A privileged conservative upbringing is no bar to later radicalization

Evidence

Diana Oughton was a gentle, lighthearted young woman whose background and personal attributes were the antithesis of the common correlates of political activism. She came from a privileged conservative family and a congenial, conventional upbringing. However, even early in life she voiced concern over the family’s affluence. At age 6 she asked her nanny, “Ruthie, why do we have to be rich?” She continued to exhibit discordance between her conservatism and altruism. On the one hand, having adopted her parent’s conservative values, she rejected socially beneficial programs as examples of the evils of big government. On the other hand, for her extracurricular activity at Bryn Mawr College, she tutored children living in the ghetto. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2130

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s central theme (Moral Disengagement) that ordinary, even conservative, people can slide into harmful extremism through moral disengagement mechanisms.