2016 Postmortem

What I mean by the above is simple, we have to understand that Humans came out of African (and developed in Africa) about 100,000 to 200,000 years ago, as an animal, that works with other similar animals to achieve a common purpose. In the days of hunting and gathering it was hunting and gathering, in the days of farming it was planting, hoeing, harvesting and storing the crop (Herding developed at the same time, in areas NOT farm-able with the technology of the time period, but it required moving the herd around to new pastures and otherwise protecting the heard from any thing that would take the herd away, all best done as a member of a group).

Thus being human requires people to work together for a common benefit, and that way each member of the group prospers.

The down side is simple, one MUST be willing to give support to other people, in exchange for support from those same people. The more confidence we have that we can rely on such support, the less we need to fear outsiders and other threats. The less confidence we have, the more we fear change, including change by developing new relationships with new people.

In many ways, conservative people are people with less confidence in society and other people when it comes to expected support from such people. When growing up, they had a fear of losing such support, and thus will do anything to maintain such support. Thus they dislike change for it generally means some sort of loss of support. They fear strangers for the same reason, loss of support. They tend to stay with traditions, for such traditions indicate what support they can get. They tend to obey people above them, for failure to do so can mean loss of support from those people above them AND other supporters of that person.

On the other hand, people who are confident that they have support from others in society, tend to accept change and strangers, for change and strangers have NOT meant any loss or harm to them.

Thus the difference, may be simply a difference in what level of support these people have had in the past. Conservatives tend to people in fear that what support they have will disappear if they are changes, thus they hate change even if it benefit them right now (in the near future it may not, thus to be feared).

In many ways, this may be a reflection of WHO immigrated to the US in the 1800s (and even the 1600s and 1700s). Most people who moved to the US, had little prospect of improving their life back in the old country, thus they moved. Prior to the Great Depression and the invention of Social Security and Unemployment insurance, they only support group were they fellow workers, who were often set against each other in the various types of hiring system used before Unionization of the 1930s. The push for unionization was stopped after WWII (and unions started to decline in membership in 1948) due to various rules and legal interpretations that permitted such unions to be attacked and destroyed. Thus by the time of Reagan, you saw most workers almost at the level they were in the 1920s. Wanting a good paying job, but having to make sure they stayed employed by following whatever rules their employer imposed.

This system ended up being learned by the children of these workers, for they faced the same set of unofficial rules. As long as they were in School, they could be radical, but once out of school and into the work force, they felt the need to comply, rather then risk they jobs.

In many ways, low income conservatives seems to fit this pattern, they do NOT have the education to get a better job then they have, and fear losing whatever job they do have. If such people go to Collage, they bring with them the same fears, willing to do "Collage" things with their fellow collage students, but once they return to the work force, turn conservative for change is to be feared, for change means a loss of some sort of support they are use to relying on.

People who tend to be progressive, tend NOT to have this fear of loss of support, mostly because most progressives have had a history of being able to rely on the system (including they relatives and Friends) when things go bad. Thus they do not need to fear change, for change may cause them some problems, but it tends to be problems they can get support in resolving.

One of my favorite "Factoid" that shows this is that while the group that starts the most new Starts up are people in their 20s (Mostly of people who know they can get support if the start up goes bad from family or friends, thus Bill Gates could get into the mini-computer business, for he could rely on his father, one of the top notch lawyers in Washington state, to give him a place to live if he ever lost everything). After people in the their 20s, the next largest group are people over age 65, who can rely on Social Security. Notice both groups have something to fall back on if things go bad. Thus they have the ability to accept change for if change is bad, they can rely on their support group so that they can still survive.

On the other hand, people who do not or can not rely on such support group (Mostly because they family and friends are just like them, barely surviving) for give them support in times of Crisis, tend to do they best to avoid change and strangers for by doing so their minimize crisises.

Thus people who rely on the fear section of their brain, do so for the simple reason it gives them the opportunity to prevent change that can lead to economic hardship, a hardship that they can NOT endure without hardship. On the other hand, people who have confidence in themselves and their support group will gladly take risks, accept change and new people, for if things go wrong they have enough support to survive any hardship such change will represent.

This report is more on why people tend to be Conservative or Progressive and it supports a long held position that it depends on how much support a person can rely on (and that is dependent on how much support such a person has received in the past during any crisis, if no support, they are quite confident, if no support they tend to be conservative).