Moral politics : what conservatives know that liberals don't

Moral Politics takes a fresh look at how we think and talk about political and moral ideas. George Lakoff analyzed recent political discussion to find that the family--especially the ideal family--is the most powerful metaphor in politics today. Revealing how family-based moral values determine views on diverse issues as crime, gun control, taxation, social programs, and the environment, George Lakoff looks at how conservatives and liberals link morality to politics through the concept of family and how these ideals diverge. Arguing that conservatives have exploited the connection between morality, the family, and politics, while liberals have failed to recognized it, Lakoff explains why conservative moral position has not been effectively challenged. A wake up call to political pundits on both the left and the right, this work redefines how Americans think and talk about politics.

Reseñas (3)

Reseña de Publisher's Weekly

In this book, Lakoff, a professor of linguistics and cognitive science at UC-Berkeley and author of Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, examines the "unconscious system of concepts" underlying American political discourse. Basing his contention on a rhetorical analysis of that discourse, Lakoff argues that what conservatives know that liberals don't is that American politics is about family values. He observes that conservatives and liberals have very different notions of what constitutes an ideal family: while conservatives gravitate to the "Strict Father" model, wherein a strict, patriarchal structure is meant to foster responsibility in children, liberals favor the "Nurturant Parent" scenario, which prefers open, caring family interaction. Conservatives, Lakoff contends, have developed their own partisan moral-political concepts and language-a metaphor-based discourse that harkens to the conservative family model-while liberals have failed to do so. This is a failing Lakoff adduces to liberalism's Enlightenment tradition. In order to counter conservatives, he writes, liberals "must get over their view that all thought is literal and that straightforward rational literal debate on an issue is always possible." In the final, most interesting chapters of the book, Lakoff argues that liberalism is empirically superior to conservatism, offering proof in the form of childrearing studies and other research. Moral Politics is written in a dry, academic style, but it offers an intelligent take on the way politics is conducted in America. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kirkus Review

A study, part academic and part popular, of the differences in moral conceptual systems that underlie the conservative-liberal debate. If your baby cries at night, do you pick him up? The answer to that question, suggests cognitive scientist Lakoff (Univ. of Calif., Berkeley), is the single best indicator of liberal or conservative values. Driven by curiosity about how liberals and conservatives can ``seem to be talking about the same things and yet reach opposite conclusions'' and why conservatives ``like to talk about discipline and toughness, while liberals like to talk about need and help,'' Lakoff sets out to discover where the difference lies in the two moral visions. He finds it in models of the family and of family-based values: Conservatives favor the ``Strict Father'' model, while liberals conceive of the family as a ``Nurturant Parent.'' That difference, Lakoff argues, yields systems of logic so disparate that liberals and conservatives cannot even begin to understand their opponents' reasoning on issues like abortion, welfare, capital punishment, and gay rights. That much is, on the surface, reasonable enough. Lakoff's argument steers onto more controversial ground, however, when he suggests that ``conservatives have a deeper insight into their worldview than liberals have into theirs,'' inasmuch as conservatives talk constantly of family values whereas liberals shy from discussions of hearth-and-home morality. The ``new understanding of American politics'' that he proposes, not surprisingly, favors conservative values. Lakoff concludes with the observation that ``public political discourse is so impoverished at present that it cannot accommodate'' discussions of matters like family-based moralities- -unless, that is, liberals and conservatives begin to develop a ``meta-language'' that will enable them to speak of such things. That conservatives and liberals see the world differently comes as no news to most, but Lakoff's look into just why that should be so makes for interesting reading.

Revisar OPCIONES

What a family is and what it should be, how to protect it make it healthier are pressing issues of our day. Lakoff believes that most contemporary politics flows from contrasting views of the family. Lakoff argues that two images of the family--the conservative, more authoritarian model and the liberal, more nurturing model--explain differing attitudes on everything from the environment to criminal justice. Lakoff is an ardent liberal who has no doubt that "science" has disproved the efficacy of the conservative model of family, but he believes that many liberals misunderstand conservatism. They often dismiss it as an ethic of individual selfishness when it is actually a moral worldview deriving from a "strict father" model of family. David Frum's influential Dead Right (CH, Feb'95) is a recent example of a conservative argument that is more libertarian than moralistic in its approach, yet the perspective of Frum and others does not disprove Moral Politics; Lakoff's interesting and controversial book comfortably acknowledges the variations in any outlook. Academic readers. R. B. Fowler University of Wisconsin--Madison

Tabla de contenido

Acknowledgments

1 The Minds and Politics

2 The Worldview Problem for American Politics

3 Experiential Mortality

4 Keeping the Moral Books

5 Strict Father Morality

6 Nurturant Parent Morality

7 Why We Need a New Understanding of American Politics

8 The Nature of the Model

9 Moral Categories in Politics

10 Social Programs and Taxes

11 Crime and the Death Penalty

12 Regulation and the Environment

13 The Culture Wars: From Affirmative Action to the Arts

14 Two Models of Christianity

15 Abortion

16 How Can You Love Your Country and Hate Your Government?

17 Varieties of Liberals and Conservatives

18 Pathologies, Stereotypes, and Distortions

19 Can There Be a Politics without Family Values?

20 Nonideological Reasons for Being a Liberal

21 Raising Real Children

22 The Human Mind

23 Basic Humanity

Epilogue: Problems for Public Discourse

References

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