NationStates Jolt Archive

I was looking at Undelia's post about how the elderly have an outdated morality and how they impose it upon us via voting and other means.

Which got me thinking, there has pretty much always been some sort of proponant of most modern veiws throughout history; so are the elderly overwhelmingly, lets say, Christian, conservative and right wing?

So anyhow, I want to know what are/were the religious and political (if anyone can recall) veiwpoints of each of your grandparents? Did they pass these on through the family?

Heres mine: My maternal grandmother was a moderate Anglican and my paternal grandmother is a republican conservative bible thumper. My paternal grandfather is a bit of a mystery, but I can only guess by his behaviour that he is some kind of apolitical agnostic. My maternal grandpa was an avowed atheist (dont know political bent). Lastly my 3rd grandpa (yes 3rd, my paternal grandma remarried) is also a republican conservative bible thumper.
So 40% republican Christian, 20% atheist, 20% moderate and 20% dont give a shit, how about you?

I was looking at Undelia's post about how the elderly have an outdated morality and how they impose it upon us via voting and other means.

Which got me thinking, there has pretty much always been some sort of proponant of most modern veiws throughout history; so are the elderly overwhelmingly, lets say, Christian, conservative and right wing?

So anyhow, I want to know what are/were the religious and political (if anyone can recall) veiwpoints of each of your grandparents? Did they pass these on through the family?

Heres mine: My maternal grandmother was a moderate Anglican and my paternal grandmother is a republican conservative bible thumper. My paternal grandfather is a bit of a mystery, but I can only guess by his behaviour that he is some kind of apolitical agnostic. My maternal grandpa was an avowed atheist (dont know political bent). Lastly my 3rd grandpa (yes 3rd, my paternal grandma remarried) is also a republican conservative bible thumper.
So 40% republican Christian, 25% atheist, 25% moderate and 25% dont give a shit, how about you?

That's over 100%...

That's over 100%...

I fucked up bad :), I'll fix it. I started thinking of five individuals and then half way through switched over to the traditional denominator of 4. Whoops.

On my dads side, my poppop was a judge and a demmy so im guessing my nana was too. Im thinking they were liberal-ish.

On my moms side I never met my grandfater so.. yeah. My gram, I can clearly tell you, she's still in the oldies. I told her about my cousin David who married an american chinese girl and she was shocked. And she still uses the term "colored" when talking about black people.

Well Undelia is kind of angry at the world so I take what he says with a grain of salt.

One set of grandparents were in the deperssion. So they taught about hardship and pride. Grandpa taught me carpentry as he explained there may be no jobs but the is always a need for somebody who knows how to hammer and saw.

The other set of grandparents lived through the German invasion(Poland) and taught never to be afraid of change because sometimes you have to leave the comforts of home for a long time if not forever.

When thinking of old people; you should remember the saying "Those that forget the past are doomed to repeat it."

They are also useful when dealing with historical revisionism that goes on long after the events have happened(ie FDR and the depression).

Ahh well....

At least in the 2004 US presidential election, the elderly leaned right - 54% of voters 60 and over responding to this exit poll (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html) voted for Bush, compared with 45% of voters under 30, 53% of voters aged 30-44, and 51% of voters aged 45-59.

Hmm.
Paternal Grandpa: Fairly far left. May have been a communist when he was younger, now is a lefty (though nowhere near as far). Episcopal, and fairly devout.

Paternal Grandmother: No clue, but my guess is that she is left of center as well, from her behavior. Also Episcopal and fairly devout.

Maternal Grandfather: Used to be a republican, but after Nixon has become a hardline democrat, probably a moderate, with anti-right sympathys.

Maternal Grandmother: Before her memory started to go, she was a moderate, to moderate left.

so... 100% left/moderate

I stand out a little bit. :p

Grandpa on my dads side was a cantacerous stubborn man, and elbow grease kind of guy. If you watch American Chopper, a very Paul Sr. kind, but harder to please, if you can imagine.

My grandmother was almost an Edith type. She was racist (when she saw my prom photo where my friend, who happened to be from India, was with his date, a white chick, she said, "They do that at your school?" Date? "No." Take pictures? "No." Have dances? "No...mix it up like that..." Oh, yeah...uncomfortable moment with grandma...) Conservative.

Didn't know my grandfather on the other side. My grandmother gives here opinions on the brood (moms side is bigger) and what they're doing, but not on the outside world except for superficial events like pretty kidnap victims. No idea.

Both sets of grandparents are dead. I never met them.

Of course, my dad is old enough to be considered elderly, at 63. He's actually a far-left wing liberal idiot when it comes to politics, but otherwise a cool guy. =/

Frankly, though, it does seem more often than not that the elderly have an outdated morality. See, when they were our age, that was the morality then, and they keep it. We'll be just as out of date when we're in our sixties, no doubt.

At least in the 2004 US presidential election, the elderly leaned right - 54% of voters 60 and over responding to this exit poll (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html) voted for Bush, compared with 45% of voters under 30, 53% of voters aged 30-44, and 51% of voters aged 45-59.

So, a 9% shift over 50ish years? Meh.

American granparents
Grandpa was a Republican while Grandma was a Democrat. That's all I really know about that.
I doubt that my German Grandparents vote at all. They're too fed up with politics, but they're mainly center about it. My Grandfather is a pacifist, but I guess that comes from growing up during a war.

Ideologies: Cookies for everybody!*

*Not real heavy voters.

Most old people here in Ireland are conservative, Catholic and left-wing.

None of my Grandparents were especially religious. Which is to say, they didnt speak of God much or go to church. All of them except my Grandfather on my Dad's side, who was a cruel bastard, believed in treating others with respect and dignity. They were kind to strangers, giving to them as they would their own family members. They had a positive outlook and didnt let obstacles get in their way. I never saw either of the 3 Grandparents let on that theyd been licked by adversity, and trust me, they had their fair share. They seemed to draw strength from their hard times and were thankful for what they had. Thankful that they were able to help themselves and live a life without regret. I dont remember them being thankful to God. Perhaps they prayed silently or not at all. Absence of religion certainly didnt make them bad people. They were some of the greatest human beings one could ever hope to meet.

My maternal grandparents are both southern, middle-class, conservative Anglicans, and have been all their lives. They read the Daily Torygraph for god's sake!
I'm not entirely sure about my paternal grandparents. They're both northern, working-class. I know my dad's mum is fairly religious, and that his dad keeps away from religion if he can help it, but as far as I'm aware they're both pretty much centrists politically. They both vote Labour, or at least have done in the last few elections.
Neither have had any real effect on me - I'm agnostic and fairly left-wing.

My grandfather on my father's side, all five of his children ( including my father ), and so far as I know the entire family, were Dixiecrats. This bears a bit of explaining. Technically a Dixiecrat was a democrat, but a democrat distinctly different from those elsewhere in America, holding much more conservative views on virtually everything. Almost everyone in Southern America was a Dixiecrat when I was growing up, creating what use to be called "the solid South" as a single voting bloc. I was the very first person in our family since Reconstruction to vote republican. Some of the older people in the family would hardly even talk to me when they found out! Heh!

EDIT: As far as I know, the same was true for my grandparents on my mother's side.

My maternal grandfather is a leftwinger, and was even a communist; my grandmother is highly conservative and populist.
My paternal granparents were peasants and semi-illiterate. My paternal grandfather, however, did express political choices, but they are rather weird. He was a sympathiser of the fascist Iron Guard, but had the luck of not joining them before they were supressed. He was also the first in his village to join the cooperative when the communists came to power. To add to the confusion, he wept when they showed the former King on national tv after 1989, and claimed him to have been his king as well (if not foremost - after all, he had served as a royal palace guard during WWII).

My maternal grandfather is a leftwinger, and was even a communist; my grandmother is highly conservative and populist.
My paternal granparents were peasants and semi-illiterate. My paternal grandfather, however, did express political choices, but they are rather weird. He was a sympathiser of the fascist Iron Guard, but had the luck of not joining them before they were supressed. He was also the first in his village to join the cooperative when the communists came to power. To add to the confusion, he wept when they showed the former King on national tv after 1989, and claimed him to have been his king as well (if not foremost - after all, he had served as a royal palace guard during WWII).
What country?

What country?
Romania.

EDIT:My maternal grandfather was a sort of a communist official, actually (although he was promoted for his profession, and inside his profession - he never held political office, strictly speaking, but almost everything was politicized). He was never a Stalinist, and also hated the national-communism of Ceausescu (that's why he was demoted when Ceausescu enforced his rule). It's interesting, because he has met world personalities from Dimitrov to Haile Selassie (whom he described as "very short"), and he knows details about a lot of obscure things - for example, he was present to see what Dimitrov did to anger Stalin, and how Ceausescu was almost expelled from the Party in the 1950s.

Ok. Thanks.

I rather thought you were from Eastern Europe somewhere.

I was looking at Undelia's post about how the elderly have an outdated morality and how they impose it upon us via voting and other means.

Which got me thinking, there has pretty much always been some sort of proponant of most modern veiws throughout history; so are the elderly overwhelmingly, lets say, Christian, conservative and right wing?

So anyhow, I want to know what are/were the religious and political (if anyone can recall) veiwpoints of each of your grandparents? Did they pass these on through the family?

Heres mine: My maternal grandmother was a moderate Anglican and my paternal grandmother is a republican conservative bible thumper. My paternal grandfather is a bit of a mystery, but I can only guess by his behaviour that he is some kind of apolitical agnostic. My maternal grandpa was an avowed atheist (dont know political bent). Lastly my 3rd grandpa (yes 3rd, my paternal grandma remarried) is also a republican conservative bible thumper.
So 40% republican Christian, 20% atheist, 20% moderate and 20% dont give a shit, how about you?

One of my grandmothers passed on long before I was born, and I don't know much about her. Of the remaining three grandparents:

One is a retired chemist/engineer who worked with the Manhatten Project. He distrusts anybody who doesn't understand science, and as a result distrusts the government to a great degree. This means he is absolutely NOT a conservative, since American conservatives support virtually unlimited governmental interference in private life. He also is not a socialist or anything like that, because he doesn't trust anybody else with his money. He most likely doesn't believe in any God, but if he does then he probably thinks God's a lousy engineer.

One was an artist and self-starter businessman who fingerpainted with me at every opportunity. He was far too quiet and introspective to think about things like social policy, religion, or politics in general. He may very well have gone his entire life without voting, but if he did vote he probably asked his wife or kids who he should vote for.

One was a brilliant and talented woman who was unlucky enough to be born in the early part of last century. She married, had kids, and gave up most of her own hopes and goals for the majority of her lifetime. After her kids were grown she got a divorce and went back to school, and was (according to her children) much happier. She was a dedicated liberal, both socially and economically. She was also a card shark. She was a Unitarian back when there were no Unitarians, and was even "out" as a Unitarian while living in a Methodist suburb in the 1960s. She generally felt that God had been dropping the ball with this planet, but was far too polite to tell Him so to His face...instead, she dedicated her life to cleaning up His messes and fixing all the problems He was overlooking.

Ok. Thanks.

I rather thought you were from Eastern Europe somewhere.
Molvania.

bump.

O like this thread.

mother's side....

My grandmother was the first person (and first woman) in her family to graduate highschool, and then went on to be the first person (and woman) to graduate college. She was a republican, but changed her political affiliation when she got married to my grandfather. She was raised church of Christ, but switched to Southern Baptist when she was about 30-ish. She lived through the great depression, had 7 brothers and 4 sisters and lost all but 2 brothers and 1 sister in the war.

My grandfather has a third grade education, he is a democrat, he was able to start out in life with $70.00 to his name and work hard enough to raise a family, start a business, buy a house (which he paid cash for in 1967) built on a "front house" which he rented out, and still works 6 days a week at his store, 10 hours a day, at the age of 81. His motto is "make enough money to have everything you need, and most of what you want, if that doesn't work out either work harder or want less"



I don't know much about my father's side.

hmmmm

all my grandparents were born at the end of the 19th century.

i only knew my fathers mother. she was the mother of 8 most of whom she had to raise on her own after my grandfather abandoned her. i dont recall her ever saying anything even remotely political

my fathers father lived in the area with various women (always telling them that his wife wouldnt give him a divorce) until he finally came upon one with enough money to make it worth his while to get a divorce. he married her and moved to california where he died when i was somewhere around 10. his children buried him in the family plot even though they all hated him.

my mothers parents were immigrants from lithuania. once his kids got old enough to work, my grandfather felt they should support him. (in his old age, the fbi came to check him out, my aunt, his oldest daughter, yelled at the agents and made them leave) my mothers mother was a landlord and bootegger who made her way the best she could. they both died before i was born

my mother was a fairly liberal democrat and my father was a fairly conservative republican (back when republicans WERE conservative)

My paternal grandma was a teacher and she met my grandpa in the RCAF. My grandpa fought in WWII and was a manager of Eatons. They both come from Protestant families, but neither one is religious, the never go to church or anything, though i don't doubt they believe in God. They are both pretty liberal, though i couldn't tell you what party they vote for.

My maternal grandpa fought in WWII and was imprisoned by the Nazis. When he immigrated to Canada he worked for the city and cleaned one of the hotels here to get my mom and her siblings and my grandma to this country. He died in 1990. My maternal grandma never had a job outside the home. My grandpa was completely illiterate and my grandma still is and neither one ever became Canadian citizens. They are both strict Catholics, and though i don't know how conservative my grandpa was, i know that my grandma is very Conservative. One of my cousins married a Chinese man and adopted a couple of Chinese babies, and my grandma disapproved. When my brother told her that my aunt (my dad's sister) and her boyfriend had a baby, her first question was "are they married?" They're not. My mom has never even told her she got her tubes tied because of her stance on birth control.

My mom is a hell of a lot more liberal than her parents, and though she believes in God, she is not religious at all. She is not a Canadian citizen, so she can't vote, and she's not all that interested in politics. I would probably classify her as centrist. My dad is a left-winger and not religious at all.

My mom's family came from Italy, my dad's is from England and Scotland, though both my grandparents were born in Canada.

I'm an agnostic, democratic-socialist with Buddhist leanings, who positively believed in God until only a few years ago.

I also wanted to add that i volunteered for the NDP, the party i support, the most left-wing of the major parties in Canada, and most of the people working for it were senior citizens. Then were some people in their 40's and 50's, and a few in their 30's. I'm 28, and the the only people younger than me were a couple of high school students, and a college student.

-snip-

My grandparents on my father's side were by the book Catholics, with fasicist ideas when it came to politics. My great grandfather was an Italian, who believed in Mussolini's fascist idea and my grandfather carried on those ideas. From age 25 until his death he wore a blackshirt just about everyday, in fact on his wedding day he had a black dress shirt underneath his jacket. My grandmother didn't really understand politics as a young woman, but being married to my grandfather made her just as much of a fascist as him. They died in Italy, really wealthy fasicist Italians. :p

My grandparents on my mother's side are a little different. My grandmother is an Agnostic Libertarian and my grandfather is a stereotypical Southern boy with Christian ideals and staunch Republican values. Safe to say their marriage (in California) didn't last, and the woman that my grandfather re-married is a Christian, Conservative just like he is.

So 40% Catholic Fascist, 20% Agnostic Libertarian, and 40% Christian Republican. Quite the party...

I myself am a Catholic Libertarian. I guess my American grandfather, and step-grandmother just lost.