Why Do Some Liberals Become Conservatives?

◼ These days it may seem as though the entire nation is moving ever leftward. But on the personal level it’s actually much more usual for political change to go in the opposite direction: from left to right. - Jean Kaufman/PJM

It’s not that uncommon an event, either — in fact, there’s a whole literature of political memoir written by left-to-right changers (such as David Horowitz and Norman Podhoretz, to name just two).

One changer closer to home is founder and former CEO of PJ Media Roger L. Simon, who talked about his own story in a recent speech in which he admitted that, despite his having written a book about his change experience, the how and why of political change is still a mystery to him.

Political change is something I’ve thought about long and hard because it happened to me, too, about ten years ago. In fact, struggling to understand and explain that change was one of the things that first drew me to blogs and blogging. I agree with Roger Simon that the vast majority of people are exceedingly reluctant to change their political beliefs and identification, and that was my experience, too; in fact, I’ve titled my own change story “A mind is a difficult thing to change.”

...Rarely, if ever, are prospective changers actually seeking change. In fact their previous political positions on the left may be quite firmly and strongly held, and they would probably consider anyone quite mad who had the audacity to inform them of the transformation about to take place.

But although they may not be interested in change, change is interested in them. It usually begins with something external, some new information encountered seemingly by accident, something that starts to bug the person because it contradicts or doesn’t fit easily into his or her pre-existing framework. It’s like a buzzing fly that won’t quit and can’t be ignored. It causes discomfort, a sense of unease, and the disequilibrium that comes from the dilemma known as cognitive dissonance.

It’s such an unpleasant experience that people are usually eager to resolve it. How they do that is one point at which changers split off from non-changers. The latter group, if faced with that very same information, might just swat that fly — that is, in their discomfort at the knowledge that seems incongruous with their previous beliefs, they would either discredit the new information, minimize it, rationalize it, or shut it out entirely, thus ending the discomfort and the dilemma.

But those who ultimately end up as changers can’t seem to put it away that easily. For them, something once seen cannot be unseen. Perhaps they have a different habit of mind to begin with, one more accustomed to challenging its own beliefs and assumptions, one more uncomfortable with contradictions.

...Another less dramatic way a change experience can begin is with the perception that the mainstream media has lied about something. It can even be something that seems quite small and unimportant by itself, but then it happens again, and again, and a pattern begins to emerge. This learning usually also comes about by accident. For example, a person might happen across the original of a speech from which a truncated quote had been taken, and suddenly realize that the quote was probably edited that way in order to purposely mislead. The advent of the internet has increased the opportunities for this sort of discovery, because it’s much easier to compare the two texts.

...Being on the receiving end of this experience can’t help but be profoundly disturbing. Perhaps it even drives some people under cover, and or back into the liberal fold. But for most, it seems there is no turning back, because — as a fortune cookie I got a few years ago succinctly put it — “one’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.” (Read the whole piece, at the link.)