question as per thread title, thought it would be a bit too off-topic for the other politics thread
finding it weird being back in england and seeing people holding strong beliefs about parties, issues, etc, including people who i thought weren’t really bothered in the past. got me reflecting on how they got there, and then naturally on how i got there myself
for me there is a very clear core, which was the day to day experience of being skint until i was about 25, plus the pretty transformative experience of getting out of university and not having the money to do a masters degree, and then realising that unpaid internships were a necessary thing that i simply couldn’t do through no fault of my own. that felt like a radicalizing moment in retrospect. beyond that there is a kind of superstructure of things that i’ve read on the internet which help to provide an explanation for why things are the way they are, and that naturally leads to advocating for specific policies and parties and so forth.
Been embroiled in a very lengthy email chain with my Dad which has taken this direction with me trying to communicate that my beliefs don’t come about as a result of simply being opposed to his…
I think I’ve broadly settled on the fact that they largely exist as a result of my exposure to culture from outside of my own limited experience through films and books and that and the way that builds empathy. Obviously moving away from a small village and then a small town into one of the world’s most diverse cities obviously helped.
I grew up in an affluent area of newcastle but were also pretty poor. I’m sure that had a lot to do with it.
It drives me nuts now when I say I am from fairly-affluent-area-of-newcastle and people go “oh you must be posh then” and I sound really chippy if/when I try and explain.
EDIT: I don’t know if this explains my politics or just why I’m such an embittered shoulder-chip bearer.
I think part of it with me was mainly vague dissatisfactions with how things are (i.e. the logic of the bottom line increasingly dominating everything) that I couldn’t really articulate properly (tbf I can barely articulate anything properly); what struck me about encountering more leftist figures and ideas has been that they do articulate that stuff and contextualise it within history and how things got to this situation.
I’m still not very good with articulating politically I don’t think, but I definitely know what I’m vibing with at least?
Also I loved ‘The Young Ones’ as a kid and particularly liked impersonating Rik Mayall calling everyone a fascist
My parents are tories and I grew up very comfortable middle class
When I was about 14 I “got political” and started arguing with my mum about it a bit. She said to me multiple times “you’ve just got that from Spitting Image”. I denied it at the time but there was definitely a lot of truth to it. That plus other late 80s comedy helped me see that Maggie was evil
I grew up in the late Thatcher era in a region where industry (steel) was decimated and pretty much had it drummed into me by my dad that the Tories were evil. Labour were the only viable alternative when it became time to vote and I’ve continued voting for them thereafter.
oh also when we were little and on a drive somewhere, I saw election posters everywhere, asked my sibling about it and was told “the conservatives want everyone to be poor”
Remember a canvasser coming to our house and saying to my Dad “Hello, I’m your Conservative candidate” and he said “Yes, I know who you fucking are” and my interest was piqued.
Dunno, actually. I should be a massive Tory really, live in a Tory town and have a middle class Tory family (apart from my dear Mother, she was a LD/green fan).
Internet, I suppose. Here, Twitter. Became more aware of stuff when I was a teenager and tried to educate myself a bit. Quite lucky that I’m not particularly scared to disagree with people around me, I know what my own personal moral compass is.
Like a lot of people above I also grew up poor in a former mining town and still have family members who are very much part of that community. My first disco as a kid was at the local miner’s welfare and until I was embarrassingly old I assumed everywhere had a welfare.
My Grandparents were Communists and my parents very left leaning “The Good Life” types who were both Union reps in their offices. My mother loved going on strike when I was a kid and I vividly remember being mortified seeing her on the news on picket lines. They raised me to question everything and to come to my own conclusions. To date I have always concluded that people who vote Tory have been badly brought up.
