In one of the most interesting discussions I have heard recently (listen to discussion with link at the bottom of the NPR page), George Lakoff, a cognitive scientist and linguistics professor at UC Berkley discusses his research into the deep rooted differences between people who identify themselves as conservatives and liberals.
On Tuesday's Talk of the Nation on NPR, Neal Conan and Dr. Lakoff discuss the idea that behind all of our political philosophy is our understanding of the nation as a family-and most importantly that there are two very different types of families. Dr. Lakoff distinguishes the two with the labels strict father and nurturing parent families. In the strict father view, "the world is a dangerous and difficult place, there is competition, and there will always be winners and losers. . . Children want to do just what they want to do and that they need to be made good." Lakoff states that in this view a strict father is needed to support the family in a difficult world, win the competitions and teach his children the differences between the absolute right and wrong, painful punishment and withdrawal of affection being effective ways of teaching this difference. He also highlights the conservative notion that being prosperous is directly linked to being moral, which in turn he links to conservatives going against social programs as they give people something they have not earned.
The opposite of the strict father model being the nurturing model, Dr. Lakoff describes this model being centered on empathy. Empathy leads to the protection of children and the family, which leads to protection of the environment and freedoms. Character being at the heart of the two models, Dr. Lakoff describes each side’s definition of character as:
"Their (conservatives) notion of character is internal moral strength. Whereas the notion for character for progressive is caring and responsibility"
This discussion is incredibly enlightening. While it is important to keep in mind that Dr. Lakoff is a liberal democrat and that he obviously sides with the nurturing family view, his research and facts can provide a deeper understanding for why it is so difficult for individuals of different political opinions to understand each other. Dr. Lakoff points out an interesting example here:
"We have a two-tier economy. About a quarter of our work force can't afford health care and are working people who don't make much money at their jobs. A large percentage of the jobs in this country don't pay enough to really live on. And those people cannot, even though they work hard, cannot pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Because if everybody did, nobody would do those jobs and they are absolutely necessary jobs. These are jobs where the people who do them support the lifestyles the top three-quarters of the country. There aren't other jobs for them and somebody's got to do them. That is what you can see if you are a liberal, but if you're conservative, you just don't see it. You have the idea that any individual, one by one, can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but you don't see the mass of people and the mass of jobs because you only look at the individuals"
So our political stances go much deeper than our personal opinions. They are rooted in how we have been raised and our ideas of individual responsibility and opportunity. While liberals believe in nurturing the entire community or family, conservative hold to the idea that each individual has an equal opportunity to pull themselves up and a responsibility to do so. This may be an over generalization and obviously everyone falls somewhere between these two opposites. The ideas presented in the discussion, though, and in George Lakoff's book Moral Politics certainly creates an avenue for bringing liberals and conservatives to a better understanding of themselves and the individual on the other side of issues.
