Not that it's a magical mindset shift. It's just that once you step outside of fundamentally conservative ways of thinking (& mind you, plenty of "liberal" people still are very, very conservative in this sense), a lot of the stuff that used to waste our time & energy just stops really fucking mattering at all. And then you're freer & happier.

Conservatives are so scared to step out of their "comfort" zone, but if they did they might find that it's actually pretty comfortable when you get to live your life your way.

The truth about liberation is that it happens out in the world AND in your mind, because that's how oppression works too.

Literally my mom spent decades of her life deeply ashamed for things she either had no control over (such as lack of money to uphold the middle class facade) or which were not even things she would have cared about if people hadn't told her that she had to.

Middle class, conservative values had her wasting her goddamn life, her energy, her intellect, & her happiness.

Good to see her, a woman in her 60s, reclaiming her life & putting her energy into what matters to HER.

The thing I learned from my mom's shame & struggle with maintaining middle class appearances is: don't bother. That's something I decided at a young age from seeing her distress.

If your happiness is destroyed by worrying about things that wouldn't even be important to you if other people weren't constantly judging you on them, then choose happiness & say "fuck you" to the people judging.

I may have been born with the ornery gene but a lot of my "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" attitude literally comes from observing people I love doing as they were told & being miserable because of it.

I think this was my first rebellion: if I knew that performing some behavior I was "supposed to do" would hurt me, I would refuse it. What's more, I would try to get others to refuse it.

Yeah, I was bad at being a conservative.

They may not even realize this is the case, because within their world, the height of your neighbor's shrubs & the size of your kitchen are matters of grave importance. Everyone says so. More importantly, everyone acts as if it's true.

Once you turn your eyes to matters of greater importance (like, "I can't help but notice that the government is kidnapping my neighbors"), that other stuff starts to feel unimportant. Then you realize: "oh! I should try to do right by other people as much as I can & other than that, I can do whatever the hell I want to do with my life."

This shift in her attitude seems to more or less be concurrent with her "progressive" shift in thinking.

It's general growth in happiness for her, but I suspect leaving conservative mindsets helps.

She is spending more time with people who choose what is important in their lives instead of being told.

Appearances are something that have been very important to my mom, but mainly because of feeling shame & guilt for not being able to maintain them. She has other things she would rather spend her time on: making things for her grandkids & reading books to educate herself & broaden her perspectives. She's a creative & curious person by nature & now that she's not trying to live a cookie-cutter life, she is thriving.

"Middle class" social expectations have always been a trap, keeping you spending all your income & using up all your energy maintaining appearances

It keeps you mired in meaningless social status struggles so you will not notice real struggle.

It's really good that those middle class behaviors are losing popularity & power.

But they are losing popularity amongst certain groups, while others are stubbornly trying to hold on.

That's the pull of conservatism as a mindset, specifically. Sure authoritarianism/white supremacy shape this, but it's things like middle-class sensibilities that make people who are not otherwise particularly reactionary nervous about things.

They've had all their sense of "rightness" channeled into areas that really don't matter (but which are actually markers of characteristics like racial background & wealth).

I grew up with a lot of "middle class" expectations. My mother especially wanted to be classy & have as nice a home as the other women she knew.

It was frustrating to her that we didn't have the money to meet those expectations, nor did she have the ability to complete the grueling task of spending all day every day as the perfect, tireless homemaker.

But there were still all these ideas: how to dress, how to present your home, how to act.

I have found in adult life that throwing all that shit out makes me happier.

For that matter, I don't think my parents really play the "middle class game" anymore. I hear my mom longing for a bigger kitchen because it's hard to prepare big meals in a tiny nook, but I don't hear her comparing with others much anymore: "so-&-so renovated her kitchen & it looks so nice & I just wish I could have nice things."

Ok, it is in fact horrifying that the US Empire is starting a completely unjustified war & murdering people for no reason.

It is not, however, a new thing that hasn't happened before.

It feels like some people are more horrified by the fact that the Trump regime didn't bother manufacturing a "reason" to bomb Iran than they are by the fact they bombed Iran, you know?

Like, "oh whoa, normally I'm a big fan of the US military, but THIS is a step too far."

Men will literally pick out women who spend a significant investment of time & money on their appearance every single day & then ask why women are so focused on appearances.

Dude, you purposefully went out & found someone to whom maintaining a certain appearance is very important. You don't get to complain that the person you selected for certain characteristics has those characteristics.

A woman who does a full face of makeup every day, curls her long hair, goes to the gym & diets to maintain a certain body shape, & dresses impeccably is a person to whom appearance is important.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it IS a thing. It's weird to select someone based on the importance they place upon physical appearance & then act shocked about it.

In my younger days, I used to feel some bitterness towards the other young women who were more willing to perform flawless femininity than I was, because the young men "fell for it" nearly every time.

Eventually I realized that kind of attention is the biggest downside of choosing to maintain that presentation. If a man isn't paying enough attention to realize that type of appearance is something constructed/maintained—not naturally occurring—he's going to be more trouble than he's worth.

Also I didn't understand that, while yes, it is partially about physical attraction, many men select women that they think will impress other men (& that was definitely the case in our patriarchal community). They aren't even primarily thinking about what they want. They are thinking about women who will raise their status with other men.

So I thought these dudes were being "taken in" by appearance, but no, that's all they were looking for to begin with. So again, wtf are they complaining for?

I found it strange in a way because I'm not the most beautiful woman you'll ever meet, but I fall enough within a range of conventionally "pretty" that I couldn't really see why the makeup & curled hair made all the difference with the guys in our Christian subculture.

But it wasn't about being pretty. It was a performance of femininity that I wasn't doing. And they were all specifically focused on finding women who performed it to a high degree.

It's not that guys like "pretty" women more than "smart" women or whatever.

It's that men socialized in patriarchy gravitate towards the women who are "properly" performing their role within it.