# 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:** 2\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2019, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/161 "2019-01-23T04:17:56Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Hmm. > > The impression I get is that conservative ideology and opinions tend to be learned as a child. Things like scorning poor people, mocking the handicapped and people of other cultures and colors - kids are pretty aware of both their parents’ opinions and also of things like social hierarchy. They’re aware of which stuff is theirs tand that other people don’t have a right to it. Additionally religion and religious credulity is often pounded into people while they are children. > > Regarding liberal beliefs, it seems to me that they tend to be picked up a little later in life - late teens through twenties. College age, basically … > > Or at least that’s the impression I’ve gotten. My crystal ball says you grew up in an environment which was more conservative than the one you found in college. It is likely to be a frequent case in the US because of the large geographical/political division (in most European countries, distances between areas with different political bents are always smaller), because of extreme situations such as people growing in very-isolated family groups that they need to abandon before they can even think of college, and because both in the US and in other countries, if you’re from a liberal background you’re unlikely to pick a college known for requiring female students to wear ankle-length skirts. It can happen, for example when it happens to be the best school in its field. Opus Dei-owned University of Navarre used to be the best medical school in Spain and to have such a policy; they don’t require female students or workers to wear skirts any more and in fact trousers are now recommended, after some incidents with dementia patients. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2019, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494/162 "2019-01-23T04:46:49Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Ok, I have to ask. Many of you have gone to rallies and demonstrations about issues. Doesnt it seem to you that the people who are really radical and go all out with signs, costumes, screaming, etc… really dont have much else going on in their life? I mean they live for “seeing their friends at next weeks protest”. > > I mean if you have a good career going and working lots of hours and have a family and a house to keep up, you probably dont have the time to take a saturday off and do a day long march or you might not see the value of going crazy at such things. Do you really want your picture on social media burning things? Does your work want you after you sat down on a busy street stopping traffic? Does getting arrested look good on your professional resume? Hmmm, I’ve been to a fair few rallies, especially in the last few years, but I don’t know anyone who’s been arrested at them, or burned stuff or stopped traffic at them. I don’t take off time from work for rallies and don’t object to giving up some of my free time a couple-few times a year to stand up and be counted, but I don’t do risky and destructive stuff as part of my protesting, and neither do the overwhelming majority of the other folks I see at rallies. So I think that the people you’re talking about are quite a small minority of all those who can be described as “white liberals”. I also think there’s probably not much correlation between having a family/house and not going to demonstrations: most of the people I see at demonstrations likely have families and houses. (Many of them in fact bring their families along to demonstrations, although you’re probably right that the established and older family-type protestors are less likely to do seriously dramatic and dumb shit such as setting things on fire.) I suspect that people who aren’t really interested in demonstrating for a cause, or don’t really care much about the cause in question, use their domestic responsibilities as an excuse to avoid participating, rather than being actually prevented from participating by their domestic responsibilities. Many people with families and houses will frequently take several hours of their leisure time to go gaming or hunting or shopping or watching sports, after all. We make time for the stuff we care about. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-correlation-between-white-liberals-and-feeling-rejected-from-society/827494.md?page=8)