My Ideological Journey: From Left to Right and Beyond, Part 1

Escaping the left…

An old friend occasionally needles me for the fact that my political views have evolved over the decades we have known each other, whereas his have remained largely unchanged. The needling includes a value judgement: my friend’s path has been ideologically consistent (good), whereas mine has been a journey of mercurial inconsistency (bad).

Needless to say, I do not agree. A different value assessment might look unkindly, for example, upon an ideological position developed in one’s teens and never challenged or changed thereafter. However, the teasing is lighthearted, and in the interest of comity, I do not take the bait, other than to offer my own characterization—that my journey has been one of “ever-increasing communion with the truth.”

The reality, of course, is more complicated and interesting than that quick bromide, and this morning I found myself thinking about the various phases of my ideological development. Once unpacked, the steps I have taken make a great deal of sense, revealing a path of which I am proud.

This following is not intended as a passive-aggressive response to my friend, who will in all likelihood never see this post. Rather, I simply find myself compelled to an exploration of those phases, and how one led to the next.

Phase 1
Raised by socialists

I grew up with a framed photo of Che Guevara—angry-eyed, wild-haired, in his famous beret—hanging in the various homes in which we lived during my childhood. I was taken to left-wing