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.
Gee, this is nothing new, considering
the fact that schools &
universities are (mostly liberal) brain
washing institutions.....
They're promoting conformity, creating followers instead of leaders
& shutting down independent thinkers.....
All while pretending they're superior, lol
Highly educated Americans are more liberal because higher education brainwashes them into extreme liberal views. Those teaching in college and grad school usually spent very little (if any) time in the "real world" working "real" jobs--they instead surround themselves with other academics and their super-liberal, ivory tower philosophies. They've never even read the insightful works of intellectuals on the other side of the spectrum, like Thomas Sowell, or George Will.
Liberalism is a religion to them; they don't want to understand the details and make hard choices, they want to push an ideology. They don't want to hear that in order for a welfare mother to get another $1,000 a month to care for her many children, hard-working taxpayers have to work to earn an extra $3,000 to send to Washington (to pay for the Big Government that administers the countless programs).
If college and university professors were required to FIRST have had a successful career in the private sector, before moving onto becoming professors, the group of highly educated people in America would become far more Libertarian--socially liberal, but fiscally conservative.
This seems like common sense for me... Critical thinkers tend to be more liberal. Also, people who have met a lot of people with varying ideas and from different places tend to be more open-minded/liberal. University and travel are good ways to be exposed to different people and ideas.
Liberals or the better term Progressive or what I like to call them "Regressives" turn on you when you have a different opinion.
People learn the basics and automatically think they are experts. Once people learn something, a new path opens up with more information, thus showing they don't know as much as they thought. Many educated people don't bother to expand their knowledge beyond the basics.
I think political party affiliation has more to do with age and demographic than education level.
Older people who are well educated tend to be more conservative. Younger people who lack and education tend to be more liberal. Younger people in general tend to be more liberal.
But yes, educated people are more accepting of people from other backgrounds, and often want to help people.
I have a masters degree and I am a libertarian leaning republican. (I am also atheist). I did work with many liberal colleagues at the university but I also had conservative colleagues. This article generalizes too much.
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.
I agree that travel and really getting to know people from other countries makes a huge difference. I actually homeschool my own kids, but with a liberal worldview. We have traveled, but more importantly, we host foreign exchange students for a year at a time. My children are quite open-minded toward others, and I think a large part of it stems from having "sisters" from various parts of the world. It's hard to denigrate Spanish speakers when you've had one living with you for a year, teaching you how to make paella and having issues with nosy parents at home, and teaching you all the bad words in her language.
I don't know what makes a person identify more as a liberal, but I don't think it's always education, or at least not a formal education. I'm well read, I'm well traveled and I am a Christian. All of those things, and having parents that believed in volunteering, helped shape me into a liberal. My 85 year old mother and my 22 year old son are also liberals. Age has little to do with basic beliefs from what I've seen.
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.
You're totally right, but all this goes away when you meet a girl you love and who is conservative. You can even convert to her religion if need be... love makes us blind!
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.
