PRO-AMERICANISM

As an Australian, I see considerable differences between US culture and my own Australian culture -- and I definitely prefer my own. Most people do prefer their own (Park, 1950). What I find hard to understand, however, is what the most generous nation on earth has done to deserve the hatred of it that is so routinely poured out in much of the world. If I were religious, I would be inclined to think that the America-haters were demon-possessed.

I was therefore touched to read this:

"It was impossible not to be moved last week by the sight in Vilnius of Lithuanians continuously interrupting George Bush's speech on human freedom to chant "Thank you" in Lithuanian"

As one of the former �captive nations�, those guys knew from bitter experience what it is all about.

It was also heartening to read that 81% of Britons say they like Americans.

Reference:
Park, R.E. (1950) Race and culture Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press

***********************

LEFTIST YOUTH

Jim Ryan of Philosoblog has recently blogged on why it is that youth tends towards the political Left. I sent him a note as a comment on his post and think it might be useful to expand on that here:

I think the first thing to do is to repeat an October 16th post from Jim Miller. I did reproduce this post previously (on 30th October) and I note that Andrew Sullivan has recently reproduced it too:

Young People and the Vietnam War: Andrew Sullivan makes a common error in his post on the Bali bombing, when he argues that young people were more likely to oppose the Vietnam war than older people. In fact, polls at the time showed that young people were "more supportive of the war than older people" [John E. Mueller, "War, Presidents and Public Opinion", p. 137]. Even more surprising to some, the more educated a person, the more likely they were to support the Vietnam war. There were similar patterns of support in World War II and the Korean War. The current tendency of young people to be more inclined to support a war with Iraq is consistent with the patterns in past wars, contrary to what Sullivan thinks.

So Jim Ryan seems to have a faulty first premise in his post. What we have to explain is not why young people in general become Leftist but why SOME young people become Leftist.

Just as a personal note there, I was at a large Australian university during the Vietnam war era doing a degree in psychology and there were huge antiwar demonstrations on campus at the time. Yet in my psychology honours class every single male member but one was, like myself, in the Army! The one exception was a Methodist minister who regretted that he could not join up because our unit had parades on Sunday morning and he obviously had other duties on that day! We were of course in the Army reserves rather than in the full-time Army but most of us did full-time duty from time to time too. (And I volunteered for full-time service in Vietnam! No-one can call me a �chickenblogger�). So Leftists may make a lot more noise but that does not mean that they are in the majority.

Jim Ryan's authority for his view about youth seems to be a variant on the much misattributed saying: "If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain." It might be interesting to note that the earliest version of this saying is by mid-nineteenth century historian and politician Francois Guizot, who said: "Not to be a republican at 20 is proof of want of heart; to be one at 30 is proof of want of head". He was referring to the controversy over whether France should be a republic or a monarchy. France did of course have various experiments with monarchy even after the decapitation of Louis XVI. So foolish young people want Presidents and wiser old people want Kings? Maybe. So Jim could clearly have chosen a better authority for his view of the young

Nonethless, it IS true that people who are Leftist in their youth often become more conservative as they get older. In one of my research reports, I found in fact that most older people are quite astoundingly Right-wing (Ray, 1985). So how come?

I think that there are in fact two main reasons why the Left is more attractive to youth:

1). The young do not know much so try sweeping generalizations in order to help them understand the world. Leftists supply such oversimplified generalizations ("All men are equal" etc.). So some of the young are attracted to that. Most of the young do not bother, however. They are interested mainly in the opposite sex so just want politics not to bother them -- a thoroughly conservative response. Those who do adopt the Leftist simplifications do eventually find through experience that the world really is a complex place so tend to give up the simplifications and Leftism along with that. So the simplicity of Leftism is a big attraction to (some of) the young

2). The young are ambitious, want to have it all NOW and want to get the top -- so see "The Establishment" as an obstacle to that. So the more unscrupulous and vicious ones use any tool to attack it: Radicalism as a path to power -- a very familiar theme in history. Leftists are intrinsically power-mad -- as I set out at some length elsewhere.

Reference:
Ray, J.J. (1985) What old people believe: Age, sex and conservatism. Political Psychology 6, 525-528.

********************

ANGLOSPHERIC HISTORY

Being a keen history buff, it has always interested me to analyse how the different characteristics of the various English-speaking nations arose. What makes, Americans and Australians (for instance) different from the English even when we share the same general ancestry? An important part of the answer lies in differences within England itself. It seems to be true, for instance, that Anglo-Australians originate mainly from the regional English working-class population whereas the origins of New Zealand are solidly middle-class. And that may in part explain why most New Zealanders seem to loathe Australians -- a dislike that is not reciprocated (despite jokes about Kiwi ovinophilia).

A subject of more moment, however, is how differences within Britain influenced the development of the United States -- and Jim Bennett, author of An Anglosphere Primer, is a mine of information on that. I reproduce here part of a recent email discussion with him on the topic.

(You will have to scroll down. The Permalinks are haywire)

*************************

Comments? Email me: jonjayray@hotmail.com.
If there are no recent posts here, check my HomePage for a new blog address.

**************************