> Funny, I was wondering about this the other day, but mostly about
> people on the list. It would be interesting to set up a poll for
> members of this and other left lists to answer. Maybe provide space
> for people to submit short personal essays about how they first became
> exposed to leftist ideas.
I guess my first exposure was to my parents. They were by no means radicals, but just being a Democrat in Indiana in the '40s and '50s was to be pretty nonconformist in itself. As I got older and explored the world of ideas more and more, I found Marx, etc., quite illuminating, but at the same time I was learning to think independently and rather rigorously, so I never became tightly attached to any particular ideology, and never joined a radical political group, except for SDS in its early, pre-Weatherman phase. Therefore, I am sure that in many people's eyes I would not qualify as leftist at all -- to really be a leftie, I suppose, you have to have spent years looking at the world through a very tightly defined, narrow crack in the wall of the mind, and swear eternal obedience to some grouplet or other. But that, in short, is my story, and I'm sticking to it.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org _____________________________ "Simply by being human we do not have a common bond. For all we share with all other humans is the same thing we share with all other animals -- the ability to feel pain." -- Richard Rorty