Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Conservatism Skips Generations

I think conservatism skips generations. The way it works is this: If you're raised by conservative parents, you think the world is too rigid and needs to loosen up a bit. When you grow up and have your own kids, you want them to grow up free of senseless rules your parents imposed on you; free to find their own paths in life and to grow up to be who they were meant to be. Your kids, then, grow up thinking those rules don't really exist, and that the world is perilously close to slipping into a raging anarchy. They decide for themselves that the world needs a well defined set of rules to distinguish right from wrong, and that everyone should obey them. When they have kids, they try to teach them these rules so that they'll grow up to be proper individuals who well help make the world a more ordered place.