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George Lakoff

Moral Politics : How Liberals and Conservatives Think Second Edition

by George Lakoff (Author)

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In this classic text, the first full-scale application of cognitive science to politics, George Lakoff analyzes the unconscious and rhetorical worldviews of liberals and conservatives, discovering radically different but remarkably consistent conceptions of morality on both the left and right. For this new edition, Lakoff adds a preface and an afterword extending his observations to major ideological conflicts since the book's original publication, from the impeachment of Bill Clinton to the 2000 presidential election and its aftermath.

ISBN-10

0226467716
ISBN-13

978-0226467719
Edition

Second
Publisher

University Of Chicago Press
Publication date

May 1, 2002
Language

English
Dimensions

5.38 x 1.3 x 8.44 inches
Print length

471 pages
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Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

In Moral Politics, the first full-scale application of cognitive science to politics, George Lakoff analyzes the unconscious worldviews of liberals and conservatives, explaining why they are at odds over so many seemingly unrelated issues-like taxes, abortion, regulation, and social programs. The differences, Lakoff argues, are not mere matters of partisanship, but arise from radically different conceptions of morality and ideal family life-meaning that family and morality are at the heart of American politics, in ways that are far from obvious. For this edition, Lakoff adds a preface and an afterword explaining how "moral politics" makes sense of events like the impeachment of Bill Clinton and the 2000 presidential election.

About the Author

George Lakoff is a professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the author of Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things and co-author of Metaphors We Live By and More than Cool Reason, all published by the University of Chicago Press-as well as co-author of Philosophy in the Flesh and Where Mathematics Comes From.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University Of Chicago Press; Second edition (May 1, 2002)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 471 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0226467716
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0226467719
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.19 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.38 x 1.3 x 8.44 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #820,180 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #497 in Political Ideologies
- #1,059 in Linguistics (Books)
- #2,113 in Political Conservatism & Liberalism

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George Lakoff

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George Lakoff is Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, where he has taught since 1972. He previously taught at Harvard and the University of Michigan. He graduated from MIT in 1962 (in Mathematics and Literature) and received his PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University in 1966. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Don't Think of an Elephant!, among other works, and is America’s leading expert on the framing of political ideas.

George Lakoff updates may be followed on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+. Find these links, a complete bibliography, and more at http://georgelakoff.com

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R. Schwartz

Convincing Psychological & Linguistic Models Behind Politics

Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2005

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I found this book highly significant and convincing in the linguistic and psychological framework of our current political structure. This book presents the frames of ideas behind liberal and conservative thinking, the psychological models that shape the two main avenues of perception and projection into all areas of life, morals; the basis behind religion and politics. The political sides, liberal and conservative are in essence only ideas that follow from these prior ideals. And what the author frames as the two models are, the two moral ideals of the Strict Father morality and the Nurturant Parent morality. Both are opposed to each other and yet, there are variants or combinations or radial categories which are gray areas which are not so clear cut. But overall, there are these two current trends that shape our thoughts.

George Lakoff goes into each model, their traits, attributes, virtue and vices. I think he does a good job at maintaining neutrality. It is only later in his book where he identifies himself under the nurturant morality and thus a liberal and later in the book attempts to argue in his thesis in that direction.

What these models boil down to is the family morality, and that of raising children. In politics it is the government as parents, the citizens as the children. And the views on raising children are the basis of frames behind political agendas. After detailed explanations of the two models, then applications to current political issues as in abortion, gun control, education methods, crime and capital punishment, welfare, affirmative action, foreign policies and so forth are discussed according to the two models.

The conservative model represents the Strict Father Morality, which is about self-discipline, self-reliance, self-strength, your on your own, rewards and punishments which includes harsh discipline or tough love. The father takes the lead, and while treating others compassionately, he is the last word. Anotherwards life is a hierarchy, God head of Christ, God and Christ head of man, man head of woman, parents head of children, humans head of animals and the planet. And so it is a strict arrangement where the harsh laws of nature as in the natural selection, survival of the fittest is applied morally.This morality represents absolutes, therefore anything different cannot be allowed since therefore it is immoral. Rights of the individual take precedence where free market fundamentalism is concerned, while individual rights that infringe on those with economic power are considered as threats. So the upper hand lies in what is considered that "best," the self disciplined who has gained more financially for their hard work, their hard won discipline and reward. The poor receive punishments and suffer due to their own lack of self discipline.

The liberal model represents the Nurturant Morality, which is about empathy, tolerance, degrees of relativity, flexibility, about open communication, about nurturance, tolerance, compassion and understanding. It allows differences and has vulnerability. It reneges some power to allow the other to grow on their own terms. Empathy is directed towards the unbalance of wealth and poverty, the economic framework, what is "fair" and equalitarian, also to the planet earth, animals, and all of life in general, under the ideas of free individual rights that do not interfere with the rights of others. Those with economic power that put their interests above others are considered as threats to the masses. The poor need a the same equal opportunities as the rich where it is not a matter of self discipline, but the lack of opportunities to advance in an unfair society.

I think what is so crucial here is the liberal's ability to turn to a higher objective paradigm of unity and equalitarianism outside all other paradigms. Like the conserative paradigm of morals, the fascist of power, the libertarian of unregulated liberty, the liberal, through the paradigm of unity and fairness, recognizes the validity of the conservative ideals, those of rewards and punishments, of tough love, of self-discipline, however here they are not absolutes, as they are relative within the particular culture, economic class, race, minority and so forth. So the liberal can very well be a conservative but only within the relativity within the group of fair values When it crosses the lines beyond fairness and equalitarian opportune justice, then the higher paradigm of flexibility in a non-absolute framework must be applied. And for this, I find liberal ideals of a higher evolutionary consciousness which works towards integral, holistic unity of peace and harmony, unlike the absolutes of conservatism which considers all outside its absolutes as immoral. There are conservative rules within each paradigm, but the moment circumstances of unequality and injustice apply, then there are no absolute blanket rules which apply to all paradigms. Adjustments are necessary, crucial for harmonious, peaceful existence.

What I mostly enjoyed was his methods for liberals to correct the problem they are in. That is to form their own think tanks that do what the conservatives have done; obtain new language and/or particular meanings to words that fit the liberal paradigm. In this way, they will not defend conservative driven meanings to words, agreeing or maintaining defense within their frame of reference, only to maintain the answers within the conservative created definitions, but rather to use another reasoning linguistically within a new liberal frame of reference in word definitions. This is not a matter of semantics, but rather a separate perceptional projection which relates the parent nurturant morality over the strict father morality.

I was visualizing a couple of years ago when Congress was passing around Clarke's book where questions were being raised on Bush and the Iraq question, that it would have been beneficial if it were this book, which I know no conservative or any one changes due to a book or persuasion, but at least it could radically wake up some liberals to understand the psychology behind their ideals. People only grow only when they're ready and willing to do so, otherwise they stay put in their model, their paradigm.

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Steven Daedalus

Sensible ideas in repetitive prose.

Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2010

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The central idea is that we model our ideal government on our notion of the ideal family and there are two dominant models of the ideal family. In both models the family is a metaphor for the government. That is, the government is the parent and its citizens are children.

We can adhere to "the stern parent" model that, as the name suggests, involves the exercise of parental authority through rewards and punishment, rigid standards, and in general an authoritarian approach to child rearing. It's tough, but it's a parent's responsibility to express love through preparing the child for self reliance and obedience later in life. Better for the child to suffer some pain than to grow up spoiled. It's not overreaching to imagine the kind of government this model leads to. It's conservative.

The alternative is "the nurturant parent" model, in which self-expression, questioning, empathy, understanding, and help for the less endowed are central tenets. The implied style of government is liberal.

I'm simplifying much of this because I have to. Lakoff recognizes that there are all sorts of in-betweens and conditionals and he describes them in such a way that one or the other of his two models cover pretty much all contingencies. There are enumerated rules, sub-rules, variants, radial categories, and partial scales -- so many that all political behavior becomes understandable in terms of one or the other model, or some admixture of both. Using these moral models he's able to explain the connection between disparate issues like abortion and environmentalism. But I frankly got confused. I'm sure Lakoff knows the byways of this labyrinth but it would have helped if we'd had a blackboard or a series of diagrams.

The book generates some ideas that hadn't occurred to me (essentially a qualified nurturant parent) in quite the same form. For instance, a stern parent may be forced, unwillingly, to punish a child whose behavior doesn't meet established standards. He does it out of a sense of duty. "If a parent fails to punish, he isn't a moral parent." In some cases, it may be true that "this hurts me more than it hurts you" or, to frame it in the form of another cliche, "I'm being cruel in order to be kind."

There's another, more fundamental insight I gained from reading this. Once you subscribe to one or the other model, you've made a moral commitment. And it's from this morality that judgment on social issues flows. In other words, the evidence -- the logic or the statistics -- doesn't count for much. An act is not good or bad because of its effect on us or on the world. It's good because it's "good". If damage follows, that's the price you pay for being a moral person. Eg., Bush wasn't a "bad" president because of his policies. He was a "bad" president, and therefore his policies were wrong. Instead of reaching a moral conclusion through induction, we reason the other way around. The acts are wrong because the person who did them is bad. And of course the same applies to President Obama. If he is immoral, he can't do anything right.

The amount of effort that George Lakoff has put into this, and his several other books on metaphors, is awesome, but I had a couple of problems with this one.

Lakoff describes himself as a cognitive scientist but I wonder if "scientist" shouldn't be in quotes. To me, science is grounded and derived from observation of the behavior stream. If a thing exists at all, then it must exist in some quantity and therefore is measurable, at least in principle. These models or stereotypes or simulacra or folk theories or focuses seem to have emerged from Lakoff's intuition. And here this criticism stems from my being maybe a nurturant parent generally but a strict parent when it comes to science, a reflection of my own bias, picked up during a career involving a lot of research into human behavior.

And, for all the complexity of the presentation, it seems to me that the models could be boiled down a little. The stern parent is a career Gunnery Sergeant in the U. S. Marine Corps. The nurturant parent is a Jewish mother.

Another thing, which Lakoff recognizes but doesn't really deal with. The stern parent is a closet psychologist of the behaviorist school; the nurturant parent is a sociologist with a social-worker bent. Pychologists believe that behavior is the result of inner qualities, some inherited, some developed during childhood. (Well, their perspective isn't really that limited but I'm still trying to save space.) Sociologists believe in the autonomy of superorganic forces. We do what we do because we're imitating others who do it. (That's why this is being written and read in English, and why you're not going to wear a toga to work tomorrow.) These forces aren't immediately palpable, but they're real enough -- "social facts," as Emil Durkheim called them.

Something else that Lakoff neglects, I think, is the strain towards consistency in these models because of the need for cognitive balance. This isn't the place to describe balance theory (see Google) but it's a way of avoiding mental discomfort by making sure all of our beliefs mesh properly and don't contradict one another. This is indeed a powerful psychological impulse. It's expressed in the folk saying, "The enemy of my friend is my enemy." Or, to take a current example, a television ad by a stern parent, a Tea Party candidate running for the Senate in Florida put it: "If Rachel Maddow thinks it's right, it must be wrong."

Can I throw in a quotation from Lakoff's analysis of why Al Gore lost the election in 2000 to George Bush? It's from the debate. And, as Lakoff comments, "It was Gore's election to lose, and he did everything he could to lose it." The issue is taxation and it's still relevant today. The reader can judge for himself the heuristic value of the analysis.

"Gore attacked the Bush tax plan by pointing out that most of the savings would go to 'the top one percent' of taxpayers. The assumption here was that all lower- and middle-class voters (a) would be voting their self interest and (b) would be resentful of the rich getting richer. Mistake (a) was that lower- and middle-class conservatives, following Strict Father morality, believe that the rich deserve what they get, that they should keep what they earn, and that the tax cut would be moral. They were voting morality, not self interest. Mistake (b) was that a great many lower- and middle-class voters admire and want to emulate the rich, and over 25 percent actually thought they were, or eventually would be, in the top one percent. The top one percent argument is always pointless. It works with ideological liberals, but Gore already had their votes. Overall, it fails."

I wish Lakoff had appraised these models in a context a little more historical. The conflict between the two goes way back in time, we presume, but why does the conflict seem to have exploded into full bloom just over the past twenty years or so? Why -- now -- is there so much hatred of one group for the supporters of the other?

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PaintedDog

Revolutionised my thinking

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 31, 2015

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Eye opening! This has come to inform my whole understanding of the left and right, those on the left and right, and how we might progress towards a better society. It's revolutionised how I frame arguments to persuade others of what is just, and persuaded me how absolutely essential learning to frame arguments/opinions is. I feel totally indebted to this book in my campaigning and intend to read a hanful of books on framing, storytelling and building narratives as a critical part of making my activism effective.

Bernie Koenig

It's about the Family, stupid

Reviewed in Canada on August 2, 2010

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Natural Law, Science, and the Social Construction of Reality
Art Matters: The Art of Knowledge/The Knowledge of Art

I see a number of people have reviewed this book so I will keep my comments brief.

This is a book all political activists, especially liberals MUST read. Lakoff shows how our views on family relationships are at the basis of our moral views and, therefore, our political views.

The important things for me in this book are about how conservatives understand their moral foundations while liberals do not. Liberals believe in reason and try to support their views through reason, but this does not work. Lakoff's analysis of how Gore lost the 2000 election is brilliant.

His analysis of metaphor as the basis if moral thinking and how he uses it to show the conservative Strict Father model is based on ideology and not fact is also interesting.

If liberals ever want to make serious inroads into conservative political territory, this book is a must read for strategy planning and for understanding how people relate to political argument.