And sometimes, some people’s memories are just flat-out bad. There’ve been times when I’ve told someone about a viewpoint they held even just 8 or 9 years ago and they genuinely had no recollection of having ever said such a thing.
So it is definitely believable that someone might genuinely not know they held the opposite of Viewpoint XYZ thirty years ago.
But the thing is, that cuts both ways. Here’s something from, of all places, this very board, making pretty much the exact point in question:
And the thing was: I didn’t remember saying any of that! But it wasn’t that my opinion had changed, and that I genuinely had no recollection of having held the old one; it was that the other poster simply hadn’t been remembering things right, which he noted after I brought it to his attention: “I strongly apologize! :o :o Mea culpa. Yes, I confused you with Starving Artist.”
But if I’d been banned by then, and no longer able to offer a timely suggestion, he presumably would’ve gone on incorrectly figuring that, yep, thought one thing, changed his tune; says he doesn’t remember, maybe he doesn’t; oldest story in the book.
This is a minor example, but I once worked opposite a news person who always said the name of the country Iran as “eye-RAN.” Suddenly one day she began saying “eer-RON.” I casually asked her why she changed the way she was saying it and she steadfastly refused to acknowledge she had ever said it differently. I just let it go, but I really thought it was an odd thing to be so adamant about.
The more embarrassing the change, or the circumstances that triggered the epiphany, the more likely the person will simply clam up about their change. They’re in a hole and know to stop digging.
EYE-ran was certainly the standard pronunciation used in the US back in the old days. Such as during the fall of the Shah, the hostage crisis, and eventually the Iran Contra scandal.
At some point it became fashionable for on-air personalities to try to pronounce country names more the way the locals do, but still using the English term. Which is also when the country historically pronounced “chilly” suddenly turned into “chee-LAY”.
I think a key factor might be that we see other people by their surface actions while they look at a vast interior world when they see themselves.
Consider the OP’s sister-in-law who they thought was a devout religious believer. I’m guessing they based this on what the sister-in-law said and how she behaved. So when the sister-in-law said she had never believed in God, they saw this as a change in belief.
But perhaps the sister-in-law was telling the truth. Perhaps she hadn’t internally believed in God all those years when she was externally presenting herself as a believer. Lots of people try to behave one way in hopes that their internal self will eventually conform to that external identity.
Or in the case of something highly socially normative like religion (or these days, politics) they feel forced to act the part even if they utterly know they’re living a lie. Much as gay folks have had to try to “pass” for centuries.
TIL. Thanks!
(I usually read the news, rather than listen to it.)
Also, when people “change their mind” about an issue, it’s often about what they were forced to say under pressure back then, versus what they can say freely now. An Iraqi who swore undying loyalty to Saddam in the 1990s, or a North Korean who swore undying loyalty to Kim Jong Un but is now a defector to the West, may never have actually changed their views - they may have opposed Saddam or Kim all along.
As LSLGuy said, many people raised in religious backgrounds weren’t free to say what they truly felt.
One year SIL wanted us to attend an Easter Sunday service at her Lutheran church, at which her husband played trumpet. We went. Thought the music fine, but the services horrible. After, over dinner at MIL’s, she kept asking us, “What did you think abut it?” After a great many, “It was nice! The music was great! Pretty church!” responses, I took her continued questioning as serious and asked, “Why does your God need to be praised? Wouldn’t it be better for folk to instead spend their Sunday morning doing good deeds?”
I intended it as a serious question, not intended to offend. She was so offended that I would ask such a thing in front of her middle school aged kids that she didn’t talk to my wife for over 5 years.
So, yeah - I think she believed.
I don’t if it is fair to brag about my own experience here, but here goes.
More than 20 years ago, maybe 30 I went to an advertised talk at McGill on the subject of recovered memories. A couple dozen people came to the talk armed with those party noisemakers that you spin to make a raucous sound. Whenever the speaker opened his mouth, they rattled their devices. Eventually, they couldn’t be stopped and the talk was canceled.
A good friend of mine was the victim of “recovered memories”. His daughter had gone to a hypnotist to lose weight and he had convinced her that she had been sexually abused by her father. He of course denied and his wife insisted it was impossible. Anyway, I wrote up the experience the next morning and sent it off to him. Ten years later, he decided to test my memory by asking what I remembered from that night. So I wrote what I said above and he sent me what I had originally written and they were pretty much in agreement on the description of that event. So it is possible for ten year old memories to be accurate.
I remember something similar but backwards- the USA went into Kuwait, then Afghanistan. Cheers and yays from many of my friends. Then the Shrub went into Iraq- (which i agree was wrong)- all of a sudden, what we did in Kuwait and Afghanistan earlier was now evil and wrong and they pretended they were against if from the get-go.
I know I have changed my mind on several issues- but my memory is such that I might not remember my previous position.
Of course it is. It’s possible for memories much older than that to be accurate. It’s also possible for them to be inaccurate, or missing altogether.
It happens, especially if you havent had that memory 'refreshed" by talking to others, or reading what others wrote- that usually changes a memory- how much? It depends.