conservative Sinner, Conservative St Andrews?

[New to here]

Ok, so I'm new to the sinner but I'd just like to know... Is everyone on here conservative?

Just by reading through a couple of threads it seems that most people are fairly right-wing. Is this a sinner thing or St Andrews (I'm a first year).

Thanks!

[Senethro]

Its conservative for a university. Mostly its disaffected youth.

[Daniel]

According to facebook, 14% of St Andrews students are conservative and 28% liberal.

According to the Sinner, 98.7% of St Andrews students are conservative and 0.02% certifiably insane.

Recent events would seem to indicate the Sinner is not as representative of students here as it would like to be.

<Let the flame war begin>

Daniel

[ChrisH]

And since when has the political divide been between conservative and liberal on this side of the pond?
This isn't some kind of Rush v. Chomsky (sp?) battle royale of conflating terms and arbitrarily assigning political opinion to polarising words regardless of whether they fit or not.

Anyhows, St Andrews is significantly more right leaning than left. The labour society here are miniscule compared to elsewhere in Scotland (see Edinburgh where they ran a rectorial candidate). However it is also a town apart from the world, and as such it is easy to be oblivious to politics. There are no slums (despite what the rent campaigners might say ) intruding on us, no major problems with drugs or crime, to drive respectively students to the left or right in the same way.

I'd say most here are conservative with a small c when it comes to their time here. They like things as they are, don't want anyone interfering with how they live their lives here, and view the "outside" as a slightly mystical place.

[Daniel]

In Edinburgh, the labour club ran a candidate for the rectorial elections.

In St Andrews, the left-wing society ran a socialist for the rectorial elections. And came second.

Daniel

[RedCelt69]

According to facebook, 14% of St Andrews students are conservative and 28% liberal.

According to the Sinner, 98.7% of St Andrews students are conservative and 0.02% certifiably insane.

Recent events would seem to indicate the Sinner is not as representative of students here as it would like to be.

<Let the flame war begin>

Daniel

No flames from me. I totally agree with you. Well, the statistics... I can't confirm nor deny, but the more vocal minority on the Sinner are certainly unrepresentative of the students I encounter on a daily basis.

[LonelyPilgrim]

Liberal and conservative by who's standards? What's the point of reference? As an American, I found St Andrews shockingly liberal, likewise with the Sinner. I mean, coming from the American midwest I start looking out for Commies when the debate changes from "Does God want us to drink alcohol and gamble?" to "How little clothes is too little at the Bop?"

[Duggeh]

The small c conservatives and the body at large who might go under a defaultish state of conservatism (pertaining to the british use of the world) are also very liberal in most respects I think. That magical young liberal conservative thing. Theres a noteable and vocal group who are more traditionalist too of course, and who push themselves a little further to clear a space to where they stand, this is also I think what it is, i.e. this stock mixture of this liberal conservatism which makes those who would normally be lefties have to push their way out further into the left just to allow themselves a distinct identity too. It's always those who are the least apathetic and the least flexable who end up drinfting to either end and so its those drifters who are the most vocal and so its always as though theres some kind of battle going on.

It's it's like the debate over the fox hunting ban. 1% of people were hugely vocal and very pro-fox hunting. 1% of people were hugely vocal and very anti-fox hunting. 98% of people didn't give a rats ass about fox hunting but the other 2% kept up the pretence of speaking for that 98%.

So it is with real active lefties and righties in St. Andrews.



This latest debacle over the OCCUPATORZINGZ in LCH serves as good example. The OCCUPATORZ got a real fucking hard dressing down on The Sinner for their actions. And thats the point. For their actions, not their politics. They're never, ever going to be able to accept that though, not in a million years of reason, because they know in their heads that what they did was noble and right and just and true and so anyone who says otherwise has to be an oppressive right wing ranter with a crush hippies fixation.

[munchingfoo]

Like the majority of people in the UK, you couldn't label me as left or right wing. There are so many different issues in the UK, and I, like most people, prefer to look at finding what "the most sensible solution is" (with a slight, unavoidable, personal bias) rather than the one which is "closest to my political ideals".

Sometimes this could mean, for example, that I'd privatise some of the companies in the UK, and other times i'd nationalise some of them.

The reason it's hard to choose between labour and the tories right now is for this very reason. People on the whole are now much more informed (no matter what sinner posts indicate to us :p) and the whole lefty righty thing just doesn't wash for UK politics anymore. We now have parties who instead take various flavours of each side in the hope that this will get them the most votes in the next elections.

[Bizarre Atheist]

In St Andrews, the left-wing society ran a socialist for the rectorial elections. And came second.

Let's just remind ourselves of the distance of Mr Fox's second place, courtesy of the University website.

Mr Dunion, who will officially take up his post tomorrow (Saturday 1 November), won by 941 votes to Fox's 515 and Blyth's 401. The total vote count of 1859 represented 26% of the full-time student population at St Andrews.

Aaaah, that feels good.

Further,

Recent events would seem to indicate the Sinner is not as representative of students here as it would like to be.

Are you sure this shouldn't read

Recent events would seem to indicate the Sinner is not as supportive of me and my friends as I would like it to be.

?

[munchingfoo]

Are you sure this shouldn't read

Recent events would seem to indicate the Sinner is not as supportive of me and my friends as I would like it to be.

?

Shouldn't it read, "my friends and I"? :p

[Bizarre Atheist]

Shouldn't it read, "my friends and I"? :p

Pedantry fail. http://www.foldedspace.org/weblog/2006/ ... and_i.html

[munchingfoo]

Pedantry pedantry fail - according to your link we are both wrong...

My attempt is not grammatically correct, and yours is impolite.

[Hennessy]

There certainly is a vocal minority of sinners who react to bullshit with searing criticism, if that's what you mean by conservative, just as in the Uni there seems to be a number of newlywed 'political' groups dedicated to actively promoting and producing bullshit. The difference is sinners aren't arrogant enough to attempt to force their views onto a majority where the main attitude is neither right or left, but markedly indifferent.

There is possibly only three people in my group of friends and acquaintances with whom I ever have to plumb the desperate depths of talking politics, and a quick canvas of them on a Friday night reveals few strong political leanings besides reading the Guardian and believing Charlie Brooker is a prophet of our times.

[Haunted]

I would describe myself as fairly liberal/left leaning. But it's worth stressing that mocking a failed anti-democratic protest does not make any comment about one's political outlook, merely that they are hostile to bullshit.

[mhuzzell]

In Edinburgh, the labour club ran a candidate for the rectorial elections.

In St Andrews, the left-wing society ran a socialist for the rectorial elections. And came second.

And both unis elected the green candidate

@OP: The Sinner isn't inherently conservative, just inherently misanthropic. With a lot of politically moderate-to-conservative misanthropes posting on it.

St Andrews as a whole is certainly more conservative than other universities, but the majority of students seem to be staunchly apathetic, leaning liberal, and there is of course a wee bastion of radical lefties

[Jono]

It really depends on what people define as conservative. Being conservative, liberal, or indeed being left-wing are not mutually exclusive positions. I tend to vary on 'position' from one policy to another. Nevertheless, I'm going to use the terms in a Webian sense, rather than as a positive identifier.

The Sinner certainly does not serve as an identifier of student opinion. I don't think anyone has argued that (except people who want to slag it off for arguments we didn't make). But to argue that students must therefore be closet liberal or left-wing is just negative evidence!

As for the University, I think we're all looking at this from the wrong standpoint. There is this tiresome stereotype that students are all supposed to be long-haired, pot-smoking hippies as the norm. Thus people look at our rabblous groups of clean-cut, tweed-wearing, cocaine-snorting, young conservatives with a dissapointed curiosity, if not outright distain.

In actual fact, universities in Britain have an overwhelming history of conservativism. A lot of tripe has been spouted about the Sixties these last few weeks. Anyone who has done the module that this university so graciously provides should be aware that pretty much the only university with any serious student protest in the 1960's was the LSE. Even then, it wasn't the majority of students. Hell! the NUS at the time went so far as to condemn that rally as the work of jack-booted thugs who wanted to cause trouble!

[Hennessy]

I'd hit that.

[Delts]

Well I would never call myself conservative, and I know most of my views are far from it. But then again, as has been previously noted, in Britain it's no longer black and white with regards to political parties.

And I really wish second votes had been counted in the rector election. I'm betting the winner would have been Sir Chay for the second votes with most of the Dunion voters choosing to put Fox last.

[Jormungand]

I would describe myself as fairly liberal/left leaning. But it's worth stressing that mocking a failed anti-democratic protest does not make any comment about one's political outlook, merely that they are hostile to bullshit.

This. I'm pretty left-wing, but smug self-congratulatory protests are smug-self-congratulatory protests whoever's doing them.