Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
If we're talking strictly party lines, from the 2012 exit polls, Obama won the high school drop-out vote 64-35, the high school graduate vote 51-48, the some college vote 49-48, and the post-graduate vote 55-42, while Romney won the college graduate vote 51-47.
I fall into the post-graduate vote and consider myself liberal, but I agree that the smugness is annoying.
From my experience, family friends, and co workers (in the days of working) I do not necessarily buy this. think it depends more on where in the country you are raised than your education. For instance, those living in NE are certainly more liberal than many regions. On the other hand, Doctors are inclined to be more conservative as are engineers. People in the education field more liberal. Lawyers are more liberal, overall. I will buy your comment about kids being raised in a university town, especially if it is a small town. I think the perfect example is right here in NWA. Because we have 3 large corporations headquartered here, most of the people living in the 3 counties near by are transplants from other parts of the country. By far, the most liberal city is Fayetteville, where the university of AR is located.
Based on the study you refer to, you are right, but studies usually have an agenda, thus they are slanted.
For everyone who wants to claim victory on this subject, there will be another who feels opposite. My dad, had 3 bach degrees and 2 masters; he was a moderate conservative: my son in law has an masters in engineering and holds 11 patents. He and his wife are conservatives as are most of my husbands cousins who are engineers with advanced degrees. My husbands 2 best friends are conservative: well one is dead: both are Stanford grads. One was a CPA, the other had his PHD in Engineering. I could go on and on. I do think kids right out of college are more liberal. But many people as they age become more conservative.
As I said this has been debated over and over: there is no true answer.
The country has become polarized into strongly liberal and strongly conservative factions, with a moderate unaffiliated centrist faction of about 10% that tends to swing the elections (hence the term "swing voters").
Most K-12 schools and universities poll heavily Democratic; some say 70%, others say 80%. Regardless, education is a strongly liberal and Democratic place and of course they inculcate their values on the next generation, much to the distress of the conservatives, who have been moving their children into religious schools, charters, or home school situations at a brisk pace the past couple of decades.
Conservative professors find themselves ostracized by their colleagues and, sometimes, viciously criticized. There have been many incidents published in recent years. College students who don't toe the line on issues like BDS (boycott of Israel) or ObamaCare have found themselves similarly ostracized and even physically threatened. It's a grim situation on campus these days for a conservative or even a moderate who feels like speaking out.
I don't see that big a difference between today and, say, the late 1960s and the 1970s; the schools then seemed very liberal. Schools and colleges are full of young people, who of course are very liberal, as well as academics who never really left school and so remained very liberal. The hope is that the students, at least, will some day grow up and become more balanced in their expectations: "Norman Thomas socialism" doesn't work, high taxes hurt when you're trying to raise a family, and a strong military is best kept (and best not used).
I have the complete opposite experience. My highly educated community is very liberal and my highly educated friends are ALL liberal leaning. The conservatives I know all make fun of education- mostly cause they don't have one.
Liberals have this strange need to prove that they are smarter than everyone else.
And lately, they also want to prove that they are richer and more successful than everyone else.
They've turned into the conformist, status-conscious, bourgeois little Babbits that they used to regard with horror in the 1960s.
1960s liberals and leftists styled themselves as "working class heroes" -- or as drop-outs contemptuously rejecting "the system" and rejecting intellectual elitism and materialism.
Liberals today are the very thing that liberals of the 1960s hated.
Idealistic young people, beware.....you are being conned.
I'm more of a liberal than a conservative, but there is a lot of truth to what you say, unfortunately. A subpopulation of liberals in the U.S ARE very much like how describe them. They drive me freaking nuts. BUT there are plenty of conservatives who fit this profile, too.
I wouldn't confuse "highly educated" with intelligence or the ability to think critically. The more education one receives the more indoctrinated they become.
I wouldn't confuse "highly educated" with intelligence or the ability to think critically. The more education one receives the more indoctrinated they become.
It depends of the education in question. Scientific classes, especially fundamental science, would bring a level of critical thinking that is rarely questioned. Engineering could, but to a lesser extend, because they apply formulas and equations rather than designing them. I believe if you are into philosophy, you should also have a certain level of critical thinking.
The point is, not everyone with an education has this education that can help to elevate the discussion. And I agree that you could think critically without going into such education path but is that really the way it is in general?
Also, I am not sure why one would not become liberal at some point. It's very human to sympathize with the other one. I know my father told me that you begin leaning to the left, and move to the right once you live comfortably. To a certain extend, that is true.
However, even though I do want to have lower taxes (now that I am in the higher marginal tax rates for IRS and state taxes), I could accept those level of taxes if the urban, health care and education infrastructures would be provided for everyone, including those in needs. You see, my problem is not to help the others, it's the fact that despite that level of taxes, the people in needs are not receiving anything sufficient to live with dignity. And that, I don't understand.
If the conclusion is that we cannot help those in needs because that's structural, then fine, lower my taxes instead. Or, use them to provide a better world to everyone. That would be my thought process.
It depends of the education in question. Scientific classes, especially fundamental science, would bring a level of critical thinking that is rarely questioned. Engineering could, but to a lesser extend, because they apply formulas and equations rather than designing them. I believe if you are into philosophy, you should also have a certain level of critical thinking.
Wishful thinking again, it takes a curious mind and some interest in a subject to truly learn basics, not speaking of the critical thinking about the subject. A generic student is owerhelmed, he has no time for all that critical thinking stuff or even basics. How exactly do you imagine a generic student developing&applying critical thinking to challenge let's say Electromagnetic Theory or Complex Number Theory or anything, if he barely has time to skim cram and apply crumbles of superficial knowledge to solve a few bare bone problems, earn a passing grade and move on. Quite to the contrary, college level psysical sciences dont allow much room for "critical thinking", it is not up to an ignorant student to think critically about something he has little clue about.
In my own experience, the tendency to swing to the right or left as an adult has little to do with your higher education (though, I'm willing to admit that most public University professors lean leftwards) and more to due with a mixture of the ideology of your upbringing, your geographic location, and whether you have lived or spent an extended amount of time outside of the US.
In my own experience growing up in the Midwest in a very religious, conservative home, being home schooled and then obtaining graduate degrees from both religiously-affiliated and public colleges, the shift in my ideology occurred not because of my education but rather my subsequent experiences.
What I mean by this statement is I was raised in the school of Conservative thought that bought wholesale into American Exceptionalism - the belief that the combination of Judeo-Christian values present in American society are morally and philosophically superior to the values of other cultures and nations.
The biggest shift away from this ideology came when I began actually travelling and living for extended periods outside of the United States. I think it becomes much harder to put America on a pedestal in all areas of policy making when you start experiencing the way that other parts of the world tackle issues. There is nothing black and white. Just like other countries, American values and policies are not right 100% of the time, and we can learn things from other nations just as they can learn from us. American Exceptionalism would have us believe that the ideologies and values of the United States should, ideally, be the values of the world, a belief that I can no longer wholeheartedly embrace.
So yes, although I do not have the data to back it up, I would suggest that extended interaction with non-American cultures and values greatly influences the shift leftwards much more than the degree of higher education obtained. There can, of course, be a correlation between these two groups due to income levels, etc which may account for some similarities. Additionally, I think it worth noting that due to advancements in travel and technology, current generations are much more well-traveled than in the past, and today's generation has much more of an opportunity to interact with people of other cultures through the Media and the internet than ever before. Because of this, we are not so dependent upon what others tell us about other countries when we can visit them and decide for ourselves.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
