How a Jewish, Brit, Guardianista, recovered from the leftist mind-trap she grew up with.
"I had been brought up to believe the Left stood for altruism rather than selfishness, community rather than individualism, self- discipline rather than the law of the jungle and the survival of the fittest.
Instead, society was worshipping at the shrine of the self, and this was causing a rising tide of juvenile distress, crime, emotional disturbance, educational and relationship failure.
The fact that I continued to write along these lines regardless of all the abuse hurled to shut me up seemed to drive the Left nuts.
Yes, they espoused a doctrine of being tolerant and non-judgmental, but not when it came to me. I was branded a ‘moraliser’, which appeared to be a term of abuse.
Most of the time, those hurling insults provided no contrary evidence or even arguments, just blanket denials and gratuitous abuse..."
She imagined she was on the side of the angels until she began thinking for herself. It's a good story, along the lines of David Horowitz' excellent Radical Son and David Gelernter's Drawing Life. If a person's view of the world does not change between age 20 and age 50, they haven't been thinking or challenging their assumptions very much.
Most of us here have changed our views on things many times. It's called growth, accumulation of information, experience, and, one hopes, wisdom.
