Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know That Liberals Don't (Hardcover)

The conservative worldview proceeds from a Strict Father conception of the family, one with the father at the head of the household, the mother subservient in a hierarchy, and the children expected to obey authority without question. The liberal worldview presupposes a Nurturing Parent model which sees parents as equals and their role as nurturers instead of taskmasters. Competing moral beliefs dictate the language of each. Thus the role in conservative writings of terms like independence, personal responsibility, self-reliance, tough love, strength, discipline, and so on; and the role in liberal writings of other terms: compassion, social responsibility, care, helping, sensitivity, social forces, and so on. This further explains conservative and liberal demons, why conservatives despise feminists and homosexuals whose very existence seems to subvert their conception of a morally correct family structure; and why liberals despise Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh as persons who confound their view of nurturer as a proper function of government in a humane society.

Lakoff reaches some provocative conclusions as he applies this conceptual machinery to various issues: abortion, gun-control, capital punishment, affirmative action and the culture wars, and so on. He explains why conservatives oppose abortion but favor capital punishment even though each (on their terms) takes a human life, and why they oppose government spending on welfare but support it for the military. His argument would also account for why liberals favor government intervention to help the poor and minorities but see it as having no right to interfere with a woman's right to choose. He suggests explanations for the many variants on conservative and liberal themes, some of the former focusing on the religion and others mostly ignoring it, with some of the latter focusing on, e.g., women's issues and others focusing elsewhere. (Libertarians, according to Lakoff, are much closer to mainstream conservatives than they think; their moral focus is on keeping government small, but within a Strict Father conception of society.) Lakoff even finds contrasting Strict Father versus Nurturing Parent views of God, leading to interpretations of Christianity other than those of conservative groups such as the Christian Coalition. He observes that Jesus himself did not ignore the poor and destitute. In the end it is wrong and simplistic, however, to dismiss conservatives merely as heartless, self-interested apologists for the rich, and it is equally wrong to dismiss liberals as whining promoters of bureaucracy and large, intrusive government.

Examining the dispute between the two in light of the findings of behavioral science on childrearing and of cognitive science on how the mind operates, Lakoff concludes that current scientific research favors the Nurturing Parent model. Thus he is a committed and unapologetic liberal. He does not, however, claim to have the final word on the subject. His book issues an implicit challenge to conservatives to back up their views on the family and by extension, on society, by producing quality research of their own. Right now, he contends, advocates of Strict Father morality are allowing Christian fundamentalists to set their agenda for the family and for communities. (Libertarians, I had noticed before encountering this book, have little to say about family systems at all.)

I confess to being one of those people who has, until recently at least, operated from a Strict Father perspective of the (more or less) libertarian variety. As such, Lakoff has given me a great deal to think about, and I will never again look at conservatism, liberalism or libertarianism in the same way. Lakoff is thoughtful, intellectually honest about where he stands, and never becomes shrill or strident. When he states an opinion he always has a reason. He even has an explanation for why liberal politics has retreated somewhat in the 1990s, at least at the state and local levels. This is implied in the book's subtitle. Conservatives, Lakoff believes, have greater intuitive insight into the moral structure of their position and how to use it to maximum effect in communities than do liberals. Thus conservatives' highly successful appeals to "family values" which have won them so many state and local elections. Lakoff urges that we create a "metalanguage" for the discussion of political issues which takes into account how conservatives and liberals operate from different moral premises, but sees today's political discourse as so impoverished that he is pessimistic about this happening, at least right now.

I offer only these reservations. The psychologist Abraham Maslow observed that "if your only tool is a hammar, you tend to treat everything as if it were a nail." Reductive approaches which use vast, expansive categories as their primary means of explanation are always vulnerable to this sort of danger. Lakoff's tools are cognitive science and his Strict Father / Nurturing Parent dichotomy. This does not really permit him to ask, on their own terms, questions like, Do conservatives (or libertarians) have, at some level, a fundamentally better grasp of economics than liberals? Do they have a better grasp of the conditions under which societies develop, flourish, and then prosper well enough to nurture all their members? After all, the natural order in which the human race invariably finds itself does not nurture us in ways which do not strain the metaphor. We have to nurture ourselves and each other, and even when this is necessary, the indifference of the universe suggests limits to the nurturing model. Finally, can any policies which achieve their goals through coercion succeed? Policies Lakoff would describe as rooted in the Nurturing Parent model have hardly abjured an authoritarianism more easily associated with Strict Father morality, after all, when their advocates could not achieve what they wanted through voluntary means. This might be all the more reason, however, why this model cannot be easily dispensed with.

Be all this as it may, Lakoff has definitely added something interesting and important to the conservative-liberal debate. Liberals will find a new and original source of support for their views in this book. Conservatives and libertarians, on the other hand, will find many of Lakoff's observations acutely uncomfortable. In this writer's view, the latter owe it to themselves to swallow their discomfort, read what Lakoff has to say, and then take up his implicit challenge!

Basically he argues that the prime determiner of the type of policies a person will embrace depends upon the particular metaphor of the family that they apply to morals and government. Thus conservatives apply what he calls a 'strict father morality' which involves a theory of the use of strict rules, and inculcation of self reliance through punishment. Liberals apply 'nurturant parent morality' where the prime directives are empathy and inculcation of self and mutual reliance through nurturance and reward.

These theories are surprisingly enlightening when it comes to explaining why particular sides hold what might otherwise be perceived as incoherent and contradictory policies. Differences between people with the same allegiences come about through their focusing on different aspects of the basic model. These models are also shown to describe major differences in the way that we perceive God as well.

He finishes the book with a short argument that research shows that the 'strict father morality' does not work in either the family or the social sphere, and that it is based upon erroneous conceptions of how the mind operates.

The book is well and simply written. The theoretical parts should not prove difficult for people with no prior exposure to cognitive linguistics, though they may not find the theories that convincing without looking at other work. Occasionally I have to disagree with the author, but the disagreements are productive, and his way of looking at things has changed my own way of looking at things. This is about the highest recommendation I can think of for a book.