false sense of security, but not being aware of racial disparities and problems back then was largely willful ignorance. Back then, people were prepping for the ‘race war,’ so I don’t know how you could have missed it. I mean, there was Crown Heights just before that and then in 96 the St. Pete Riots and the Cincinnati riots of 01. I don’t know how you couldn’t be aware, but maybe it was just because I was part of groups that were.
I’ve become ‘differently’ environmentally aware. Back then, global warming wasn’t as much in the forefront, that’s kind of when it started gaining traction. The Kyoto protocol debacle was going on then, but I think it was largely seen as a political struggle between Republicans and Clinton as part of the whole ‘right wing conspiracy’ stuff. The big environmental issues were urban sprawl, land use issues, the ozone layer and acid rain (although by the time I was 20, that battle had largely been won.) The main environmental thrust was almost a throwback to the 60s-get rid of chemicals, don’t cut down trees, replant forests, ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ and so on. If you look at the Green Party platform from 2000, it was heavily into promoting natural gas over coal because it was ‘cleaner burning.’ Not that we didn’t recognize Climate Change as a threat, but it was one threat among many as opposed to today when it seems it’s more like the overriding threat.
Anyway, I’m sure if you had a list of issues I could tell you what has changed, but that’s top of my head.
When I was 20, I disliked labor unions, largely because you had to join to keep your job. Even worse, in Philadelphia, the constructions unions were instrumental in keeping the construction trades lily white. (Illegally, BTW, since closed shops had been outlawed by Taft-Hartley.) Since then I have come to realize that, as long as corporations are legal, unions must also be. The TH act, by allowing states to ban union shops, led to the current race to the bottom that has basically destroyed the unions. Other than that, my politics have perhaps gotten a bit more socialistic. I would not call myself a socialist, but certain functions have to be socialized. When I see, say, privatized prisons, I realize that when you introduce profit into it, the service declines and the cost increases. Just compare the costs of medical services in the US and Canada.
Religiously, not changed at all. I was raised paying only lip service to religion (no one ever went to services) and the only change is that now I call myself an atheist.
Philosophically, no change. I just put one foot in front of the other as I have always done, not paying too much attention to where I am heading. I have had a couple pieces of excellent luck along the way and am pretty happy with where I am.
In my early 20s I wasn’t particularly political. I started dating a guy who was a Young Republican. I paid attention to what being a Republican meant, during the 2000 election, and found myself thinking “Holy shit, this is what you people believe?” I couldn’t align any of my voting booth values with his. So I learned I was a Democrat.
I think my politics are about the same, but my reasons for my beliefs have become more intellectual than emotional/morality- based. Like, as a 20-year-old I believed that society should help poor people because helping people is just the right thing to do. As 41-year-old, I believe society should help the poor because people become dangerous when they are desperate and dangerous people are a drag on all of us.
I’m 65 - yes, my views have changed in the last 40-some years. Heck, some have changed in the last 2 or 3 years. Sometimes I learn things that alter my perceptions. That’s growth, right?
Go ahead and be disturbed then: my views on politics, religion, philosophy, our popular culture and our society have not changed much if at all since I was in my teens.
Same here Bo. I’m a little more middle of the road, but still lean quite to the left, liberal. If anything I’ve become even more disenchanted with religion and how people use it for an excuse, but still favor a ‘whatever floats your boat’ policy. Provided they don’t try to force their ideas on me.
Up until about 2-3 years ago I believed in progressivism. By that I mean that I honestly believed that the world as a whole was making progress toward something like Gene Roddenberry’s Federation as depicted on TNG, only with countries instead of planets. Even through the Bush 43 years, the War on Terror, etc. I still believed that was the direction things were headed and we just needed time to get there. The events of the last few years, starting with Brexit, then Trump wining, and the general rise of nationalism in the west, have rid me of that belief. I still believe that the best way to achieve the most happiness for the most number of people would be something like the Federation. Now, however, I believe that the people who oppose that view do so because they don’t care about the happiness of humanity as a whole, they just care about their own happiness.
I have become, as a whole, more cynical and negative - not in a “I hate people” sense, but in a “I am extremely wary of any attempts to cover the truth” sense. Nowadays anything that smells of gaslighting or sweeping-the-truth-under-the-carpet raises hair instantly on the back of my neck.
Also become more environmentalist, in favor of single-payer healthcare, universal basic income, and rehabilitation for most crimes instead of incarceration.
Also, I am really suspicious of democracy. Sadly, I think much of the world’s problems can only be properly addressed by dictators or regimes these days. Democracy has had its chance to show what it’s capable of and the answer is…not much.
Considering the track record of dictators and other oppressive regimes, why on Earth do you think they are more likely to solve the world’s problems than democratically elected governments?
Progressivism (in the Kantian sense) has always been a flawed philosophy largely because it places absolute values on subjective things. Kantian progressivism basically posits that the world moves from barbarity to Enlightenment. Barbarity according to whom? Enlightenment according to whom? There are quite a few things that I’m not convinced ‘barbarians’ didn’t have right and quite a few that I’m pretty sure that we’re doing wrong. Barbarity sure as heck didn’t lead to global climate change or nuclear weapons. The second issue is that there is no mechanism conjectured for why this should happen. The only way that Progressivism makes any kind of sense is if you believe in a divine hand pushing us towards a goal. Without that hand, we’re just random clumps of chemicals and there is no goal to push toward. Maybe ‘The Federation’ pops out, or maybe ‘The Road.’ Who knows?
Some of it is subjective values, but it seems that larger entities seem to do better than the individual units would on their own. Take the USA as probably the best example. I highly doubt that most Americans would be better off if the USA was 50 separate countries. Even large states like California and Texas would probably be worse off individually than they are as part of the USA. The results of Brexit have yet to be seen, but my guess is that if we could run an experiment with two universes, one being remain and the other leave, the UK from the leave universe would probably be worse off than the one from remain.
As far as historical empires it’s probably my bias and the matters are long settled, but here is my view. I always found myself rooting for the Romans, the Chinese, the Persians, etc. rather than the barbarians when I studied those empires during history class.
I am thinking more in terms of hypothetical dictators than real-life Gaddafis or Kims, I suppose. There are many things in the world today that simply demand instant, strong-handed solutions. For instance, climate change isn’t likely to be seriously addressed unless *someone *had massive clout to force enough people to act together to reduce emissions, etc. Also, single-payer healthcare is something that might not happen in the next 20 years in America, whereas if someone had clout, they could get a national system going in one year’s time perhaps. Ditto for all kinds of other problems.
Also, despots and regimes can sometimes play the long game in a way democracies can’t. They can afford to think 20-year plans, 50-year plans ahead. Whereas a democracy is two parties going against each other, each side playing a blame game, running up long-term debt for the sake of short-term gain, unable to think long-term, can only plan 4 to 8 years ahead.
Some problems simply can’t be dealt with in a slow, democratic, chugging-along-an-inch-at-a-time way.
I realize full well that’s how tyranny sets in, but sometimes you have to aim for the best of tyranny while avoiding the worst.