At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
I've discovered two advantages over the past couple of weeks to a monastic lifestyle. The first is that I don't have to get dressed until the pizza truck arrives with breakfast around 4 PM. The other is that I have plenty of time to think. I've been ruminating quite a bit on the state of our culture based on a part time gig I have as a substitute teacher at a local charter school. The curriculum is the usual tripe consisting of diversity studies, multi-culti awareness, and gender studies. The good news is that the twaddle apparently lacks adhesion. "Yeah, right, whatever," seems to be a common response from the students. You see, kids simply aren't politically aware at fourteen, sixteen or even eighteen. I wasn't either at their age. I didn't become politically aware until my life experience gave me a reason to think about politics. The prompt didn't arrive until I was in my early 30's. In my case it was seeing Nicaragua under the Sandinista government circa 1986. So what about you? When did you become politically aware and why?
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Nov '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
It wasn't until age 53, when I retired from a stressful job, caught up on sleep, and got the last kid out of the house that I was seriously able to pay attention to the world at large. I tell my children I'm experiencing a "perfect storm" right now, with a lifetime of experience, lots of free time, and a mind that hasn't begun to wane (although my wife would challenge that claim). The content of my first post-retirement readings-- "Atlas Shrugged" and Sowell's "Basic Econonmics"--held far more meaning for me than they would have as a college sophomore.
I also have to thank my youngest son, a PhD student in economics with a keen interest in politics, for keeping me aware of important things I've missed, bringing me to Ricochet, and challenging me intellectually.
It's not a new observation, but since I've worn those shoes, I worry that the people largely responsible for what is right with America are too busy working and rearing children to keep abreast of the entities arrayed against them, let alone learn how to counter them.
Oct '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
I was raised in a pro-life, but staunchly Democratic family in liberal New York City.The assassination of JFK, coming nearly 100 years after Lincoln's assassination, along with the early civil rights marches of the 60s, made me aware of politics. As a teen, I became politically active as a result of the assassination of Martin Luther King. Forgive me, but I worked in the McCarthy campaign, joined a civil rights group, and even worked with the SDS. Eventually, I returned to college (Rutgers) where I studied Economics and was gradually convinced the left's 'solutions' usually did more harm than good.
Edited on December 17, 2010 at 9:54amNov '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
I was in my last semester of high school when Iran released the 52 hostages. Of course, a lot of people who ordinarily wouldn't care much about politics had just emerged from 444 days of induced political awareness. I couldn't understand why all of our aircraft carriers weren't parked off the coast of Iran. When the Iranians released the hostages, I assumed it was because they were scared of Reagan and that appealed to me.
Even in my political infancy, it seemed to me that Carter was determined to shepherd an American decline, both economically and militarily. What an ugly, depressing time that was.
Ronald Reagan came along and filled me in on the concept of American Exceptionalism and I believed him. I still do. Talk about coming of age at the right time. I cherish my memories of Reagan's unfaltering optimism. They help me to think of Obama as a mere speedbump in the story of American achievement.
May '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
My first political memory is riding in a VW Microbus with dad, two uncles, and about 18 siblings and cousins. They pulled over to listen to Nixon resigning, and made us kids play in the Maine woods.
I lived in the Canal Zone from 1967-1968, so I remember well the whole Treaty stuff.
When I arrived in college I considered myself "Liberal" which I imagined meant the same thing as "smart." The first National Review I saw was the 30th Anniversary Issue. It opened my eyes. Conservatism was smart, funny, and you could wear a tuxedo without apologies.
The Bork hearings popped my cherry.
Edited on December 17, 2010 at 10:50amJun '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
I first became politically aware my freshman year of college.
I joined a fraternity and at the time the school was really cracking down on hazing. As pledges, we were required to dress up in suit and tie one day a week and carry a wooden cane.
By my sophomore year the school was trying to eliminate this along with lots of other benign activities. We were constantly being hassled and threatened with being kicked off campus and having our charter revoked. Well, at this same time a black fraternity had pledges carrying around back packs full of bricks, and were required to carry a casket full of bricks up a very steep hill in the middle of campus. Not a word from anyone in the administration. This was the first of many double standards I was to become aware of while in college. (BTW a pledge of an all black fraternity was killed during a hazing incident at this school a few years later, though it was not the same frat that carried the casket of bricks).
A friend of mine turned me on to a local guy on the radio who seemed to articulate what I believed. cont.
Jun '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
It turns out the "local guy" actually already had a national radio show based in New York. I became an avid Rush Limbaugh listener. I subscribed to "The Conservative Chronicle" and "National Review" after hearing ads for them on The Rush Limbaugh Show. My education was underway.
I soon became a political junkie. My old college roommate still makes fun of me for watching C-span and listening to Rush Limbaugh at the same time. I watched every minute of the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, skipping several classes to do so.
I have evolved recently to more of a libertarian, but I still remember fondly my political awakening back in the late 1980s.
May '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
It's interesting that some of us became aware because of foreign or ideological threats while others were awakened by domestic affairs or first-hand experience.
J. C. Casteel: It wasn't until age 53, when I retired from a stressful job, caught up on sleep, and got the last kid out of the house that I was seriously able to pay attention to the world at large.
I worry that the people largely responsible for what is right with America are too busy working and rearing children to keep abreast of the entities arrayed against them, let alone learn how to counter them.
This describes most of the folks I know.
Sep '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
Aaron Miller: It's interesting that some of us became aware because of foreign or ideological threats while others were awakened by domestic affairs or first-hand experience.
J. C. Casteel: It wasn't until age 53, when I retired from a stressful job, caught up on sleep, and got the last kid out of the house that I was seriously able to pay attention to the world at large.
I worry that the people largely responsible for what is right with America are too busy working and rearing children to keep abreast of the entities arrayed against them, let alone learn how to counter them.
This describes most of the folks I know. · Dec 17 at 4:22am
I'm following this thread with great interest.
This statement by J.C. hits home. The MSM does a great job keeping these folks distracted with trivia (political and otherwise) during the little spare time they do have.
Jun '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
I'm getting the sense from this thread that the membership here was either raised conservative or that as individuals we suffered some sort of epiphany that induced us to become conservative. I will postulate at this point that the reverse does not occur. Few liberals can say that they gave up their conservatism for the elightened values of atheism, hedonism, and promiscuity. I'm willing to bet that liberalism is caused by arrested intellectual and psychological development. In a word it's adolescent. But most people do grow out of it eventually. Based on this observation I still have hope for our youth.
Oct '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
Watching the Republican convention on TV in 1952, age 9, I became aware of party politics. I grew up surrounded by the WW2 generation, and already knew, from a little boy perspective, that events were shaped by people, and what they believed mattered. Left home at 17, and was working with a bunch of Irish communist union cable installers in Scotland in 1963 when Kennedy was assassinated... fascinating to watch their reaction. I found it hard to accept that they were so cheered by America's loss.
Have spent significant amounts of time in many countries, and really relate to Franco in his experiences. You haven't really seen the world until you get to make the formal toasts and speeches praising a bunch of communist Vietnamese apparatchiks, as the price of the ticket to get in and help their poor, or sat in the foreign ministry in Kabul for permission to help the disabled poor in 1998, or tried to inspire a sense of hope in post Soviet Russian elderly poor.
continued....
Oct '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
Hopelessly Conservative since my earliest years I've lived a life of political and cultural disappointment. The first breaks in the downward spiral were the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and the advent of Rush Limbaugh in the late '80s.
Thanks to Ricochet I have learned to moderate the expression of my views, although not the views themselves. The C of C keeps my impulses under control, and among Peter Robinson, Paul Rahe and most of you, to avoid embarrassment I am working at political civility.
Will I live long enough to see the overthrow of the current insanity and a restoration of a Constitutional America? For the first time in the last 59 years, it is beginning to appear possible.
Oct '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
I've seen the reverse occur, but the process is unnatural. In general, you have to either live a very cloistered life or resent your parents.
Sep '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
I think you are very right on this. To add a bit more anecdotal info. I know a lot of lefties. Of these, the most hard-core are sons and daughters of ministers, preachers, and staunchly religious parents. I'm talking about a subset of about twelve people. It is uncanny. Arrested development caused by trauma of dogmatism? These folks rebelled and never looked back. They hate, and I mean hate, Christians, that is, in the abstract. They are lovely people one on one though...
Jun '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
Based on the last two comments, I'm going to amend my earlier observation. Mature conservatism is rarely subject to apostasy. But I still think liberalism is adolescent in practice. Thus do we get comments from the pundits about having an adult in the White House.
Dec '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
I thought I was a democrat until after I graduated college in 07 and had to read and understand the EPA regulations. Thinking back on it, I never was given the conservative perspective but liberalism never agreed much with my gut. Since liberalism was the only perspective I was presented I concluded I just didn't like, understand, or care about politics. Then one day I heard Glenn Beck while driving to work... yea yea I know but Beck was the gateway drug into hard conservatism for me. The timing also correlated very strongly with looking at my first few pay checks from my first real job.
May '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
On the bus in first grade a bigger kid asked me who I would vote for and I said, "Nixon," to his great disgust. One of my childhood fears was of a communist invasion. I planned to hide in the treehouse when the soldiers lined Hazelnut Rd. in Westport, CT. My parents talked very seriously about the need for basement nuclear bomb shelters.
I loved and defended Reagan all through high school and college. At the same time I was becoming more religiously alive and committed, and so much more ardently pro-life.
In graduate school, I studied in Europe beside Polish students who had grown up under communism. They (and a communist Chinese fellow student) were sitting beside me while we watched the fall of Berlin wall. Also while we watched the Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown. All of my professors were dedicated to the personalist anthropology that undergirded the Solidarity movement.
During those years I read Solzhenitsyn and memoirs of people who had lived through various forms of totalitarian oppression. All of it--my religious, political and philosophical views and values--was deepening and converging.
Rush made politics fun. The internet made it an addiction.
Dec '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
I grew up fascinated by history--especially about war and empire. Maps of the Roman, Byzantine, Persian and British empires caught my attention. I was drawn to the interactions between civilizations and the constant ebb and flow of power changing hands throughout history. I always rooted for first the Greeks, then the Romans and later the Europeans.
Concepts of grand alliances, balances of power and imperial reach captured my imagination. Something about the glory of empire, perhaps. My interest in foreign and international affairs drew me into politics during my late high school and early college years. Sadly, I had a lot left to learn.
My college professors--save one--were your standard liberal faculty. We read Edward Said and Howard Zinn instead of Tocqueville and Adam Smith. I started off as what I would describe as a patriotic liberal. I loved America and wanted to see her prosper and rise in power. The idea of a strong energetic government appealed to me, as did concepts such as the UN.
In 2007 I happened to pick up a copy of National Review. I was doing a research paper on global warming. Ever since that I have gone ever right..
Sep '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
Rush made politics fun. The internet made it an addiction.
That could be Ricochet's new tag line. Rob?
May '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
Paules, this is a great thread. Thanks for another great idea!
May '10
Re: At What Age Did You Become Politically Aware?
Pseudodionysius: Rush made politics fun. The internet made it an addiction.
That could be Ricochet's new tag line. Rob? · Dec 17 at 8:37am
I'm eagerly awaiting your story, Pseudo. But I've gotta go back to my workshop.