In reviewing Lipmann's book Littrell summarizes my thoughts very well. I don't quite agree that *the* reason that youth are liberal is that they have less to lose, as the writer implies because I think that youth, being less jaded and disillusioned, is more idealistic and eager to make things better.

(However, I just realized that my own experience does not bear out Littrell's thesis- I am more radically liberal today than I was when I was 20.)

Littrell says: "Professor Lipsman gets his title from this statement (variously attributed to Disraeli, Churchill, Mark Twain, François Guizot, Clemenceau, et al.): "If you are young and are not liberal, then you have no heart; but if you are old and are not conservative, then you have no brain."

"There can be little doubt that the older we get the more conservative we tend to be. However, this change does not take place because we are wiser. Instead it comes about because in general we have more to conserve, and most importantly because what we really need to conserve is the way of life to which we have grown accustomed. After having spent several decades acclimating ourselves to a particular way of life, with familiar values and recognizable patterns and behaviors, it is very difficult to embrace change.

"Young people tend to be more liberal not because of their hearts, but because they usually have less to conserve and have not become so accustomed to a particular way of life that they fear change. Indeed they often prefer change because most of the power and goodies of the society belong to older people. That is what the quotation really means.


Conservatism versus Liberalism