Establishment or Anti-establishment

I love history but my interest is social history , I don't realy care about the Spanish Armarda etc, but in the poor law, the movement of people around the UK and why they moved

I was politically aware and engaged from quite a young age, and concerned about inequalities and injustices not just in Britain but around the world.

I think a part of the reason that people tend to become more right wing as they age is because with age often comes more affluence (though not always). Those who have paid off, or nearly paid off, their mortgages, who are still employed in reasonably paid sectors or who have good pensions, are more likely to put that down to their own efforts and embrace the idea that the poor are responsible for their poverty (though, again, not always). Thus, right wing policies that re-affirm the belief that it is individual agency that determines success rather than a certain degree of good luck, are more likely to appeal to them.

Although we are quite comfortably off now, I have not abandoned my view that this country could be a much better and fairer place for everyone - though amongst my friends my left of centre views are certainly not typical. If someone thinks that makes me a fool, then so be it.

Yes ardent local historian, but I prefer the history of working people and the struggle for human rights. We could still have the rituals and pageants, re-enactment societies do these really well

I think it's a love of this country's history that keeps me wanting to keep the ancient established rituals. Do you enjoy history trish?

M0nica - reading your post reminds me of my husband who applied for a post he was well qualified for but didn't get. They took someone with much less experience. He was approached afterwards and told he hadn't got the job because his then headteacher had described him in the supporting letter as 'a red revolutionary'. By such means is the 'establishment' sustained.

I think the young of the '60s did go a long way in affluent countries to change things and not just their mode of dress. Those of us who were fortunate enough to be funded through University by grants gave back big time to the country and our communities by becoming the teachers, nurses, doctors, social workers etc. Our parents had been the shop workers, factory workers, miners etc. I think this enabled a lot of us to see the gross inequalities that existed in society and to challenge. I think too we appreciated those who didn't have our advantages but never the less buckled down and got on with life and even became rich through their own hard work and efforts because they gave employment to others. Somewhere along the line that changed and I think you began to get people who were mainly interested in acquiring wealth for its own sake and for the status it gave them and who drew the ladder up behind them.
I think that is what we need to address in society. Narrowing that gap again so people feel they have a chance.

Both of your posts.

Monica, with a few minor changes, I could have written your post myself.

Well, I certainly haven't changed my politics, nor was I surprised by how the Lib Dems behaved in government, as I said before I am cynical about high flowing decisions. I was a radical in the 1960s and I remain a radical. If I think I have accidentally jumped on a band wagon, like the one labelled Jeremy Corbyn, I jump off pdq - and wait for the crash.

I was once, not that long time ago, described as 'deeply subversive'. I trust I remain so.

OMG it's at it again!! Won't do quotation marks now-get question marks

nigglynellie he pinched it from John Adams 1799- ??A boy of 15 who is not a democrat is good for nothing, and he is no better who is a democrat at 20.??
Winston Churchill used it as well- but I wouldn't regard him as a role model more a career opportunist politician.
MOnica love your remembrances but how do you feel now? I know everyone's views do modify but some seem to be very reactionary now.

Ah, but we were all conformist in the 60s as well. We were ALL going to sweep away old conventions etc etc. We just all went along with the current conformity. Except of course that all young people in the 60s weren't into military jackets with beads and flares etc. Some did, but an awful lot didn't, we just tend to mix with people like us, whatever our 'us' might be.

Back in the 60s I wasn't into flower power, in fact I was rather cynical about it. I had studied history, I remembered stories about the 'war to end all wars' and 'never again', but the young people who thought that were back at war within 20 years. Even then I thought that most of the people enjoying summers of love would be married with mortgages and children and being conventional within 10 years - and they were - and would agree to fight wars (remember the Falklands War?), and vote for conservative governments - and they did (and still do)

I was an active member of the Young Liberals, a very minority sport, but good fun, lobbying MPs. I wore very short skirts and was busy pursuing a career in industry, another minority sport for a woman then.

'The man who is not a socialist at 20 has no heart, but if he is still a socialist at 40 he has no head'.
Former French Prime Minster, Ariside Briand' Perhaps this answers your question!!!!