Get our politics from our parents? It may be true of many, but not necessarily for the most thoughtful. I was raised in an extremely conservative family (as to both politics and religion) and embraced the ideology enthusiastically. I went away to a religious university sponsored by my denomination, majoring in political science, hoping to work in support of right-wing religious conservative candidates.
At a religious, conservative university, I studied original source documents and came to realize that, while many parents and teachers were sincere, the ideology was a lie. It was not a message of lifting people up, but of lifting up the few richest elites who treated both politics and religion as a scam. (I also became aware of inconsistencies in the religious aspects as to doctrine, morality and consistency within “scripture” that was supposed to be inerrant and infallible).
I was glad to have had that experience, because I felt if I had gone to the “godless state college” first, I would have felt a great deal of resistance, believing them to be trying to feed me propaganda. But going to a university promoting my same initial values, and discovering for myself how fraudulent they are, I was able (after two years) to transfer to that “godless state university” to get a more objective, balanced education that made sense of the original source materials I had studied.
As to my politically/religiously conservative family, they felt I had “gone astray,” but they understood that I was sincere in my beliefs, treated me with respect, and we remained close.
Get our politics from our parents? It may be true of many, but not necessarily for the most thoughtful. I was raised in an extremely conservative family (as to both politics and religion) and embraced the ideology enthusiastically. I went away to a religious university sponsored by my denomination, majoring in political science, hoping to work in support of right-wing religious conservative candidates.
At a religious, conservative university, I studied original source documents and came to realize that, while many parents and teachers were sincere, the ideology was a lie. It was not a message of lifting people up, but of lifting up the few richest elites who treated both politics and religion as a scam. (I also became aware of inconsistencies in the religious aspects as to doctrine, morality and consistency within “scripture” that was supposed to be inerrant and infallible).
I was glad to have had that experience, because I felt if I had gone to the “godless state college” first, I would have felt a great deal of resistance, believing them to be trying to feed me propaganda. But going to a university promoting my same initial values, and discovering for myself how fraudulent they are, I was able (after two years) to transfer to that “godless state university” to get a more objective, balanced education that made sense of the original source materials I had studied.
As to my politically/religiously conservative family, they felt I had “gone astray,” but they understood that I was sincere in my beliefs, treated me with respect, and we remained close.