As you grow older

  • Thread starter Thread starter StudentMI
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

StudentMI

Guest
I’ve heard the saying that as you grow older you become more conservative. Maybe it’s different since I was into politics from a young age, but as I grow older I find myself becoming more moderate. I’m conservative culturally but politically I find myself more moderate than anything. Perhaps it’s because I went through an anarchist phase and am familiar with the bring down the state rhetoric. These days I find myself more tired than anything with such things. I find great peace from following Christ’s teachings and I’m reading the Compendium on the Social Doctrine of the Church, and seeing just plain common sense therein.
 
I am definitely Conservative, but I am also a reformed libertarian. So I actually did become more Conservative. Here’s a very “Conservative” position, that not only the Church holds, but I hold as well.
" Subsidiarity is a principle of social organization that holds that social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate (or local) level that is consistent with their resolution."Subsidiarity
Ultimately, I am more interested in serving God than political labels.
 
Last edited:
Good points. And I love the idea of subsidiarity as well.

It even extends and I hope this doesn’t dominate the discussion but even when it comes to the liturgy. I’ve gone from a super traditionalist position to more of just a live and let live type. Like when someone posted about the sign of peace just now, I thought to myself “I don’t care for the sign of peace,” then immediately came the thought “but some people like it. That’s cool for them.”
 
Falsely attributed to Winston Churchill, but still good, whoever said it:

‘If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain.’‘
 
That’s the quote I meant in the OP! I couldn’t remember it entirely lol.

For me, unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it, at 22 I was more of the “if you’re not an anarchist, you’re a statist slave” type lol.
 
StudentMI said:
unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it
Click to expand...
What I mean by this is that at 23 I began my conversion to Catholicism. Whether my path somehow circuitously led to Catholicism I wonder about. God only knows.
 
Age doesn’t have anything to do with political views. The number of old lefty hippies I know attests to that. They were lefty hippies when young and they continue to be the same at age 70 or 75.

However, if you lack money, health care, housing etc at any stage in your life then you’re probably going to support whatever party is more likely to help you with your economic needs. If, on the other hand, you have a lot of economic resources, or you gain a lot of economic resources, you will likely lean towards whatever party is going to help you hold on to what you have, rather than wanting to take a lot of it away and distribute it to others and perhaps vilify you for having resources to begin with.

The reason people become more conservative with age is often because they have gone from “have nots” (sometimes with parents who were “haves” so their own needs were met even while they were rebelling by joining the have nots), to “haves”.

My own views haven’t changed much my whole life. I’ve always been a moderate who tries to see both sides and favors government staying out of my business.
 
Last edited:
An ideal political system that suits everyone does not exist and never will
 
StudentMI said:
I’ve heard the saying that as you grow older you become more conservative. Maybe it’s different since I was into politics from a young age, but as I grow older I find myself becoming more moderate. I’m conservative culturally but politically I find myself more moderate than anything. Perhaps it’s because I went through an anarchist phase and am familiar with the bring down the state rhetoric. These days I find myself more tired than anything with such things. I find great peace from following Christ’s teachings and I’m reading the Compendium on the Social Doctrine of the Church, and seeing just plain common sense therein.
Click to expand...
Perhaps I misunderstand the political spectrum, but if you once considered yourself an anarchist and now consider yourself moderate*, have you not moved in the more-conservative direction?
*
And really, don’t we all consider ourselves moderate or centrist? I know I do.
 
Well, it’s more nuanced than that but I’m just saying as I get older I’m more tolerant. When I was younger it was about converting people to my way of thinking, it was about saving the world and all this other stuff. And strict political objectives and strategies. Now it’s more just common sense. I don’t know. I just wondered if any one else finds that happening.
 
Last edited:
I personally think that song is one of his top three greatest. I am reminded of it on a regular basis when I encounter zealous young people.
 
What about My Back Pages by Bob Dylan? I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.
 
Listening to it now.

Pounced with fire on flaming roads, using ideas as my maps…
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top