What have you changed your mind about?

[Sun_Worshiper]

Tell us something that you once thought or believed, but no longer do. It could be something related to politics, to academics, or to something else entirely.

I'll start:

• I used to think that economic globalization was bad for poor countries and for workers in rich countries. The data and scholarship changed my mind.
• I used to think that quantitative research was more serious scholarship than qualitative work; now I think qualitative work is, in general, more likely to stand the test of time
• Growing up I didn't like olives or mustard... now I love both (brown mustard only though)

[mamselle]

Growing up, I thought my parents were right and that Nixon was being maligned by the press, so I voted for him when I was 19. I was so confused by all that happened later, that I decided I really didn't know how to determine quality leadership, so I didn't vote for several decades.

Only after Gore lost did I realize I had grown to understand things much better and had a responsibility to exercise my ability to vote from then on.

I was so determined not to be party to something like that happening again that when the next election came around, although I was just returning from Europe and only got in half an hour before the polls closed, I ran down the street to the school my precinct voted in, to be sure of turning my ballot in that year. I haven't missed an election or a primary since.

M.

[mahagonny]

I used to think it mattered when you use good grammar and spelling. Then I found out the only people who notice you have good grammar and spelling have it themselves and so find it unremarkable, because paying attention to it comes naturally and is kind of fun for them and you. It's really just that you both have the same hobby, but in terms of things that are success-producing, language skills are nowhere near as important as natural confidence and assertiveness. People who don't notice who uses good grammar and spelling will just as likely be annoyed as pleased to have it pointed out that someone's grammar and spelling are better than theirs. I had a seventh grade teacher who screamed about the difference between 'there, their and they're' and in the years since I've seen a steady deterioration of language skills. It's a fight that's been lost. Sometimes I think he knew this would happen, and the whole thing was just an exercise in self expression.

That sounds depressing so I'll add one more: I used to think girls were yucky.

[mahagonny]

Happier example: I used to believe people never change much once they reach adulthood. But some do. George Wallace did. He said with a smile, a little shake of the head 'I was just wrong.'

[polly_mer]

Growing up, I thought my parents were right and that Nixon was being maligned by the press, so I voted for him when I was 19. I was so confused by all that happened later, that I decided I really didn't know how to determine quality leadership, so I didn't vote for several decades.

Only after Gore lost did I realize I had grown to understand things much better and had a responsibility to exercise my ability to vote from then on.

I was so determined not to be party to something like that happening again that when the next election came around, although I was just returning from Europe and only got in half an hour before the polls closed, I ran down the street to the school my precinct voted in, to be sure of turning my ballot in that year. I haven't missed an election or a primary since.

M.

This type of thinking drives me nuts.  Instead of putting in the effort to contribute to fixing things, you gave up on being a responsible adult until something happened that was much less important than things going on for decades.  One thing I wish were taught in more K-12 schools is:

*Being informed enough to make a good decision on voting based on what one wants to happen in government is a basic responsibility of a citizen.  Voting for a member of a specific team is usually much less important than voting for an individual who is likely to be able to do what's necessary by virtue of having a realistic plan and the backing to implement that plan.  One must be informed enough to be able to evaluate the plans and likely backing, not just the rhetoric of saying the desirable priorities.

* Being involved enough at a reasonable level makes the community better on a day-to-day basis; elected officials alone are much less important than the community members as a whole.  Voting alone is seldom makes the community better, even with the best candidate.  Community involvement by everyone is necessary to have a good community.  The person who isn't an active member of the community shouldn't be voting because it's unlikely that person truly knows what needs to be done and what a good plan to do it would be.

To answer the question, I used to think formal education mattered to critical thinking skills.  Now, I know that formal education isn't even a necessary condition, let alone a sufficient condition, because I know far too many people with a healthy dollop of formal education who fail regularly on things that matter.  https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2021/01/19/belief-if-people-only-were-better-educated-theyd-engage-less-unacceptable-behavior rings true.

[apl68]

I changed my mind about the age of the Earth.  I grew up believing in the traditional chronology of the Earth's age that was based on adding up the ages of all the patriarchs in the book of Genesis.  Eventually I realized that the "days" of creation in Genesis were phases of indeterminate time, not solar days.  And anyway one "day" to a God who transcends time is no different from a thousand years--or a million, or a billion.  It's only from our human perspective that it takes a long, long time.

This change in perspective helped me to begin to realize the implications of a God who is eternal (beyond time, not just possessing an infinite amount of it), all-powerful, and all-present.  If God is present at all times and in all places and events, then the distinction we try to make between a supernatural act of creation and the operation of the natural laws that God created as observed by science is artificial.  The processes of geological change and evolution don't push God aside.  They are what we observe of God at work.

God created some amazing creatures in earlier times--dinosaurs (and their descendants, the birds), dire wolves, mastodons, synapsids, glyptodonts, giant sloths, trilobites, and on and on.  He's nothing if not inventive.

[marshwiggle]

I used to think formal education mattered to critical thinking skills.  Now, I know that formal education isn't even a necessary condition, let alone a sufficient condition, because I know far too many people with a healthy dollop of formal education who fail regularly on things that matter.  https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2021/01/19/belief-if-people-only-were-better-educated-theyd-engage-less-unacceptable-behavior rings true.

From the national post:

Caulfield believes anti-vaxxers come from a wide spectrum of income and education backgrounds. In 2015, the polling firm Mainstreet Research found that 39 per cent of Canadian anti-vaxxers had household incomes of more than $100,000, 38 per cent had a university degree and a full 66 per cent had some post-secondary education.

[mamselle]

Growing up, I thought my parents were right and that Nixon was being maligned by the press, so I voted for him when I was 19. I was so confused by all that happened later, that I decided I really didn't know how to determine quality leadership, so I didn't vote for several decades.

Only after Gore lost did I realize I had grown to understand things much better and had a responsibility to exercise my ability to vote from then on.

I was so determined not to be party to something like that happening again that when the next election came around, although I was just returning from Europe and only got in half an hour before the polls closed, I ran down the street to the school my precinct voted in, to be sure of turning my ballot in that year. I haven't missed an election or a primary since.

M.

This type of thinking drives me nuts.  Instead of putting in the effort to contribute to fixing things, you gave up on being a responsible adult until something happened that was much less important than things going on for decades.  One thing I wish were taught in more K-12 schools is:

*Being informed enough to make a good decision on voting based on what one wants to happen in government is a basic responsibility of a citizen.  Voting for a member of a specific team is usually much less important than voting for an individual who is likely to be able to do what's necessary by virtue of having a realistic plan and the backing to implement that plan.  One must be informed enough to be able to evaluate the plans and likely backing, not just the rhetoric of saying the desirable priorities.

* Being involved enough at a reasonable level makes the community better on a day-to-day basis; elected officials alone are much less important than the community members as a whole.  Voting alone is seldom makes the community better, even with the best candidate.  Community involvement by everyone is necessary to have a good community.  The person who isn't an active member of the community shouldn't be voting because it's unlikely that person truly knows what needs to be done and what a good plan to do it would be.

To answer the question, I used to think formal education mattered to critical thinking skills.  Now, I know that formal education isn't even a necessary condition, let alone a sufficient condition, because I know far too many people with a healthy dollop of formal education who fail regularly on things that matter.  https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2021/01/19/belief-if-people-only-were-better-educated-theyd-engage-less-unacceptable-behavior rings true.

Now, it drives me nuts in those parts of my family who never left the Midwest, and departed from the more liberal church we'd always attended when it started raising the kinds of questions that led me to take another look at my own actions, ideas, and beliefs.

They also never left an abusive spouse, had to survive in a more rigorous climate in a more demanding part of the country, or addressed some of the challenges stirred up by bad governance in the schools or industries they experienced.

Metanoia is often contextual, as I think apl68's narrative also suggests.

It's harder, but I'm glad to have seen that shift in myself, and I try to remain open to others that yet may come.

To my mind, it's less about change, in the sense of becoming disjoint from your former self, and more about growth--except in those instances where actual wrong is involved, and must be firmly set aside as one seeks transformation.

M.

[Vkw10]

Single-payer health care system. I thought our current system worked well enough when I was 30. By 50, I realized that the USA doesn't really have a health care system as much as we have healthcare chaos. I also realized how many support staff my doctor's office needs just to handle insurance claims and patient billing because there's not a standard process or standard rules.  Looking at insurance claim reports and seeing the billed amount, paid amount, and write-off amount was also eye-opening.

Asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, salad as a meal. At 25, I disliked all of these. Thirty years later, I enjoy them on a regular basis. It's almost enough to make me try liver & onions again.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I've actually become more conservative over the last few years. I don't have any urge to vote GOP, but I am skeptical things like UBI, student loan forgiveness, and transitioning the US to single payer healthcare - all of which I probably would have supported in my 20s.

[ergative]

I used to think history was boring. I still get a little bit bored with political history or military history, but history of science and cultural history are fascinating to me now.

I used to think politics was boring--but possibly it's politics that's changed, rather than my view of it.

I used to think that things like 'the canon' were objectively better than modern books, rather than cultural and historical touchpoints for establishing progression of thoughts and ideas (and modern social status).

I used to be uncertain about the death penalty and gun control and the 2nd amendment. Now I want that shit gone.

I used to think it was funny to joke about voting Republican because I didn't like taxes.

I used to hate mushrooms, olives, cilantro, and red wine. I still hate dill, though.

I used to be a real prescriptivist about grammar, and went through a phase in eighth grade when I would "correct" my parents if they ended sentences with prepositions. I don't know how they didn't strangle me, because I was past the 'too cute to murder' stage by then.

I used to be okay with books that had eating disorders (specifically bulimia) or sexual assault as plot points. Now I nope out of them hard. I used the content warnings to skip those episodes in the most recent series of The Crown because I dislike eating disorder plots so much.

[Parasaurolophus]

I've changed my mind about lots of things. It's hard to remember the specifics, but a non-exhaustive list should include:

• Vegetarianism
• Torture. I was never for it, but I used to have a much narrower conception of what it involved, and used to think it might be permissible in some circumstances. Then I read a friend and former professor's book on the subject.
• Optimism about the march of progress. Living through our collective non-response to climate change beat it out of me.
• Forensic "science". I used to think this stuff was determinative. I now know the vast majority of it is bunkum, and that even the bits which aren't are routinely misapplied or misunderstood, even by investigators.
• Basic investigative competence among the police. The more I learn, the less confidence I have. I still hold out some small spark of hope that things are generally better now than they were in the '80s and '90s, but it's a fragile hope.
• The derogatory use of certain terms, such as 'gay'. I was never really against gay rights, but it took a little while to shake off the everyday homophobia that was ingrained in me as a teen in the early aughts.
• The Millian approach to free speech ("more and better speech wins out").
• The importance of national "debt" and deficits.
• Stand up comedy. I used to find a lot of it much funnier than I do now. I now recognize a lot of it as pretty stupid and bigoted, or worse.
• Feminism. I learned better as a late teen, but growing up on the internet left me pretty ignorant of what it was, and what its value was.
• Professional stuff. I change my mind about professional stuff all the time. Most notably, when I started my PhD I thought my advisor's views were totally whacko. When I started writing my last chapter, I discovered I'd arrived at the same conclusions via a somewhat different path.

[RatGuy]

I now think mercy is more important than justice, that peace is more important than "being right." I now think Hawthorne is overrated and Cather is underrated. I no longer think "Friends" is funny, and I no longer believe that all students should have hard copies of the text in my classroom.

I've also decided I like both Shredded Wheat and Grape Nuts, and now I often eat mix half of each with breakfast.

[secundem_artem]

It's almost enough to make me try liver & onions again.

Whoa there big fella.  Let's not take this to extremes.

Brussels Sprouts.  Boiled to death like Mom used to do?  Blech.  Oven roasted with a bit of olive oil & finished with slices of prosciutto?  Great stuff.

Growing up elsewhere I used to believe the US was the most liberal country in the world.  I've since been corrected on a number of occasions.

Libertarianism.  Once seemed like a good idea to me.  I've since realized that we do not all start from the same position so some people are never in a position to take full advantage of their freedoms.

[ergative]

Brussels Sprouts.  Boiled to death like Mom used to do?  Blech.  Oven roasted with a bit of olive oil & finished with slices of prosciutto?  Great stuff.

While I won't deny the importance of appropriate preparation, you aren't the only one who's changed here.