this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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Politics

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While many believe young people are becoming more liberal, data shows that 12th grade boys are nearly twice as likely to identify as conservative compared to liberal. Around 25% of high school seniors identify as conservative while only 13% identify as liberal. In contrast, the share of 12th grade girls identifying as liberal has risen to 30%. Many factors may contribute to this trend, including the rhetoric of Donald Trump which appealed to disaffected young men, and the focus of progressive movements on issues of gender and racial equality which some young men perceive as a "matriarchy." However, most high school seniors claim no political identity, and many boys in high school do not actively discuss

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

I grew up in a Calvinistic worldview where every week you were reminded you were utterly disgusting in the eyes of God and simply by being born you deserved to be tortured more brutally than the English language can adequately express because you had by virtue of being human inherited original sin, and the only way you could get rid of it is if you had been predestined to be saved by Jesus (who did not come to save everyone, only a select few). Anyone can imagine the horrible effect this polar opposite of therapy has on rates of mental illness in that community. This kind of worldview was popular with the English Dissenters (those famous 'persecuted pilgrims' belong to this category) who later crossed the Atlantic in large numbers and I think I can see its unpleasant legacy in American political thought both left and right.

If there is one idea I could delete out of existence it's this notion of original sin in both its religious and secular forms. I would make it unlawful to tell a child that they were born guilty of anything simply for existing or that guilt can be inherited from anyone because of how psychologically harmful this is. While it's usually not the intention there exists a trend that de facto results in telling boys they're guilty of various things simply for existing, and then in the same breath we act surprised when scumbags like Tate are hoovering up their attention instead of everyone telling them what a piece of crap they are for being born. Manly qualities in my mind are qualities like physical and mental strength in the face of adversity, having the moral courage to make difficult decisions for the good of a group, a deep sense of good sportsmanship, being willing and able to take risks when required, that sort of thing. The left should be all over that as its history is littered with such examples!