Quote:
Originally Posted by substitute
My friend Dave the ISTJ is liberal... but it's deceptive. As a student in the 70's, he took on the liberal thing (it was 'deviant' by general terms back then, but actually de rigeur for students, so he was conforming to his immediate environment despite believing himself to be rebelling) and voted Labour (the left wing party at the time in the UK). But as he's grown older, he's continued to vote Labour even though their policies and stances no longer even slightly resemble what they did in the 70's and countless studies have placed them firmly in the right wing. We've discussed this, and even though he intellectually seems to accept that they're no longer the party that represents his views, he still continues to vote for them. In his words "It's just hard to bring myself to change my vote after so many years." Incomprehensible attitude, from my POV.
Also, although he took on the liberal hippie thing in the 70's, it seems to have been largely a surface thing... and he's very unliberal in his attitude towards people with different views to himself. IOW, he sorta doesn't get the real point of liberalism... he's pretty inflexible in categorizing people as either people he respects or people he doesn't, and he's quite open about the fact that he doesn't see the people he puts in the latter group as worthy or deserving of being treated with consideration or kindness. People in that category for him include anyone who is, or appears to be (IHO) a "sell-out". That is, anyone who wears a suit or a tie - even for a wedding!!! Anyone who buys their own property, or people who listen to music he doesn't like.
His "liberalism" seems very immature to me and stuck in a sorta teenage version of things. Very rigid and black and white, and quite naive.
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This is similiar to my ISTJ father. My mother tells me that back when he was younger, he was your classic 70's hippy. However, so were the people at his college and all of his close friends. Now he lives in a really conservative town and has more conservative friends. Needless to say, he is now the furthest thing from liberal. My mother also described his liberalism as rather immature and says that underneath it all, he's always been more rigid in his views.