Arguing with one’s parents is never pleasant, and seldom satisfying for that matter; however, there can sometimes emerge a morsel of illumination when one realises that something, well, illuminating, has risen out of the ‘discussion’. In my case, it was a conversation regarding the Tory party being classed as ‘the nasty party’, ‘a party that stigmatises the poor’ and a party ‘which doesn’t believe in the deserving poor’. On my side of the debate, I was immediately stunned at just how much political disagreement can be skewed by generational differences; my automatic reaction was to provide a case in defence of the modern Conservative voter, attempting to quell a belief that the Tory Cabinet is full of ‘nasty Etonians who only look after their own’. Inevitably, I was up against a very well-cemented generational brick wall; as much as I felt strongly that the average Conservative voter should be able to exist without being painted with the disdainful political brush whose shade of blue is heavily diluted with claims of nastiness, selfishness, snobbery and privilege, I found that – regardless of my personal experience with Tory voters from my generation who hail from a diverse plethora of backgrounds – I was going to find it a gargantuan task to challenge a deep-rooted generational dichotomy of political opinion.
As someone with a generally centrist liberal view of economics, public spending, the welfare state and public policy, it was a fair shock to the system that I was immediately being singled-out as a ‘classic Tory’; one who didn’t accept the deep-rooted insidious cronyism and anti-poor policies that are apparently the modus operandi of a Conservative government. It was this that made me realise something quite profound about intergenerational conflict with regards to politics. One can offer as many policy examples and historical cases to demonstrate, inter alia, one’s argument in defence of, or indeed against, a political party. It became clear to me that an argument which is unavoidably refracted through the prism of one’s generational experience is extremely problematic when one aims to reach a political consensus. What also became rapidly clear to me – and something I wasn’t particularly conscious of beforehand – is just how much I care about politics. Yes, being a student of the subject is bound to exacerbate one’s attachments, however, it wasn’t simply an academic love of politics that set my gears in motion; the debate was just as much about Generation X vs Generation Y as it was about Conservative vs Labour.
One can never assume infallibility when it comes to a political view. When this view is conflated with one’s own generational experience of the outside world, it becomes all the more difficult to reach objectivity. What seemed to me a justified defence of modern Conservative voters that I attempted to provide quickly dissipated into nothing more than a passionate view championing the idea that no voter should be categorised by ad hominem pejoratives. Perhaps it’s the diversity of political voters I see each day at my university who represent a microcosmic melting pot of economic, cultural and social demographics which constantly challenge the clichéd narratives that the mainstream media espouse and proliferate...
Whatever the cause, it is clear – whether I like it or not - that I have become deeply, deeply political. A good thing? That is yet to be determined; however, what this generational dispute showed me was that, in one way or another, everybody is political. Politics really does get under our skin. It is as present as the rain in England. One thing is certain in my mind, though: to remain impartial in the turbulent times we are in is a challenge of great proportion. I therefore leave on what I would define as a classically liberal perspective on political opinion from the nonetheless controversial John Stuart Mill:
‘If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.’