[ftpsoft]

It is basic human nature.

Liberal = Change

Or, rather, the willingness and ability to ACCEPT change. I have noticed a few things, even in myself as I grow older, that points to why humans, in general, do not like this.

When you are growing up, everything is changing. Our bodies and minds are built to cope with this and we learn, grow, evolve into the adults we are now.

Kids that grew up in the last 20 years are all familiar (at least, in part) with TV remotes and video games. Cell phones, computers and photocopy machines. But get your average 60 year old to go up and use a new TV remote. Do it!

You not only get a general feeling of uncomfortably, but an almost palpable fear of it. A revulsion of it.

This has started to fade, as more of us have shown our parents and grandparents how to use these common modern devices, but the adoption of something unfamiliar to them, even if it may improve their life, is something met with fear and disdain.

And why is this? Where is this fear and hatred coming from? There seems to be one major place where this seems to fit best.

Experience.

This word has many meanings, but in our lexicon it is given almost reverence. Like the Leather-worker with "25 years experience" in making shoes, or the Master Swordsman that teaches his students the ways of the blade (especially prominent in Asian folklore and fiction).

Experience gave rank, privilege, respect and security. You knew what you had to to survive, and you were better than the new ones coming up the line under you.

But that changes when you try something new. Whether it be a skill, technique or even a set or rules for conduct and decorum, people know that a change in things forces them to re-evaluate their own base and may force them to change, at risk of losing their earned position at work or in society.

But why is it so hard to change? Another simple answer. We were not BUILT for that. People are built for change when they are growing up. Kids below 4 years of age can pick up 2 or 3 languages as easy as 1 (trust me, I know, they are like little sponges!). Their brains are still broad-banded to accept what their environment tells them they need to survive.

As we get older, it gets harder and harder to teach an old dog, lipstick or not, new tricks. Nowhere is this more apparent than in those that never were really good at learning tricks in the first place. Ones that were not exposed to 20 different ethnicities on a daily basis when looking for lunch. Ones that did not, in one day, go from learning about Baroque art to Partial Differential Equations.

Joe six-pack.

But Joe does not like to be told something he knows. That he is worth less than any other man. After all, he can do more push ups than Wendell over there, and can belch the Star Spangled Banner off of one can of Schlitz!!! (I am being sarcastic, but truth is, some areas are not far from this in measuring social standing!).

Every human wants to rank higher than those around them, and they do not like to be faced with the fact that they are not.

So, when faced with change, something they do not feel comfortable with, that will not only make it so that the younger generation will show them up in, but areas around the country will as well, they reject it consciously and subconsciously.



That is bad, but when you think about it, isn't that also what our bodies were wired for? To try and get what would benefit us, or what we perceive to benefit us?

It is to the benefit of ignorant people, at least in the short run, to have everything similar to what they know and trust. Because if it isn't, they simply have no way of dealing with it. Darwinism does not always "evolve" an organism. Sometimes it just makes it fight for whatever makes it happy.