"If you are young and Liberal you have no heart. If you are old and Liberal you have no brains." ~ My Version
The Uncomfortable Truth: How Age and Experience Forge a Conservative Mindset
The political aphorism, “If you are young and Liberal you have no heart. If you are old and Liberal you have no brains,” has long been a source of both irritation and grudging acknowledgment. Dismissed by its detractors as a simplistic partisan jab, it nonetheless endures because it captures a profound truth about the human journey and its relationship to political philosophy. From a conservative perspective, this saying is not merely an insult but a concise observation of a natural and necessary maturation process—one where the untempered idealism of youth is rightly tempered by the hard-won wisdom of experience, fiscal reality, and a deeper appreciation for the fragile institutions that undergird a free and prosperous society.
To understand the first half of the maxim—“If you are young and Liberal you have no heart”—is to recognize that it is not the condemnation it appears to be. Conservatism, at its best, does not scorn compassion but questions the efficacy of government coercion as its primary vehicle. The youthful heart is a magnificent thing: it beats with a passion for justice, it aches at the sight of suffering, and it believes with every fiber that a better world is not only possible but easily within reach. This is a natural and even admirable stage of life. The young person looks at poverty and thinks, “Let us give everyone money.” They look at inequality and declare, “Let us legislate equity.” They see conflict and believe that if we simply talk, all malice will evaporate.
This impulse comes from a place of goodness, a heart that has not yet been calloused by the complexities of human nature and the law of unintended consequences. The conservative does not look upon this youthful ardor with contempt, but with a sense of poignancy. They see in it their own younger selves, full of grand designs to remake the world. The problem, from the conservative view, is not the desire for a better world, but the naive belief that such a world can be engineered from the top down by a disinterested and all-powerful state, using other people’s money and trampling on individual liberties in the process. The young liberal has a heart, and a large one, but it is a heart that has not yet been schooled by reality.
This schooling is precisely what the second half of the aphorism addresses: “If you are old and Liberal you have no brains.” This is the sharper edge of the saying, and it is where the conservative case finds its firmest footing. It posits that to have lived a significant portion of one’s life—to have worked, paid taxes, raised a family, managed a budget, and witnessed the cyclical nature of history—and to still cling to the untested theories of one’s youth is not a sign of virtuous consistency, but of a willful intellectual blindness.
The first and most potent teacher is economics. A young person may advocate for vast, multi-trillion-dollar social programs with little thought to their cost. An older person, however, has felt the weight of the tax burden. They have seen the sweat and toil that goes into earning a paycheck, and they understand the moral difference between voluntary charity and state-mandated redistribution. They have witnessed how endless deficit spending mortgages the future of their children and grandchildren, creating a mountain of debt that represents not compassion, but intergenerational theft. To be old and liberal, in this light, is to ignore the basic arithmetic of scarcity. It is to believe, against all evidence, that there is a limitless supply of other people’s money, and that government bureaucracies are efficient allocators of resources, despite a lifetime of evidence to the contrary.
Furthermore, age brings a sobering education in human nature. The youthful belief in the perfectibility of mankind inevitably collides with the reality of fallen human nature. The older conservative has seen that power corrupts, that incentives matter more than intentions, and that utopian schemes, when implemented, often lead not to heaven on earth but to new forms of tyranny and misery. They have studied the 20th century and seen the ghastly fruits of collectivist ideologies, all of which were sold as compassionate advances for humanity. They understand that the world is not a blank slate to be redesigned by social engineers, but a complex, organic ecosystem of traditions, habits, and institutions that have evolved over centuries for a reason. To be old and still advocate for concentrating more power in the state is to ignore the timeless lessons of history—a truly brainless endeavor.
This leads to the third pillar of the conservative critique: a reverence for tradition and civil society. As one ages, one begins to see the value in the things that are passed down—the cultural norms, the ethical frameworks, and the institutions like family, church, and community that form the bedrock of a stable society. The liberal project, particularly in its modern, progressive form, is often inherently radical and disruptive. It seeks to deconstruct these traditional pillars in the name of liberation, failing to recognize that these very structures are what provide meaning, order, and support for individuals. The older conservative has seen the devastating social consequences of the breakdown of the family. They have witnessed how the decline of community cohesion leads to isolation and despair. They understand that these “mediating institutions” are the true engines of compassion and human flourishing, far more effective than any distant, impersonal government agency. To be old and liberal is to have failed to learn that tearing down the old without understanding its purpose is an act of profound foolishness.
Of course, the conservative perspective is not without its own nuances. The saying is a generalization, and there are thoughtful liberals of all ages, just as there are unthinking conservatives. The core of the argument is not that all liberal ideas are devoid of merit, but that a comprehensive liberal worldview becomes intellectually indefensible after a certain point of lived experience. It is the difference between a temporary phase of idealism and a permanent state of ideological rigidity.
Ultimately, the journey from a “liberal heart” to a “conservative brain” is not a betrayal of one’s better angels, but an evolution toward a more mature, responsible, and sustainable form of compassion. It is the recognition that true caring means wanting people to be self-reliant and free, not dependent and managed. It is the understanding that justice is achieved through the equal application of the rule of law, not through unequal distribution based on identity. It is the wisdom to build upon the past rather than obliterate it.
The aphorism endures because it speaks to a universal truth: life has a way of teaching lessons that theory cannot. The heart provides the moral compass, but it is the brain, seasoned by time and trial, that must be trusted to navigate the complex and often unforgiving terrain of the real world. To ignore those lessons is not to remain pure-hearted; it is to choose a comforting fantasy over a challenging reality—and that, from the conservative view, is the definition of having no brains.
#Capitalism #Socialism #Liberal #Conservative