Okay, I am sorry to quote myself but this a topic I've picked over and embodied for years, both personally and professionally.
When I shot off a bird thread about it in the grocery store parking lot in October of 2021, it resonated with a lot of people so I'm going to reproduce my words here, where there may be a different or more nuanced discussion about it.
Here goes: getting older does not make people conservative, that's a myth made by conservatives. (1/5)
(begin quote)
"Let's get something straight. Growing old doesn't make people #conservative. In fact the more marginalized identity statuses a person has, the LESS conservative they grow over time.
The reason we equate "old" with "conservative" is that #marginalization kills people off younger.
Some of the most radical people you know are old.
It's just a lot of others died before they could get there, so there's a diminishing proportion. (2/5)
There is a TON of research on this, I'm not just spitballing.
I've been in this field for decades. And I've watched the statistics I studied play out IRL over and over and over for myself and everyone I've known. (Including hundreds of clients.)
This is one of the reasons I'm so annoyed with the intergenerational divisiveness being pushed down all our throats. It's bullsht.
We have allies and enemies across every generation.
(3/5)
This is also related to the myth that "racism will die out" or "homophobia will die out" as older people die.
No, bigotry and fascistic attitudes *don't* just die out, they must be actively fought and defeated on an ongoing basis.
Because sometimes we make the mistake of thinking "Oh, the youth must not be bigoted like their forebears" but guess what.
If that were true we wouldn't have had the tiki torches or the terf explosion.
Allies and enemies in every generation.
(4/5)
(end quote of myself!)
Just as #privilege accrues the older you get, ALSO #marginalization and deprivation accrue. If you start out on the downside, you can end up much much worse off as you age.
Thank you to @mattalhonte for the following related link:
[Title: "Seniors Are More #Conservative Because the #Poor Don’t Survive to Become #Seniors, By Ed Kilgore"]
I have not gotten even a little more conservative as I've aged. And many of us ARE alive. We spent our lives working on equality. Why would we abandon those values now?
BUT as we age and get more and more marginalized. You are right about that. And that makes everything more difficult. Especially if you don't have a community any longer. I lost my people over the years. It's odd to the the repository of memory for all your friends, with them gone. But sometimes it's you.
@drooling_fan_girl @tamsen @_L1vY_ @mattalhonte I have definitely moved massively to the left. And it's specifically because I'm heavily marginalized as an autistic person. Being marginalized myself made me think beyond all the closed-minded judgmental attitudes I was taught growing up, to realize that bigotry is wrong, no matter who it's directed against, and the only judgment we should ever pass on others is for harm they do to those around them.
Sadly, I've lost the ability to hold a meaningful conversation with much of my family as a result. It's hard to stay civil when they are going on about gay people, trans people, Black people, Mexican people, disabled people, liberal people... God, the list is long. Stopping early. :(
Mother Bones
em
Drooling Fan Girl
Aaron