Why do I say that it is the parent child relationship that is the most important determinant in forming political views?
Because there, in that relationship, the seeds of moral judgement are sawn. It is in relation to your parents that you first feel admiration, fear or injustice. It is in relation to your parents that you first feel confident and admired or scared and unworthy. Whatever these feelings, they will propel a child into his own political universe. The new human, political being, prepares for lift-off. Some go higher than others and some crash. Some place themselves on a comfortable orbit and give themselves up to a life of mindless militancy, be it pacifist, individualistic, downright extreme supremacist or extreme communism.
There, where political views have formed and had taken on a form which has a higher than usual level of engagement, we identify two distinct directions of development from a parental relationship perspective. In the first, the child has the same political views as the parents and in the second the child develops opposite political views. Hey, but let’s not forget that there’s often and in majority still, more than one parent to a child. In the case in which the parents have opposite political views, inevitable, the child will be a lot closer to one of the parents.
A child being closer to the political convictions of one of the parents is not a small matter. It often has consequences in the way the parental relationship evolves when childhood is over. It has usually negative consequence in the way the relationship between parents evolves. It elicits envy, fear, conceit, arrogance, resentment and even unconscious hatred, all negative traits in an individual, on the side of the parent that lost the political genetic propagation battle, be it unconscious or not. However, a quality individual, more so as a parent, would never give in to these destructive emotions. Would rise above them with dignity, self-respect and self-honesty. After all, a parent’s love, if the parent learned how to feel it, will always prevail. Parental love can soothe the almost inherent sense of injustice and loss which comes from having antagonistic political views with your own grown up children. Oftentimes, these antagonistic views are a consequence of the way in which the parental relationship evolved over time. We as adults do not spend enough time listening to our children when they grow up, we too easily and readily take them for granted. We assume they trust us regardless of what we do. To an extent that is true as long as they depend on us. But children are cleverer than their parents are prepared to know. It is a hard one because you don’t get taught as school about how to be a parent. Alas, even if it were to be taught, who would make the grades?