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As someone who became more right wing over the years, I’m curious what caused you to have the opposite trajectory?
It's quite a long story (and I can go into more detail if you want). Overall, I realized that certain beliefs I held weren't as supported as I was led to believe by conservatives. I attended a conservative Christian college but had two left-leaning professors in particular & a few new left-leaning friends who broke me out of my conservative bubble and challenged my previous beliefs. Growing up I was taught that issues like racism & sexism were issues of the past (and totally blown out of proportion by virtue signaling woke libtards). This new group of people gave me a different story via personal anecdotes (from my new friends) & substantial research (from my professors). Over the course of four years and lots of debating, I came to the conclusion that the biggest pillar of my ring-wing belief (namely the idea of merit, aka 'you can do anything as long as you work hard' & the inverse "If you're struggling it's primarily your fault") wasn't as absolute as I thought it was.
Trust me, I was not looking to turn to the left in the slightest. I mean, who wants to be associated with woke feminists (or worse, liberals)? Of course, I don't agree with everything the woke crowd believes nor do I have many positive things to say about Biden & other libs. But overall I'm now firmly planted somewhere on the left because the right just didn't have sufficient support for the biggest issues. Feel free to ask any other questions but that's the basic story for me.
Fantastic question - I'm admittedly still undecided on exactly how to approach this issue. But here's my basic moral justification:
All people should have equality of opportunity
Discriminated groups have less opportunity
Privileged groups have more opportunity
Therefore, discriminated groups ought to have more opportunity so all people have equality of opportunity.
('Equality' in this case simply means 'as equal as is possible to realistically achieve')
As a simple hypothetical, I would support increased government funding to schools with predominately black student bodies. This would privilege the discriminated-against but is justified based on my value of equality of opportunity. (Edit: I would also support increased government funding for schools in poorer areas using this same logic as well).
I'm curious, what is your opinion/justification on the same issue?
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Interesting. I’m curious if you have read a lot of Thomas Sowell? Also I’m assuming you aren’t an HBD enthusiast?
Also, it’s interesting that meritocracy created a big change in you. Did you believe in meritocracy solely on deontological grounds (ie just deserts) or utilitarian grounds (ie meritocracy leads to generally the best outcome in a kaldor hicks sense, even if it doesn’t reflect just deserts)?
If the latter, what was the basis that led you to change your mind re the outcome?
If the former, do you reject utilitarianism as an appropriate framework or think the calculation comes out to reject utilitarianism?
Yes, Sowell used to be my guy haha. If you want to talk more about Sowell or why I longer find him persuasive I'd be down.
I'm not an HBD enthusiast on the grounds that I don't find its support convincing nor its utility to be of much benefit.
I'm not familiar with the two types of meritocracy that you provided. Meritocracy might be too strong a word in this sense too. Here's what I mean in simple terms: I believed that (in general) people could achieve positive outcomes if they worked hard enough. On the flip side, people who weren't achieving positive outcomes (or people who were experiencing negative outcomes) were primarily at fault for their own situation. The solution to most problems was individual in nature: If you wanted to improve your life, work harder and be better. And especially don't rely on government handouts or assistance in the meantime. We can take my previous beliefs on homelessness for example: In 99% of cases, being homeless was the fault of the individual (drugs, behavior, work ethic, etc). Therefore, the solution to homelessness was focused on the individual as well: Pick yourself up, get clean, apply for jobs, and get back on your feet (and don't mooch off other people while doing so). You can copy/paste that reasoning to just about every political issue (racism, sexism, immigration, income inequality, welfare, etc).
So what changed? The primary factor was one of my economics classes called "the economics of race, class, & gender" (trust me, my past self was NOT happy to see this liberal bullshit on the schedule lol). Growing up well-off (and in a well-off area), I was hilariously naive when it came to the economics of class in particular. Life's trajectory was simple: do well in school, do well in college, do well in your career, and you'll never have to worry about being poor. This class quickly showed me why my simple plan was highly dependent on where you grew up. I'd heard a similar story before but this was the first time that I saw real statistics & research to back it up. I saw similar evidence for things like racism & sexism.
I finally came to the conclusion that some people were much worse off than others due to no fault of their own.
I know, not exactly a mind-blowing conclusion (and really speaks to my ignorance and naivety more than anything). But this had a domino effect on almost all of my other beliefs. For example, welfare. Since some people are 'poor' through no fault of their own, I could no longer justify my disdain for government handouts. Morally, I don't want people to suffer due to something that is likely out of their control. Even if becoming poor was a personal choice, escaping poverty is a vicious cycle. Economically, I found strong arguments for buffing up welfare systems in order to turn poor people into economically productive, tax-positive citizens. Homelessness is another example: Moral reasons were the same as before. Economically, in addition to making homeless productive citizens, I saw decent evidence that aggressive left-wing solutions were more cost-effective in the long and short term. I came to similar conclusions on other issues regarding race & gender. Morally, I find it wrong for someone to suffer because of something they were born with. Economically, I concluded that protecting these groups leads to positive economic outcomes for everyone involved.
I want to stress that I still value hard work and individual responsibility highly. I do believe that hard work can and will solve certain individual problems and that bad decisions/lack of effort can cause certain individual problems as well. But overall, I think that external, uncontrollable factors are the root causes of many of the issues we see today. Since being on the left I've also become more sympathetic to the idea that we should assist others even if they are entirely to blame for their situation (given that said assistance is effective, addresses root causes, and comes at a reasonable economic cost).
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