Home » Is the current generation of boys becoming more conservative? And what of girls?

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Is the current generation of boys becoming more conservative? And what of girls? — 9 Comments

  1. And lastly, if a boy wanted to be rebellious in earlier years, liberalism or leftism were the ways to go.
    _______

    That was not true in the NY suburbs where I grew up. It was already “unorthodox” to be conservative. And of course, in college in the 1970s it was more so.

    Actually, Chesterton noticed this when he came out with Orthodoxy in 1908. It was already a rebellious act back then.

  2. I write this as someone who was once a high school girl, though a looooooong time ago: High school girls are nuts. I was nuts in high school.

    I wonder where all that survey was taken.

    I grew up in a small rural town. The only girls in my high school who were nuts were the ones who were conservative. They were from more religious families, usually farmers, though not always. They had a better direction on what they wanted to do: Most went to college and majored in something useful, like nursing, engineering, or computer science. They got married at a reasonable age and had children. I envy them. In a good way.

  3. Did the pollsters limit their sample to kids who accepted their biological sex and the gender binary? Given the transmania of recent years, that’s a reasonable question.

  4. If we have youths committed to learning a trade, earning a living, being a father, being a husband, taking care of their property, saving money, not wishing for more than you can afford, controlling one’s appetites, having gratitude for the efforts of their ancestors and the gifts they have in the here and now, the politics will follow.

  5. At least we now have a snap shot of what the yutes are thinking. (Nod to My Cousin Vinny)

  6. Men have typically been the risk-takers in society. Your last paragraph hints at self-preservation/reluctance to be open. If that’s the case, then perhaps the feminization of Men is complete. We can expect the Gods of the Copybook Headings shortly.

  7. Many high school boys have other things on their mind. Others probably were annoyed by the question. Also, a lot of conservative young people don’t want to be seen as “Young Conservatives.” Their “conservatism” is expressed by not buying into the progressive orthodoxy and by not being overtly political. Activist young movement conservatives can be embarassing even to others who might share their beliefs but don’t attract attention by expressing them. I don’t know if you have the same phenomenon on the left. The most embarassing activists and politicians don’t seem to get much pushback from other progressives or liberals. The cringe factor doesn’t seem to be there.

    Chesterton may have been thinking of his own milleu — the literary and intellectual “chattering classes.” If you were growing up in a farm town in his day, you could get a lot of rebelliousness out of your system by being a socialist, atheist, anarchist, or revolutionary. Today, we’re all living in the world of the chattering classes, and being conservative is a way of rebelling. That was noticeable even in the 1950s when William Buckley was becoming a cult figure. It is true, though, that plenty of today’s young socialists grew up at a time when Communism and socialism were assumed to be dead forever. They probably considered themselves to be rebels and non-conformists, whether they really were or not.

  8. “…in the mid 1970s it was the reverse – significantly more liberal than conservative for the boys.”

    In the mid 1970s, “Liberal” didn’t mean what it means now. Now it means “Progressive”, which is a different thing altogether.

  9. 60’s and 70’s. Never mind the fancy talk.

    Just mention modern art, civil rights, or primitive cultures and you’re in like Flynn!

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