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Why Being a Foster Child Made Me a Conservative

14 points by jeffreyrogers 8y ago

Overtonwindow 8y ago
Is there a non-paywall link?
- _bxg1 8y ago
  You can open in an incognito tab; NYT uses cookies to track your limited article count
  - Overtonwindow 8y ago
    I didn’t know that, thank you!!!
- mywittyname 8y ago
  You can use dev tools to delete the overlay then add "overflow: scroll" to the body CSS.
manux 8y ago
I'm not sure what the author is trying to convey, and why he calls that conservatism. I'm not sure how social policies favouring good social and emotional health for people to enable them to have prosperous and stable relationships have anything to do with conservatism. I for one would not qualify such policies like that. My cynical belief is that the author possesses much more "taboo" conservative beliefs which he justifies with this argument, but hopefully I'm wrong.
_bxg1 8y ago
It's so unproductive the way we make "personal responsibility" vs "victimhood" a binary choice. You can either be a conservative, and be disallowed from ever suggesting that something about your circumstances might be the slightest bit unfair, or you can be a liberal, and be disallowed from ever suggesting that anyone should try and take responsibility for their lives. Everyone should try to be personally responsible to the best of their capacity. And sometimes, systems really are unfair and really need to be changed. It's not just one or the other. Tribalism applied to worldview is the greatest casualty of the American political sphere.
- LyndsySimon 8y ago
  It may be unproductive - and for what it's worth, I agree - but it also highlights a core difference of ideology. Call it individualism versus collectivism, personal responsibility versus victimhood, or whatever else you want to apply to it; the fact remains that conservatives virtue signal by claiming responsibility while liberals virtue signal by assigning victimhood, regardless of whether either of those things are strictly true.
  - _bxg1 8y ago
    The point is that all of those versus-es you listed are a) spectrums, and b) situational. The latter is more relevant, I think. Always picking personal responsibility or always picking victimhood because "that's your ideology" is like always using a hammer or always using a screwdriver because "that's your tool".
    - yayadarsh 8y ago
      100% agree. This type of dualistic thinking is one of the reasons common political discourse in the US is so unproductive. There are (almost) no simple black/white answers to anything, and the devil is usually in the (grey) details.
Barrin92 8y ago
The author associates his conservatism with a stable two-parent family and upbringing and the virtue of personal responsibility. Those two values might not always be the most talked about topics on a liberal university campus but they're certainly as American as apple pie and largely unrelated to modern political conservatism as a movement.
mywittyname 8y ago
Articles like this annoy me. A person's political views are part of their personality, it's not something they "chose." [0] It's especially ironic to read an article with this flaw written by a person who literally just graduated with a degree in Psychology from an ivy league institution. Being a foster child did not make him conservative. He was born that way. The tone of the article is that he's very angry that he's "different" and he feels that people look down on him for it (by calling him a victim). Which is understandable. But I think this article serves as therapy for the author. It's certainly not saying anything new or insightful. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientiousness#Political_attitudes_and_obedience_to_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientiousness#Political_at... As an aside, the fact that Conscientiousness negatively correlates with intelligence also explains why only 12% of the student body is conservative. He's a rare combination.
- relics443 8y ago
  Who established the fact that Conscientiousness negatively correlates with intelligence?
  - mywittyname 8y ago
    The article I linked has eight citations on this.
spamizbad 8y ago
Conservatives have a misunderstanding of liberal views of "non-traditional" families and upbringings, which I think has been lost in the culture wars. As a result, articles like these do a good job of tearing down strawmen. The liberal argument was never "There is no benefit to having more than one parent." or "It's no big deal if you're raised by a drug addict" Instead, it's that responsible parents have the right to shape their own household, and that as a society we shouldn't judge them for that particular decision, and instead offer support.
anigbrowl 8y ago
"Conservatism" is a moveable feast. He mentions homophobia directed towards his adoptive parents; one wonders what he'd say to conservatives who argue that homosexual partnerships and adoptions exemplify what's wrong with society, an attitude it's easy to find examples of. Not really seeing the HN relevance of this extremely subjective opinion piece but OK.
relics443 8y ago
Slightly off topic, but towards the end, he mentions that: "Though they experienced homophobia and struggled financially..." This particular case aside, why is all negativity towards homosexuality grouped into homophobia? Is anyone who opposes homosexuality afraid of it (in a literal translation)? The dictionary.com definition of the suffix phobia is: "a combining form meaning “fear,” occurring in loanwords from Greek ( hydrophobia); on this model, used in the names of mental disorders that have the general sense “dread of, aversion toward” that specified by the initial element:" What about folks approaching from a standpoint that has neither a dread of, nor an aversion towards homosexuals? Why are they called homophobic?
kapauldo 8y ago
He is discounting his good fortune and then retroactively taking credit for it.

14 points by jeffreyrogers 8y ago

Overtonwindow 8y ago

Is there a non-paywall link?

_bxg1 8y ago
You can open in an incognito tab; NYT uses cookies to track your limited article count
- Overtonwindow 8y ago
  I didn’t know that, thank you!!!
mywittyname 8y ago
You can use dev tools to delete the overlay then add "overflow: scroll" to the body CSS.

manux 8y ago

I'm not sure what the author is trying to convey, and why he calls that conservatism. I'm not sure how social policies favouring good social and emotional health for people to enable them to have prosperous and stable relationships have anything to do with conservatism. I for one would not qualify such policies like that. My cynical belief is that the author possesses much more "taboo" conservative beliefs which he justifies with this argument, but hopefully I'm wrong.

_bxg1 8y ago

It's so unproductive the way we make "personal responsibility" vs "victimhood" a binary choice. You can either be a conservative, and be disallowed from ever suggesting that something about your circumstances might be the slightest bit unfair, or you can be a liberal, and be disallowed from ever suggesting that anyone should try and take responsibility for their lives. Everyone should try to be personally responsible to the best of their capacity. And sometimes, systems really are unfair and really need to be changed. It's not just one or the other. Tribalism applied to worldview is the greatest casualty of the American political sphere.

LyndsySimon 8y ago
It may be unproductive - and for what it's worth, I agree - but it also highlights a core difference of ideology. Call it individualism versus collectivism, personal responsibility versus victimhood, or whatever else you want to apply to it; the fact remains that conservatives virtue signal by claiming responsibility while liberals virtue signal by assigning victimhood, regardless of whether either of those things are strictly true.
- _bxg1 8y ago
  The point is that all of those versus-es you listed are a) spectrums, and b) situational. The latter is more relevant, I think. Always picking personal responsibility or always picking victimhood because "that's your ideology" is like always using a hammer or always using a screwdriver because "that's your tool".
  - yayadarsh 8y ago
    100% agree. This type of dualistic thinking is one of the reasons common political discourse in the US is so unproductive. There are (almost) no simple black/white answers to anything, and the devil is usually in the (grey) details.

Barrin92 8y ago

The author associates his conservatism with a stable two-parent family and upbringing and the virtue of personal responsibility. Those two values might not always be the most talked about topics on a liberal university campus but they're certainly as American as apple pie and largely unrelated to modern political conservatism as a movement.

mywittyname 8y ago

Articles like this annoy me. A person's political views are part of their personality, it's not something they "chose." [0] It's especially ironic to read an article with this flaw written by a person who literally just graduated with a degree in Psychology from an ivy league institution. Being a foster child did not make him conservative. He was born that way. The tone of the article is that he's very angry that he's "different" and he feels that people look down on him for it (by calling him a victim). Which is understandable. But I think this article serves as therapy for the author. It's certainly not saying anything new or insightful. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientiousness#Political_attitudes_and_obedience_to_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientiousness#Political_at... As an aside, the fact that Conscientiousness negatively correlates with intelligence also explains why only 12% of the student body is conservative. He's a rare combination.

relics443 8y ago
Who established the fact that Conscientiousness negatively correlates with intelligence?
- mywittyname 8y ago
  The article I linked has eight citations on this.

spamizbad 8y ago

Conservatives have a misunderstanding of liberal views of "non-traditional" families and upbringings, which I think has been lost in the culture wars. As a result, articles like these do a good job of tearing down strawmen. The liberal argument was never "There is no benefit to having more than one parent." or "It's no big deal if you're raised by a drug addict" Instead, it's that responsible parents have the right to shape their own household, and that as a society we shouldn't judge them for that particular decision, and instead offer support.

anigbrowl 8y ago

"Conservatism" is a moveable feast. He mentions homophobia directed towards his adoptive parents; one wonders what he'd say to conservatives who argue that homosexual partnerships and adoptions exemplify what's wrong with society, an attitude it's easy to find examples of. Not really seeing the HN relevance of this extremely subjective opinion piece but OK.

relics443 8y ago

Slightly off topic, but towards the end, he mentions that: "Though they experienced homophobia and struggled financially..." This particular case aside, why is all negativity towards homosexuality grouped into homophobia? Is anyone who opposes homosexuality afraid of it (in a literal translation)? The dictionary.com definition of the suffix phobia is: "a combining form meaning “fear,” occurring in loanwords from Greek ( hydrophobia); on this model, used in the names of mental disorders that have the general sense “dread of, aversion toward” that specified by the initial element:" What about folks approaching from a standpoint that has neither a dread of, nor an aversion towards homosexuals? Why are they called homophobic?

kapauldo 8y ago

He is discounting his good fortune and then retroactively taking credit for it.