# Is there any correlation between white liberals and feeling rejected from society **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 9, 2019, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494 "2019-01-09T23:57:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/41 "2019-01-10T13:49:59Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Nah. Political indoctrination happens mainly in conservative families. Most of those children will go on to become conservative. When they meet people who aren’t conservative, they assume those people have been indoctrinated like them, just in an opposite way. Or, some people (like me) will go heterodox when life experience intrudes on the imagined worldview. > > In reality, normal people don’t run their households like a political education camp. Some children of those households will become liberals, some will be conservative, and they might take hints from their parents beliefs (if they are aware of them). Do you have a cite that children raised by liberals are more likely to become conservative than children raised by conservatives are to become liberal? I would think the exact opposite largely because younger people tend to skew liberal. That would imply to me (though it’s not a guarantee) that children of conservatives are more likely to become liberal than vice versa. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/42 "2019-01-10T13:50:15Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Then why did most liberal people I know have liberal parents? You seem to subscribe to the “tabula rasa” theory, in that a child is a blank slate to be filled in by their upbringing and environment. Could it be just as likely an inherited trait? While I agree that upbringing and environment are a factor, I also strongly believe that there is a “born that way” factor. This is supported for me by brain science. [https://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-differences-between-conservatives-and-liberals-2018-2](https://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-differences-between-conservatives-and-liberals-2018-2) So, I reject many premises of the OP. I don’t agree that many people “develop” a political leaning based on experiences, instead they find reinforcement in ideas that align with their innate propensities. The notion that some definable percentage of white people feel rejected from society and therefore “adopt” liberal philosophies suggests a causation, whereas it is more likely that this is a case of correlation is not causation. Moreover, does the OP have any evidence to suggest that this portion of white people has reported that they feel rejected by society? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/43 "2019-01-10T13:54:18Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Based on actions not thoughts. The actions of these fantastical creations certainly sound terrible, and I stand with you against these fictional creatures. We will fight them together! And I’m sure you were only judging these non-existent apparitions based on actions – otherwise why would you use phrases like “They cannot imagine…”? That’s definitely a description of an action. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/44 "2019-01-10T13:57:40Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > You seem to subscribe to the “tabula rasa” theory, in that a child is a blank slate to be filled in by their upbringing and environment. Could it be just as likely an inherited trait? > > While I agree that upbringing and environment are a factor, I also strongly believe that there is a “born that way” factor. This is supported for me by brain science. > > [https://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-differences-between-conservatives-and-liberals-2018-2](https://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-differences-between-conservatives-and-liberals-2018-2) That’s just another way of saying “people who disagree with me are genetically inferior”. As a liberal, I refuse to endorse such an theory. When you say that people are physically incapable of changing their opinions or their behavior, then the only way to solve the problem they pose is to eliminate them. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/45 "2019-01-10T14:13:03Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > … I’m assuming many, if not most, people’s politics are motivated by self interest at root. … Likely true not only for politics but for _all behavior_, but of course how our actions impact how we feel about ourselves (proud, satisfied, embarrassed, disgusted, whatever) is part of that self-interest. I see more evidence that _current conservatives_ are more motivated by a sense of rejection by society. That’s the motivation/appeal behind the the drive to take it “back” to make it “great _again_” … they feel they have been rejected by the mainstream which previously embraced them. Rejection leads less to empathy and compassion than to resentment and anger. Empathy comes not from being in a state but from being able to imagine the world from that state’s perspective. It is when one is afraid for one’s own future and one’s own status in the future, when one feels rejected by society at large, that empathy for others is often in shortest supply. A person who is hurting from rejection is not the best person to go to for empathy about your feeling rejected. OTOH that secure white cis hetero male who does not perceive any rejection and who feels secure in his status can more easily afford the self-interest of feeling good about himself, or at least not bad about himself, by doing the right things for others as well. The marginal cost of a few more dollars in taxes is less than the marginal gain in reduced self-disgust at not having a good answer to the question of “If I am only for myself then what am I?” ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/46 "2019-01-10T14:28:04Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > That’s just another way of saying “people who disagree with me are genetically inferior”. As a liberal, I refuse to endorse such an theory. When you say that people are physically incapable of changing their opinions or their behavior, then the only way to solve the problem they pose is to eliminate them. Not at all. It is saying “people who disagree with me are different, and here is why”. It is recognizing that I am as equally incapable of changing as someone who is different (not saying I am totally incapable, but that I am incapable TO THE SAME DEGREE.) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/47 "2019-01-10T14:28:19Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > IMHO, people in this thread are overthinking things - most people are liberals for the exact same reason that most people are conservatives: because they were raised that way. My brothers and I were raised in the same household and exist in three different points of the political spectrum. My mother is a definite unionist. Her sister is a Catexist. My father and his siblings ranged from conservative independentist (married to a rabidly leftist independentist, daughter to a conservative independentist) to anarchoid to retrograde. And I’m reasonably sure each of those groups was raised in the same house, by the same parents, attended the same schools… ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/48 "2019-01-10T14:51:53Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > My brothers and I were raised in the same household and exist in three different points of the political spectrum. > > My mother is a definite unionist. Her sister is a Catexist. > > My father and his siblings ranged from conservative independentist (married to a rabidly leftist independentist, daughter to a conservative independentist) to anarchoid to retrograde. > > And I’m reasonably sure each of those groups was raised in the same house, by the same parents, attended the same schools… I specifically said “most”, not “all”. Obviously I know plenty of families like yours, too, but they’re still the minority - like, 25%? No more than that. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/49 "2019-01-10T14:54:42Z")
Most of the families I know are of the varied type; those who are not tend to falll into the “apathetic” basket. Maybe it’s linked to that reaction I had when I first heard the line about “two Jews, three opinions”: “you guys need two for that?” Cultural differences. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/50 "2019-01-10T14:55:13Z")
As to the OP, remember that there were plenty of white guys in 1920s Germany who also felt like they were rejected from society (whether they actually were is debatable). Liberals, they weren’t. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/51 "2019-01-10T15:49:44Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > It is clearly a chart of what conservative White men are frightened of based on variation from themselves. It’s also a clear illustration of white fragility. For centuries your “kind” has benefited from systematic and institutional advantages, including free rein to abuse and occasionally murder people based on, say, skin color or sexual orientation. Now, society is taking the smallest steps in the direction of a more just society and you come up with a hierarchy in which you are a persecuted majority. Excuse me if I find it difficult to find a way to soothe your fears that I am the one doing that to you. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/52 "2019-01-10T15:51:10Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Catexist. What? Google doesn’t help ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/53 "2019-01-10T15:59:40Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > What? > > Google doesn’t help It was a typo. She meant Catexit. It’s a movement that wants Catalonia (a region in North Eastern Spain bordering France whose largest city is Barcelona) to become independent from Spain. They speak a different language than the rest of Spain and have a different cultural tradition. The roots of it stretch way back to the days of Castille and Aragon, so it would be burdensome to get into the history of the movement, but it is widely supported in Catalonia with somewhere in the vicinity of half of the population supporting it in some sense (whether that be autonomy within Spain or as its own state.) The Catexit movement is widely accused of being racist or classist since much of the current beef is due to the fact that they are wealthier and have closer ties to Northern Europe than their southwestern compatriots and have been subsidizing the rest of the Spanish economy for quite a while. They would deny that assertion, but most people would probably place them as more right of center than left of center. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/54 "2019-01-10T16:01:28Z")
Ah. Thanks ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/55 "2019-01-10T16:10:01Z")
I also think that it’s fair to add that their position as left or right wing is certainly debatable and I don’t want to paint them with too broad of a brush… I don’t know that we can quite peg them on the spectrum. Some of their supporters are certainly pretty far left and others are not. The extreme right in Spanish politics is generally unionist, so it’s not as though the Spanish equivalent of the KKK is marching with them. On the one hand, they’re an ethnic conglomeration, so that screams right wing, but economically they are mostly left of anything we do in the States. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/56 "2019-01-10T16:16:53Z")
Well, I’m definitely _not_ a liberal, but I do support a number of programs that benefit the poor. History shows that a bunch of disgruntled poor people generally leads to bad things for the rich. Nobody wants that. I’d rather have a pacified poor person eating SNAP food in subsidized housing watching their flat screen, than selling drugs or breaking into my house. I guess that’s a more selfish way of saying “a rising tide raises all boats”. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/57 "2019-01-10T16:25:24Z")
@ the OP: I would guess that the vast majority of liberals are liberals because they feel that they are either: 1. Oppressed in society, or 2. Fighting on behalf of those who are oppressed in society. But, ironically, though, Trump appealed to many of his Trumpists by making them feel like they, too, fit either 1# or 2#. The double-edged sword started to cut both ways. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/58 "2019-01-10T16:37:08Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/59 "2019-01-10T17:07:53Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Is it? > > Women are more liberal than men, LGBT are more liberal than heterosexuals. Both groups are marginalized and see their civil and human rights threatened by conservatives in mainstream society. > > non-whites are more leftist than whites, but I don’t know if they are more liberal. blacks aren’t necessarily more liberal than society at large, while LGBT are 2x as liberal as the public at large. There’s a difference between feeling rejected by society and demanding that society serve the interests of every member of that society and not just white males. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2019, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/60 "2019-01-10T17:10:26Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > @ the OP: I would guess that the vast majority of liberals are liberals because they feel that they are either: > > 1. Oppressed in society, or > 2. Fighting on behalf of those who are oppressed in society. How about 3\> Honestly good people who want society and government to be good too. _**Justice and fairness don’t exist in the Universe. But the beauty of being Human is that we can conceive of these things and create them in our world.**_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494.md?page=4)