Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know That Liberals Don't - Softcover

Lakoff, Professor George

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226468054 ISBN 13: 9780226468051

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1997

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author:

George Lakoff is Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books.

From Kirkus Reviews:

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. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0226468054
• ISBN 13: 9780226468051
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 421