When did you last change your opinion?
Discussion
I've certainly become far more open-minded over the last 20 years.
Coming from a fairly impoverished Northern mining town it was easy to be a bit bigotted. Suspicion/dislike of people of colour, homosexuals etc. was the norm. I cringe when I think of some of the things I said and believed as a teenager.
It wasn't really until I came into more contact with people from these minority groups that I realised they are just like anyone else. Most of them are absolutely fine, some of them are d
heads. We're all people at the end of the day. I like to think that these days I don't judge anyone on anything other than their behaviour.
Coming from a fairly impoverished Northern mining town it was easy to be a bit bigotted. Suspicion/dislike of people of colour, homosexuals etc. was the norm. I cringe when I think of some of the things I said and believed as a teenager.
It wasn't really until I came into more contact with people from these minority groups that I realised they are just like anyone else. Most of them are absolutely fine, some of them are d
heads. We're all people at the end of the day. I like to think that these days I don't judge anyone on anything other than their behaviour.AJL308 said:
BabySharkDooDooDooDooDooDoo said:
Other recent one would include immigration where I was originally against those flooding the U.K. or crossing over from Calais on dinghies. But really I can’t blame them. I’d do the same in their position. Just because they popped out of their mum’s vagina in a different part of the world, why should they be doomed to have a life of struggle and suffering in a dangerous environment?
Because that's just the way of the World. How many people live in sub-optimal conditions to us in the uk - 5bn? Where do you intend to house 5 billion people? Also, a lot of them are not escaping despotic regimes or grinding poverty. They are coming for financial reasons and lying about it. The young men in the dinghies are lying economic migrants. See the Sweden thread to see what happens when you open the floodgates.
AJL308 said:
A good point. In relation to that, I believe that the number of true racists we have in the UK, as a percentage of people overall, is very small indeed. I think it was always the case, to be honest. Yes, there are still a lot of unpleasant words and behaviours around but I personally can't bring to mind a single person from my almost 50 years on the planet (other than perhaps one) who genuinely holds the belief that other races are inferior and should be eradicated or shipped off to foreign lands. I think that a lot of what we perceive as racism today is actually more an intolerance of other cultures (which is not the same and may or may not be justified) rather than intolerance of people due to their race or other biological factors.
As far as I’m concerned, ‘intolerance of culture’ is racist. If someone says, for example, they “Don’t like people of Pakistani origin because of their culture and behaviours” then that is essentially judging a whole race of people because of their skin colour and origin, and is totally unacceptable.People are people, and they are all individuals, good and bad, within cultures and communities, and to label or judge them all like that, without meeting them, is wrong.
I used to own a company within the motor trade, and spent a lot of time speaking to and chatting with salesmen, dealer principles, showroom managers, and so on, all in the big car brands, and they were shockingly racist based on ‘culture’.
If someone with a ‘brown name’ or someone who ‘sounded brown’ phoned up to ask about a car, they were told it was sold, or otherwise put off from taking the enquiry further, simply because the salesman all said that their ‘culture and behaviour was a pain in the arse to deal with’, and we are talking about salesmen who are usually desperate to sell a car to anyone to hit their targets.
Assuming that a person will be a pain in the arse simply because of their ‘brown’ name, or because of their skin colour, is racist. No question.
Lord Marylebone said:
As far as I’m concerned, ‘intolerance of culture’ is racist.
I disagree. Some cultures are backward and brutal, and we should be intolerant. We should not tolerate the culture of FGM, nor the West African culture off flushing out demonic spirits from children. There are aspects of Sharia Law that we should not tolerate. Parts of the traveller culture, such as the subjugation of girls and women, pulling children out of education years before it is legally allowable, and settling disputes with violence, should not be tolerated. The culture of some parts of China to torture animals to make the meat taste better. Many of the things peoples cherish as culture are basically tradition, and many traditions are f
king st and should not be tolerated. In the UK, we used to have a culture of child labour in dangerous occupations, child prostitution, the slave trade, etc. Brave people had to stand up and speak out against the prevailing culture, to bring about change. 404 Page not found said:
I even thought Boris would do a good job.
The strange thing here is not that you've changed your opinion, but that you ever held that opinion in the first place. He's completely fked up every single job he ever held before that current one. He, along with Dido Harding, are world leaders in what we now call "failing upwards". TwigtheWonderkid said:
Lord Marylebone said:
As far as I’m concerned, ‘intolerance of culture’ is racist.
I disagree. Some cultures are backward and brutal, and we should be intolerant. We should not tolerate the culture of FGM, nor the West African culture off flushing out demonic spirits from children. There are aspects of Sharia Law that we should not tolerate. Parts of the traveller culture, such as the subjugation of girls and women, pulling children out of education years before it is legally allowable, and settling disputes with violence, should not be tolerated. The culture of some parts of China to torture animals to make the meat taste better. Many of the things peoples cherish as culture are basically tradition, and many traditions are f
king st and should not be tolerated. In the UK, we used to have a culture of child labour in dangerous occupations, child prostitution, the slave trade, etc. Brave people had to stand up and speak out against the prevailing culture, to bring about change. I think certain aspects of cultures should absolutely be called out and pushed towards being abolished as soon as possible.
But I was leaning more your average man who says things like “I’m not racist, but I just don’t want to have to work with Asian types because I don’t like how they are”
Or as per my example, there are loads of perfectly ordinary people who don’t feel they are racist, but will actively avoid interacting with ‘brown people’ due to certain prejudices.
They are assuming a certain group of people are all the same based on their skin colour, and that is racist behaviour.
I don’t think we have much ‘skinhead Nazi racist send them all to an island’ types in this country, but I’ve met large quantities of seemingly ordinary decent people who have expressed racist or prejudiced views at one time or another, and that can be something as simple as ignoring messages from ‘foreign’ names when trying to sell a car or something like that.
Brave Fart said:
Ivan stewart said:
Changed my opinion of the Conservative party in the last year !!
I believed they were about small government, personal responsibility, enterprise, confidence and making it possible people to better themselves , I now know different
This. For most of my life I voted Labour, but found that impossible to do in 2017 and 2019 when I voted Tory. I had changed my view towards the things that you list, believing that those were core Conservative values.I believed they were about small government, personal responsibility, enterprise, confidence and making it possible people to better themselves , I now know different
Well, I've changed my opinion again, and will certainly not vote for this government again. I am bitterly disappointed with Boris, and it's really annoying having my mother say "I told you so!" all the time.
That said, there's no one party I can now vote for. They all seem to be lockdown supporters, or crazy, or both.
Al Gorithum said:
Notably in 2016. I originally thought that Trump would be good for America. I changed my mind on the day of the inauguration when it became clear to me that he's a gibbering idiot. Obviously a lot worse since then.
I’ll admit to that as well.I didn’t particularly know much about Trump. Knew he was a property mogul and businessman, was on The Apprentice, etc, but not much else.
I honestly thought a ‘successful businessman’ would be a good idea for running a country.
Quite literally within days of him taking office, and I read more about him, I realised the whole thing would end in disaster.
Voting Lib Dem after always voting Conservative. I grew up in a lower middle class family in a working class die hard Labour town but I have always voted Conservative like my father. In the past, their policies made us better off as a family. I never voted labour as their stance on taxiing the hard working to help those who chose a lifestyle of no working left a bad taste in my mouth. I saw a lot more people growing up who chose to take from the Government rather than need to.
I voted Lib Dem for the first time in my life after doing an online policy test. The policies than mattered most to me and the ones that made me and my family better off actually showed a higher percentage to Lib Dem than Conservative which surprised me. I never thought I'd change my politics like that but I did. As a firm remainer, I couldn't vote for the Tories and I didn't even consider Labour so I guess it was a choice of voting for what was best for me despite knowing there wasn't a hope in hell they would get any power.
Like many others, my brother was always a firm Labour voter and he voted Conservative for the first time in his life believing in the "Get Brexit done" stance Boris took to gain power. For a stubborn man like him, that was probably more of a shocking opinion change. Like a lot of people who did that, they are now utterly fed up of the restrictions placed on them and the way the country is going and are quickly turning against Boris and the government. Interesting time for politics at the minute that's for sure.
I voted Lib Dem for the first time in my life after doing an online policy test. The policies than mattered most to me and the ones that made me and my family better off actually showed a higher percentage to Lib Dem than Conservative which surprised me. I never thought I'd change my politics like that but I did. As a firm remainer, I couldn't vote for the Tories and I didn't even consider Labour so I guess it was a choice of voting for what was best for me despite knowing there wasn't a hope in hell they would get any power.
Like many others, my brother was always a firm Labour voter and he voted Conservative for the first time in his life believing in the "Get Brexit done" stance Boris took to gain power. For a stubborn man like him, that was probably more of a shocking opinion change. Like a lot of people who did that, they are now utterly fed up of the restrictions placed on them and the way the country is going and are quickly turning against Boris and the government. Interesting time for politics at the minute that's for sure.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
I disagree. Some cultures are backward and brutal, and we should be intolerant. We should not tolerate the culture of FGM, nor the West African culture off flushing out demonic spirits from children. There are aspects of Sharia Law that we should not tolerate. Parts of the traveller culture, such as the subjugation of girls and women, pulling children out of education years before it is legally allowable, and settling disputes with violence, should not be tolerated. The culture of some parts of China to torture animals to make the meat taste better.
Many of the things peoples cherish as culture are basically tradition, and many traditions are fking st and should not be tolerated. In the UK, we used to have a culture of child labour in dangerous occupations, child prostitution, the slave trade, etc. Brave people had to stand up and speak out against the prevailing culture, to bring about change.
Yes, that's the point I was getting at. The problem being that the perfectly reasonable intolerance of backward cultures and traditions is often claimed to be synonymous with racism when it clearly is nothing of the sort. Many of the things peoples cherish as culture are basically tradition, and many traditions are f
king st and should not be tolerated. In the UK, we used to have a culture of child labour in dangerous occupations, child prostitution, the slave trade, etc. Brave people had to stand up and speak out against the prevailing culture, to bring about change. Looking back at my values over the years shows that I've normally changed my mind, attitude and behaviour only when confronted with, in effect, overt evidence that I was wrong. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time seemed perfectly logical to me until I was part of the process of locking up people. There're only so many times you can think that, 'I wish I didn't have to do that' to realise the system is flawed.
Some things have stuck with me, but normally because life has reinforced matters. I had a much respected uncle who laughed when I said I 'believed in' a political party. I became more critical and have been a floating voter for all my adult life. Currently cheerleading for the libdems, but that almost certainly will change.
I love history. I'm particularly fond of particular periods, and I'm well read in these. Over the years, that's from the age of 15 or so, books have taken a different point of view, more of less disproved what I thought was the correct way of viewing things, and I've gone with them. Until the next time. In some cases, I've gone in a circle. Yet, and there's no defence I can give, I still believe. I know historians are contrarians, if only to gain book sales and keep their places at uni, but I still get convinced despite accepting I'll be proved wrong, sooner rather than later.
The biggest, most fundamental change for me was becoming a parent. It changed my entire outlook on life. When I got married (without living together first of all - not done in my day) I woke up for some time, weeks in fact, thinking that my wife had got lucky. I was a dad from the moment my eldest came home. It was like a switch and my attitude and beliefs changed in fundamental ways.
A number of people boast that they haven't changed their mind over the years and often these complain about 'youths today'. Makes you think, but, alas, doesn't have the same effect on them.
Some things have stuck with me, but normally because life has reinforced matters. I had a much respected uncle who laughed when I said I 'believed in' a political party. I became more critical and have been a floating voter for all my adult life. Currently cheerleading for the libdems, but that almost certainly will change.
I love history. I'm particularly fond of particular periods, and I'm well read in these. Over the years, that's from the age of 15 or so, books have taken a different point of view, more of less disproved what I thought was the correct way of viewing things, and I've gone with them. Until the next time. In some cases, I've gone in a circle. Yet, and there's no defence I can give, I still believe. I know historians are contrarians, if only to gain book sales and keep their places at uni, but I still get convinced despite accepting I'll be proved wrong, sooner rather than later.
The biggest, most fundamental change for me was becoming a parent. It changed my entire outlook on life. When I got married (without living together first of all - not done in my day) I woke up for some time, weeks in fact, thinking that my wife had got lucky. I was a dad from the moment my eldest came home. It was like a switch and my attitude and beliefs changed in fundamental ways.
A number of people boast that they haven't changed their mind over the years and often these complain about 'youths today'. Makes you think, but, alas, doesn't have the same effect on them.
toon10 said:
Voting Lib Dem after always voting Conservative. I grew up in a lower middle class family in a working class die hard Labour town but I have always voted Conservative like my father. In the past, their policies made us better off as a family. I never voted labour as their stance on taxiing the hard working to help those who chose a lifestyle of no working left a bad taste in my mouth. I saw a lot more people growing up who chose to take from the Government rather than need to.
I voted Lib Dem for the first time in my life after doing an online policy test. The policies than mattered most to me and the ones that made me and my family better off actually showed a higher percentage to Lib Dem than Conservative which surprised me. I never thought I'd change my politics like that but I did. As a firm remainer, I couldn't vote for the Tories and I didn't even consider Labour so I guess it was a choice of voting for what was best for me despite knowing there wasn't a hope in hell they would get any power.
Like many others, my brother was always a firm Labour voter and he voted Conservative for the first time in his life believing in the "Get Brexit done" stance Boris took to gain power. For a stubborn man like him, that was probably more of a shocking opinion change. Like a lot of people who did that, they are now utterly fed up of the restrictions placed on them and the way the country is going and are quickly turning against Boris and the government. Interesting time for politics at the minute that's for sure.
I'm similar as per my above post. I've heard of quite a number of folks switching from the Tories to Lib Dems over the last several years, there are a few saying so on this thread. It's interesting that the national polling doesn't seem to reflect this more widely given the strong and consistent Conservative poll lead, but perhaps it's a shift more focused in particular southern areas, as the recent Chesham and Amersham by-election will perhaps attest. I voted Lib Dem for the first time in my life after doing an online policy test. The policies than mattered most to me and the ones that made me and my family better off actually showed a higher percentage to Lib Dem than Conservative which surprised me. I never thought I'd change my politics like that but I did. As a firm remainer, I couldn't vote for the Tories and I didn't even consider Labour so I guess it was a choice of voting for what was best for me despite knowing there wasn't a hope in hell they would get any power.
Like many others, my brother was always a firm Labour voter and he voted Conservative for the first time in his life believing in the "Get Brexit done" stance Boris took to gain power. For a stubborn man like him, that was probably more of a shocking opinion change. Like a lot of people who did that, they are now utterly fed up of the restrictions placed on them and the way the country is going and are quickly turning against Boris and the government. Interesting time for politics at the minute that's for sure.
I dunno, I think as I've got older [maybe age, maybe stage, maybe actual change] I've become far more skeptical of anything that is presented as monochromatic or by having a set, firm opinion on anything much. My esteem for some 'contrarians' has fallen off a cliff over the past year or so, covid really does affect the brain, but maybe just not in the way we imagine.
Johnson? I was 70:30 to stay, but 95:05 for democracy, so he was a useful tool for that - I had hoped we'd see some glimmer of future/different/optimistic thinking and make at least some lemonade out of the lemons - a reset to our [govts] many problems - but that has faded considerably also. I'm pretty appalled by all the political class to be honest. And at ourselves for putting them there. 'The political divide is an illusion fed to the gullible to perpetuate the incompetent', but it is what it is.
I now think supercars are quite boring, if that counts
Johnson? I was 70:30 to stay, but 95:05 for democracy, so he was a useful tool for that - I had hoped we'd see some glimmer of future/different/optimistic thinking and make at least some lemonade out of the lemons - a reset to our [govts] many problems - but that has faded considerably also. I'm pretty appalled by all the political class to be honest. And at ourselves for putting them there. 'The political divide is an illusion fed to the gullible to perpetuate the incompetent', but it is what it is.
I now think supercars are quite boring, if that counts
andy_s said:
I now think supercars are quite boring, if that counts
That hit home with me as well. I now favour classic/vintage/Edwardian/veteran car and motocycle events. I was in a group of five blokes, all 60+, all admiring the engine of a racing Roche Talbot, all telling one-another how unremarkable it was. I spend more money on classic events than I would if I went to the British Grand Prix, but I'm pleased I go classic.DRFC1879 said:
I've certainly become far more open-minded over the last 20 years.
Coming from a fairly impoverished Northern mining town it was easy to be a bit bigotted. Suspicion/dislike of people of colour, homosexuals etc. was the norm. I cringe when I think of some of the things I said and believed as a teenager.
It wasn't really until I came into more contact with people from these minority groups that I realised they are just like anyone else. Most of them are absolutely fine, some of them are dheads. We're all people at the end of the day. I like to think that these days I don't judge anyone on anything other than their behaviour.
Whereas I came from the same (there was only one black family in town), and I think me and my old school buddies weren't bigoted because we had nothing to be bigoted about, and no experience of it. Coming from a fairly impoverished Northern mining town it was easy to be a bit bigotted. Suspicion/dislike of people of colour, homosexuals etc. was the norm. I cringe when I think of some of the things I said and believed as a teenager.
It wasn't really until I came into more contact with people from these minority groups that I realised they are just like anyone else. Most of them are absolutely fine, some of them are d
heads. We're all people at the end of the day. I like to think that these days I don't judge anyone on anything other than their behaviour.And when one of our school friends came out, the general response was "ok, wanna beer?"
Old Bertie Russel was once asked if he would die for his beliefs, his reply was 'oh no dear, I might change my mind'. That sums up the position we should have in life. A mind once expanded never returns to its original shape...Timothy Leary said that one I think, don't close it regardless. Bad for your health man
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