A few days ago I came across a chart showing that high school boys had gotten suddenly more conservative over the past couple of years. Unfortunately, after a frustrating search I was unable to track down the source data, so eventually I gave up on it and moved on.
But I've since seen a couple of similar claims, though without much data to back them up. For example, one survey shows that Gen Z men are a little less likely than others to say "Feminism has made America a better place." This is mildly suggestive but hardly evidence of a sharp turn to the right. That's especially true since other responses from the same survey generally portray Gen Z men as a little more liberal in their views toward women than older men:
None of this is close to definitive. I was still curious, though, so I turned to the good old reliable General Social Survey. They've been asking people for decades if they consider themselves liberal or conservative, and they break down the answers in a variety of ways.
What I found was surprisingly clear. In most ways, there's been little change in political ID. Among Blacks and whites, high school and college educated, married and single, identification as liberal or conservative has bounced around a bit but has generally stayed fairly steady. But there are two exceptions:
Young men were pretty stable in their ID until 2022, when they suddenly and inexplicably started to identify as dramatically more conservative. This spike didn't show up for either women or for older age groups. Only for young men.
This is about clear as it can be: for some reason, over the course of a single year, young men became noticeably more conservative. But why? Is it related to either the pandemic or the backlash to pandemic protections such as masking? Is it related to Donald Trump and his crowd of MAGA copycats? Or maybe to the growing popularity of Joe Rogan, Andrew Tate, and other champions of the "new masculinity"? Is it a backlash against wokeness?
Beats me. I can't make sense of it, and I don't know if it's just a brief upsurge or the start of a long-term trend. But for now, at least, it's real.
I think it's more like a knee-jerk response to the greater left-ness of their age cohort in general.
Where the naturally less liberal types are more aggressively so.
No doubt, this is at last part of it. I think your use of "aggressive" nails it as well. The cultural left jihadists evoke in myself - a dyed in the wool commie pinko democratic socialist - a strong "go f*** yourself" emotional response. Not too tricky to imagine an emotionally like for like response from young bucks who've had it with all the moral righteousness.
So what's the difference between a "cultural left jihadist" and a "commie pinko democratic socialist" because those sound like the same thing?
I think the emergence of Bro type podcasts like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson have stoked the anti trans movement by doubling down on toxic masculinity
Before any substantive explanations consider a technical one. Young men are the hardest to reach by polls. And one solution is to weight the ones you get very heavily. This can cause fluctuations based on which few actually responded.
How come there's a line for men and a line for 18-34? Should there not be one line, for men aged 18-34? Or does the data not break down this way? Presumably it's possible that men got more conservative outside the 18-34 age bracket, and women age 18-34 got more conservative as well (granted, seems unlikely)? Or is this ruled out by other parts of the dataset?
By coincidence check out today's Wordle,
https://postimg.cc/xqw2wQK1
Or, go and solve it if you haven't.
don't play angry!
Congrats on 2. I resisted, got it in 4. A legit word, of course, but particularly un-Wordle-like.
(FTR, the answer today was on the original Josh Wardle list, so it's not a NYT addition like GUANO.)
I got it in one once, DREAM.
But it was on my phone and I didn't know how to take a screenshot so no one will ever believe me.
I believe you!
My "got it in 1" was TRAIN.
That was when I used different first words every day. Now I use the same and I'm not even sure it's a potential answer.
The only surprising thing to me in this is that the jump is in 2021-22, without a gradual increase starting around 2012 at earliest or 2016 at latest. I think it's more likely that there was that gradual increase since 2016 at a minimum than that there was a sudden increase from one year to another, and that there was a flaw in methodology somewhere that resulted in the chart we see above.
FWIW The chart here from a few months ago does show a growing divergence between young men and young women beginning during the Obama years. Women are trending more liberal. Men, unlike the chart above, are about the same.
Above, the 18-23 (Gen Z) cohort is less conservative then their slightly older brothers. Not sure it's worth reading too much into any of it.
Anecdotal evidence here... I have a 19 year old son. He (a political moderate) tells me a number of white male buddies of his are inclined towards liberalism and tolerance but at the same time are tired of being labelled as the bad oppressor guy by some of the more vocal folks on the left and on how equity demands that someone other than them get nice things.
Can't say I blame them too much. Can't explain the sudden lurch though. Maybe they changed how they did the survey slightly or something.
Whether it plays into the charts above, I don't know.
But I do think we're at a confusing time culturally. There's much well-deserved push-back against favored groups of the past and celebration of other groups today. Men (and whites) don't have to look hard to find some liberals showing them disrespect, at the least. The conservative movement continues to be a radical bunch of lunatics, or conservo outreach might be more successful. Meanwhile, liberals could do a better job of making young men (and whites) more welcome.
Well, when you phrasse it as equity demands that someone other than them gets nice things it tends to frame the premise as a zero-sum game. Is that necessarily true? Especially when the resources to be allocated are respect, tolerance, deference, etc.
Hey ScentofViolets, We are talking about stuff like openings at universities, scholarship money, and job opportunities. So that stuff is certainly zero-sum!
Actually, from what I have seen of these guys and from what my son (and daughter) say, these guys are usually authentically respectful and tolerant, much better than my generation was!
Could you elaborate on how these guys are being squeezed out of unviversity openings and scholarship money? What are they majoring in? Because being squeezed out of a STEM (or STEAM) slot is different from being squeezed out of a slot in, say, Business & Public Administration, at least from what I've seen at the places I've taught.
Hi ScentofViolets- Not sure why you are fighting so hard on this --- it is an obvious truth. If you are being "being squeezed out of a slot" it means it IS zero-sum and it is hurting the person being squeezed out, And there is a limited amount of scholarship money and if I get it you do not. That is zero sum.
She is often immune to logic
A disproportionate amount of scholarship money and admissions slots go to white males. If that becomes somewhat less disproportionate, then someone is getting "squeezed out,' but not in a way that is actually unfair. Let's say your state is 70% white and 50% male, but the state university is 80% white and 55% male, and white males get 60% of the scholarship money. If next year the student body is 78% white and 54% male, and white males get 58% of the scholarship money, then the least qualified (or least well connected) white male is getting "squeezed out," but in a totally fair world he might not have been admitted and given scholarship money in the first place.
The state demographics are irrelevant. Not all people in the state are equally qualified to be accepted to the university.
Duhhhhhh goes the buzz of consciousness running on the Slaver apologists brain.
I don't doubt that your son's friends had somebody somewhere make them feel like "bad oppressor guys." In a country of 330M people, somebody somewhere is probably saying every possible conceivable thing.
However...
Are your son's friends so fragile that they can't just shrug off such criticism? I mean, seriously, it's just words. I rarely hear somebody call me an oppressor to my face, but on the few occasions that this does happen - for example, at a gay bar when black lesbians were saying this to my group of all white gay men - I simply stopped engaging with those people. Just walk away. Those women didn't know me and my life story, just like I have no idea what their life struggles were. Maybe they're right? Maybe they're wrong? But I'm happy with almost all the moral choices I've made in my life, and I know there's no need to have to justify myself to anybody else but myself. I'll never see those women again in my life, so who gives a fck what they think of me or my friends?
Are they not teaching this - I don't know what to call it, maybe internal emotional resilience? - to kids these days?
I suspect very strongly that engaging in mostly online interactions tends to degrade ones skill at in-person interactions, both in interepation of what others say and in the responses to what was thought to have been said.
Hey Austin, these are mostly college kids we are talking about. Campuses are filled with excessive woke rhetoric orthodoxy, often in classes. And these are just 19-year-old guys. I am glad that you have made peace with this all in your world. But kind of dismissing their concerns and discomfort as them being "fragile" --- well, that is almost exactly the kind of thing that drives them to the right.
I am generally liberal and sympathetic to many of these goals, but the rhetoric and excess is really noxious, unnecessarily so, and its driving people away.
"Campuses are filled with excessive woke rhetoric orthodoxy"
What is "woke rhetoric orthodoxy", and what does it mean to say that it is excessive on campuses?
Generally, there is currently a pronounced attempt by progressives to make fringe groups feel welcome. Is that a bad thing?
So, for example, pronouns. That seems to be what really gets conservatives steamed, and I don't get it. This is where the idea that conservatives are fragile comes in. If you're bowled over by pronouns, you just don't have a firm foundation at all.
Or is it something else? The problem with "woke" is that it's one of those phrases that means different things to different people. I feel like when progressives use it, it usually means something pretty specific, but when conservatives use it, they actually don't intend you to understand what it is they are talking about - rather they want you to focus on the word as something which they're telling you is bad.
Hey Unsunder, there is some wild progressive rhetorical excess out there and it is especially pronounced on campuses. I am not going to list every instance, but a couple samples: Latinx, San Francisco changing the name of its public schools named after Abraham Lincoln, cancelling Al Franken. Now, most of these guys are decent and tolerant people but when you keep calling them assholes, well, it alienates them, you know?
You are living in a fantasy world if you dismiss this stuff as irrelevant. Its driving potential political allies away and helping the electoral odds of disasters like Trump and DeSantis.
“But kind of dismissing their concerns and discomfort as them being "fragile" --- well, that is almost exactly the kind of thing that drives them to the right.”
Ah yes. The whole “your unkind words to me made me become a nazi” argument, yet again. I’m not dismissing their concerns at all. I’m saying that they need to learn to just let insults roll off them, as most functional adults do. (That whole “sticks and stones may break my bones but names/words will never hurt me” lesson that many of us used to be taught in elementary school.)
If they know in their hearts they aren’t oppressors or whatever, then somebody else who doesn’t know anything about them calling them an oppressor should just be ignored. You know, the way that I personally ignore being called a pedophile, a groomer, whatever just because I’m gay. The world is full of haters and being an adult requires you to just ignore them if you know what they’re saying isn’t true. (I doubt very much that these college kids are being doxxed or anything, and are merely just hearing from some self-righteous people that they’re “bad” in some way. Welcome to the world that everyone *but* straight white Christian men have been living in for forever!)
Also, these may “just be 19-year old guys” but this country tries children as young as 10 as adults when it comes to criming. Perhaps these 19-year old guys need to get moving on becoming adult men?
Austin, your entire argument seems to be these 19-year old guys should just suck it up. That's exactly my point, being told to "suck it up" is irritating as shit.
No fucking shit, it's irriating. And these guys are just now figuring out something the rest of us have had to live with for years?
I suspect you have very little idea of what happens on a college campus and in a college classroom. 18-22 years olds, as a whole, tend to be more sarcastic and obnoxious than most people, and also more sensitive. That has ALWAYS been the case. But this sort of obnoxious "rhetoric and excess" is pretty rare from what I can see after almost 30 years in higher ed.
+1
Obviously some methodological change.
Yeah - this is likely a methodological change. Or noise. Let's see if this result persists for several years.
Is there a working definition of "conservative" that went with this poll? If so, what is it?
Otherwise, I'd say it's pretty meaningless.
I'm pretty conservative by European standards, but by GOP standards I'm a radical socialist. What used to be Rockefeller Republicans when I was growing up are now considered left-wing. Heck, Republicans consider Biden to be left-wing, which is so silly it would make a dog laugh.
This comes up again and again and again! Is an 'Eisenhower Republican' to be considered liberal, these days, or conservative? How about back in '56? OTOH and to be fair, I'm fairly sure that 'Rockerfeller Republican' has always signified conservative, nothing more and nothing less.
Perhaps you misspoke, but "Rockefeller Republican" has always been the term for the liberal/moderate wing of the GOP that got trounced in 1964.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Republican
Um, yes, I did, thanks. I said 'Rockefeller' when I meant 'Goldwater'. I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled ;-/ which I learned at about the same time these gents were current.
"I'm undoubtedly a liberal, which means that I'm in almost total agreement with the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform."
— Rachel Maddow
The most popular voice on today's solitary "left-wing"* news outlet is an Eisenhower Republican.
* Of course, MSNBC is not left-wing. A slew of NeverTrump GOPers are on the air all day as hosts and guests. Its bias is towards the Democratic Party, home to most sane people who follow politics. But that doesn't make it left-wing.
The Republican party platform of 1952, available here:
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1952
opposes federal regulation of health insurance and supports a balanced budget, the gold standard, a reduction in government regulation of business, and the use of the intelligence services to root out communists in the federal government.
Rachel Maddow insults the intelligence of her audience when she claims that she is anything like an Eisenhower-era republican.
Thomas Kuchel was an Eisenhower Republican He was a Senator representing California in the early 60’s. He said this about the Goldwater/Reagan faction of the party:
“ During the 1966 California gubernatorial primary, Kuchel was urged by moderates to run against conservative actor Ronald Reagan. Citing the hostilities of the growing conservative movement, Kuchel decided not to run. He instead issued a negative statement about the conservatives: "A fanatical neo-fascist political cult of right-wingers in the GOP, driven by a strange mixture of corrosive hatred and sickening fear that is recklessly determined to control our party or destroy it!" In May 1963, Kuchel attacked the right-wing movement in the Senate in a speech, describing them as not conservatives, but "radicals with a capital R" and that the movement defiled conservatism.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kuchel
There were Republicans in those days who weren’t lunatics so I can see how a more conservative Democrat might find people like them appealing. Not surprising that Kuchel was primaried the next time he ran. That seat has been held by a Democrat since then.
Also, and I just looked it up, Kuchel voted “yea” to Medicare.
And of course, the Republicans of Eisenhower's day were stone against the so-called 'military-industrial complex', amirite? Further:
Yeah, Eisenhower the conservative is _totally_ in sync with the Republican idealogues he had to work with back in his day. /s
Once again, you attempt to insult the collective intellgence of the regulars. Once again, your attempts only highlight your own incompetence and general ineptitude at reasoning your way through an argument. Is there _anything_ you're good at? We know it's not anything to do with either mathematics or lawyering 😉
But you were wrong about the exponential distribution. My hypothetical concerned how long before something occurs. Because that affects whether the person had enough time to save up for it.
We are interested in the probability that an event occurs within a certain amount to time. The amount of time is the variable. Not the number of events. So the probability distribution function is:
P(X<=x) = 1 - exp(-rate*x)
The Poisson distribution concerns probability of a given number of events occurring in a fixed interval of time.
But that would make no sense for the hypothetical, would it? Why does our hypothetical saver, who chose not to buy insurance because they thought they could instead cover losses out of saved premiums, care how many times something occurs in a fixed time interval? They only care whether they can accumulate enough money to cover the loss before the loss occurs.
Anyway. Your students weep.
Here, Rachel Maddow claims that she is "in almost total agreement with the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform."
She did not say that she was in agreement with Eisenhower.
Or with some random Republican.
She said "the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform." And the Eisenhower-era 1952 Republican party platform calls for the gold standard, balanced budget, a reduction in government regulation of business, and the use of the intelligence services to root out communists in the federal government.
Which I doubt she supports.
Odd that you fail to mention the 1956 GOP platform, which includes such statements as:
"The legitimate object of Government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities"
and
"In all those things which deal with people, be liberal, be human."
The party platform also included "vigorous" support for the United Nations, a commitment to labor and collective bargaining, praise for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and of federal support for primary and secondary education, greater support for the US Postal System, increased self-government for the District of Columbia, etc., etc.
There's a list as long as your arm of policies and proposals that the modern Republican party is at odds with.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1956
Since this is a poll of Americans I'm pretty sure European political standards did not factor in at all.
Meanwhile, young women are leaning to the left, and those young men are getting laid less and less.
Well that's on them. I mean, nobody owes you sex, and nobody is forced to verbalize everything that floats through their brain. So these men have a choice to make: either tone down all the conservatism in their conversations, or settle for jerking off alone more. Part of being an adult is being able to control your impulses, like the impulse to do anything that past experience has taught you leads other people to label you a jerk.
Well, it could also mean theres a confounding factor at work, right? My personal, anecdotal, and highly unscientific take is that a) more women than men graduate from college these days and b) not only are more women going to college relative to times past, they are also earning more of the sorts of degrees associated with the higher income brackets, i.e., STEM, the legal and financial professsions, etc.
TL;DR: IOW, perhaps these guys aren't as economically attractive as in days past. But rather than upskill to remain competitive in the dating and mating market, they choose to blame everyone but themselves ... the sin qua non of the modal conservate.
You might be on to something. My workplace has hired five engineers in the past three years or so, all of them young and entry-level.
They are two women and three men, and two of those men are Latino. Only one white male engineer out of five hired.
/ anecdata
Upskill how? Single guys are more fit, well dressed and well groomed, than at any time previously. They know sexual anatomy, their meyer briggs and can probably even cook.
Won't solve the problem of female hypergamy, which you correctly point out is becoming structurally unworkable.
But are they more educated? The available and admittedly scanty evidence says no.
Chart above:
"A real man would never say no to sex."
Men 24 to 37 agree more than the average fellow.
Maybe because it's been so long?
Haha.
If you spend any time in the comment sections of sports sites like ESPN or Bleacher Report (young male dominated) you’ll see a lot of hard-Right sentiment - most of these guys are very naïve politically & are susceptible to conservative influencers. The Right is targeting this demographic hard.
For the bit about Feminism.
My mom had job applications rejected because she was an unmarried woman.
I get to watch the managing partner (f) and another partner (f) lecture the female associates in a conference room full of junior associates on the importance of attending female-only networking events. While the male associates fixedly stare into space and avoid making eye contact with anyone.
Perhaps this is just an anomaly in the methodology that produced an outlier.
Seems what's needed is to know where men in these age brackets are getting their news. foxnews.com's audience is 70% male. The largest age group of visitors are 25 - 34 year olds.
The meaning of nebulous terms like "liberal" and "conservative" shift quite rapidly. For instance, today's "conservatives" would have been described as "reactionary" when I was younger. Also, the perceived social desirability of different political positions changes with both time and place, and a lot of people, especially younger people, will ascribe to themselves the position they perceive as more desirable, regardless of how incongruent it is with their actual beliefs.
I generally agree with the somewhat prevalent view in these comments that the seeming lurch towards "conservatism" is a reaction against an uncompromising form of otherwise well-intentioned activism on the Left.
I would, however, add a point about the age group. If 18-34 year-olds are the ones showing the change, I would suspect that this development could be a reaction to an especially virulent form of Left-leaning narrowmindedness on campus.
I grew up identifying as a Liberal, but I've spent a fair amount of time on campus lately, both as a grad student and a TA, and I just don't identify with a lot of the lefty sentiments I encounter there.
My own school recently had an embarrassing incident where an invited speaker was chased away by students who were seemingly determined to deprive that speaker of their right to express their ideas.
And the news is full of such stories these days; just check out publications like the Chronicle of Higher Ed or Inside Higher Ed.
In order for me to continue thinking of myself as Liberal, I have to look at behavior like that and classify it as something else. I usually think of it as Leftism, Leftist extremism, or something like that. But I suspect that many 18-34 year-olds might be looking at what's going on around them and thinking, "If that's the Left, I must be Conservative."
Such people may actually be closer to Liberalism than they realize, but Liberalism needs more high profile supporters in order to attract their attention. It seems like an awfully long time ago when one of our more eloquent statesmen made this statement:
"We do a disservice to the cause of justice by intimating that bias and discrimination are immutable, that racial division is inherent to America. If you think nothing’s changed in the past 50 years, ask somebody who lived through the Selma or Chicago or Los Angeles of the 1950s. Ask the female CEO who once might have been assigned to the secretarial pool if nothing’s changed. Ask your gay friend if it’s easier to be out and proud in America now than it was thirty years ago. To deny this progress, this hard-won progress -– our progress –- would be to rob us of our own agency, our own capacity, our responsibility to do what we can to make America better."
That, of course, was President Obama in 2015. But if he spoke like that on campus today, I suspect his words would lead to a lot of complaints from lefty students who might conclude that he's an arch-conservative.
In regards to the timeline of the apparent lurch towards conservatism (2021-2022), I would say it might be a slightly delayed effect from the infamous hard-Left turn so many progressives took after the George Floyd killing in 2020.
But why would this change mostly be noticeable among males? As others here have indicated, white (straight) males may be the prime "target" of the hard Left turn I'm talking about. There is, of course, a more positive perspective where recent developments can be viewed as an era of increased opportunities for previously marginalized groups. But it's often the Leftists themselves who phrase their activism in adversarial terms against potential allies. And it's just not surprising at all if many of those potential allies wind up turning away.
I generally agree with the somewhat prevalent view in these comments that the seeming lurch towards "conservatism" is a reaction against an uncompromising form of otherwise well-intentioned activism on the Left.
The reason I find that explanation unlikely is that significant swaths of the left have been becoming more uncompromising and more militant/less tolerant for years now. It's been gradual, if perhaps accelerating. But the data (if valid) point to a burst of right wing sentiment starting shortly after the beginning of this decade. Gee, I wonder what happened at that point to set things off?
"Gee, I wonder what happened at that point to set things off?"
The George Floyd killing.
But, sure, there could certainly be other contributing factors ...
“their right to express their ideas”
Nobody has a right to express their ideas. Freedom of speech is just that the government can’t stop you from expressing your ideas. But nobody else has to platform you. And if your ideas are totally horrible, you’re going to find that lots of people will actively try to keep you from expressing your ideas. And rightfully so, since some ideas really are too reprehensible to be given a platform. (For example: the ideas that pedophilism is ok, or that “white people should stay the hell away from black people” are going to find tens of millions of people shouting those people down… and rightfully so, as those ideas are repugnant.)
Regarding this:
"Freedom of speech is just that the government can’t stop you from expressing your ideas. "
My example above was specifically in regards to a state university, and "The U.S. Supreme Court has long held that the First Amendment's freedom of speech tenets fully apply to public universities." (from UW Milwaukie).
But the FIRE organization also eloquently explains the case why private institutions of Higher Ed should follow the same free speech principles:
"Private universities are not directly bound by the First Amendment, which limits only government action. However, the vast majority of private universities have traditionally viewed themselves—and sold themselves—as bastions of free thought and expression. Accordingly, private colleges and universities should be held to the standard that they themselves establish. If a private college advertises itself as a place where free speech is esteemed and protected—as most of them do—then it should be held to the same standard as a public institution."
Also, the obvious problem with your assertions is that they will inevitably lead to censorship. You provide some example of ideas you consider too reprehensible to platform; but, once that precedent is set, it won't always be you or I making those distinctions. It might be Trump, or DeSantis, or Pence. And their idea of reprehensible ideas will be very different.
Hence the almost cliché assertion that more speech is a better response than censorship to whatever ideas we find reprehensible. And I personally find it astonishing that we still have to keep repeating these basic tenets of free speech in an open society.
I am not clear whether the "invited speaker was chased away by students" is literal or figurative.
If there was in fact a physical pursuit, presumably with the threat of physical violence, than I apologize. But it seems more likely that this speaker was in fact received by a group of students who chose to exercise their own freedom of speech perhaps so loudly that his own words were drowned out?
My dude fewer straight white males go to college now than ever
But why? Is it related to either the pandemic....?
Yes, it's the pandemic (if it's real).
It looks like there were significant changes to the survey in 2021 due to Covid and even more changes in 2022.
Are these results 'real' or a result of the methodology changes in back to back surveys?
Given the error bars, im not sure these changes are that significant beyond the normal shift in opinion following an election.
Two years of being EXTREMELY ONLINE probably did not help keep many young men from being pushed to the right. COVID had many weird effects on our society.
Here's an anecdote--I was at a baby shower not too long ago and just before the 'reveal' one of our very liberal female friends, proclaimed "I hope it's a girl, girls are better" in front of everyone, including the parent's to be. It was a girl reveal (phew), but at this party were multiple teenage boys. I don't know, but I doubt that had a positive effect on any of their views of liberals.
Correct
How are people being selected and contacted for this survey? I wonder if there's an impact simply from how participants are selected. It may be off base but I'd love to know. I haven't been selected for a survey since I went to one hundred percent cell phone usage although I was called for polls years ago when I had a landline.
This is an example of what upsets me most about us liberals! Please look back over the comments and see how many references there are to college. Under 40% of the 18-24 range are students. Even less in the 18-34 range. They are not reflecting any reaction to higher education - most have never set foot on a campus anywhere.
They are reacting to 1)Lived Experience; 2)Manipulation Through Media as Kevin has documented; 3)Astounding Arrogance of us older educated liberals.
The only way to change it is to work this through in reverse order. 1)Drop our Astounding Arrogance; 2)Use the economic levers we control to Destroy Conservative Media (we are the ones making the decisions where to invest our retirement savings and more to the point business budgets); 3)WAIT for the Lived Experience to catch up.
The first item in this is to just quit with the veneration of higher education. 35% of the country has a 4 year equivalent. Sorry, we are not the majority. Our discussions sometimes are just as intolerant and asinine as other minorities that have won power.
This is not entirely coherent, but damn this upsets me. It has taken me years to undo the arrogance my PhD created, and I still struggle every day.
I'm sick and tired of being lectured that I need to show more deference to guys. They either respect me as I am or not, it's all on them.
Pingback: Conservatism jumped in 2022—and then even more in 2023 – Kevin Drum
Joe Rogan and the anti-woke backlash were not new phenomena in 2022. A noteworthy new phenomenon in 2022 was widespread Covid-induced brain damage:
https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-brain-and-long-covid
Beard-stroking emoji