The Formation of a Political Worldview.

It's surprising just how much the heavy, sticky heat oppresses whatever vitality I might usually have. I usually don't get too hung up on weather conditions, but for some reason this summer has seemed especially brutal so far. Ach, maybe it's because I didn't go to the beach this year? Anyway I came very close to sleeping through my weekly drawing session. For a few months now it's been necessary to show up a half-hour early just to get a decent spot to draw from. But even though I had a very late start, I decided to go over just to see if I'd be motivated to make the best of the situation. I ended up simply sitting on the concrete steps outside, talking to a few of the regulars.

One of my drawing buddies has two adult children, and she was telling us about her son. Without getting into specifics, what particularly interested me about her story is the fact that her boy is the first member of her family to become a Republican. I've always been fascinated by cases where an individual deviated significantly on the political spectrum from his/her immediate family. Perhaps this is the case because I am alone in my family in being political progressive. My folks and my brother are (or were until rather recently) quite conservative. My dad was even a young Republican during the late 60's. I did have a set of (maternal) grandparents who were old school union Democrats. But truthfully I can't remember a whole lot of political discussion around my house when I was growing up. It just wasn't that kind of family. There was a lot of talk about sports and television. No one was particularly heavy-handed about their beliefs- at least not enough that I can remember anybody having an overt influence on my thinking. I don't remember caring much one way or another.

If I did receive a political education at all, it was through the public schools. I realize that most people that hear that statement immediately draw assumptions about what it means. Today in Pittsburgh that likely suggests "liberal propaganda". I don't know whether that is, or is not, the case. But in my birthplace, it meant something altogether different. There was a lot of reactionary thinking in the town where I grew up. The demographic was shifting rapidly, and traditional authority figures were generally pretty upset by it. So there seemed to be very few "progressive" teachers in the school system. I remember my 7th grade teacher complaining about the pressure he experienced as a young man to register as a Democrat. Of course when he was in his youth, that meant something entirely different than it does today.

Notably I had a history teacher in eleventh grade that many in the community viewed as a Communist. The reality was that he wasn't buying the party line on the Soviet Union. In the 80's it was extremely popular to villify the Russians, and see them as the incarnation of absolute evil. Mr. F. questioned that line of thinking, and tried to give us another perspective. He taught us to examine our prejudices to see how they formed our opinions. I know for a fact that he got into trouble with parents and administration over that. I remember being pretty skeptical about what he was telling us, but I'm sure there were seeds planted during that time that would bloom later in my life. Still I would have been mortified if anybody would have taken me for anything other than a Republican. When I was a kid I never questioned that affiliation.

But when I came to Pittsburgh for college, everything changed quickly. The 'Burgh is a solidly blue town, with a lot of working class attitude. I deliberately chose a university in a place where I would know nobody, because I believed I needed to reform my whole identity. I chose people to hang out with that were radically different from any I had ever known. I got involved in activities I would never have anticipated. And I changed quite rapidly. A lot of my political views were challenged during the first Gulf War. That conflict opened up parts of me I had never examined very closely. The discussions I had with my peers led to an evolution of my worldview. Perhaps it's true that I was merely reacting against things I disliked about my previous home, but many of the new habits and beliefs I adopted have stuck with me to this day. I almost can't imagine the person I was at age eighteen. I know my family had some difficulty adjusting to the "new" me, but eventually we worked through a lot of the resulting issues. Now there's another sea change in society, and I can relate to a lot of the confusion and cynicism spreading throughout the nation. I've been through it already.