Nurture or Responsibility

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.

Check your levels

I love coffee, yet along with a good part of the thinking public, I have always had the sneaking suspicion that something might a little off about the brew passed across the counter at the neighborhood Starbucks.

Daniel Gross of Slate on MSN.com did some research on Starbucks coffee and found some interesting facts (see his article here). Aside from the fact that the chain announcned plans to up the price of its espressos due to the rising costs of sugar and coffee, more startling are the whopping caffeine levels in Starbucks coffee and drinks. According to this chart from the Center for Science and Public Interest, a 16 oz. cup of regular coffee from Starbucks contains 550 mg. of caffeine-that's more than twice the amount in one dose of Maximum Strength NoDoz and nearly the equivalent of 8 1 oz. shots of Starbucks espresso. Next to the java from 7-11 and Dunkin Donuts which averages around 157 mgs. of caffeine per 16 oz. cup, Starbucks coffee is loaded with tasty trimethylxanthine (caffeine's scientific name).

Just think, with the average american consuming 200 mg of caffeine per day, suck down just one 16 oz. Starbucks coffee, you'll have already caffeinated yourself over twice as much as everyone around you. But then again, doesn't everyone drink Starbucks coffee.

I'm not suggesting there's really anything wrong with that much caffeine, it's simply good information to have.

The most interesting

In an interview (listen to the interview with real player here) on the NPR Program, The Connection, New Yorker writer John Lee Anderson describes conversations and experiences while living and writing from Iraq on the war, the Iraqi people and the future of the country. One of the most interesting people he meets is Ala Bashir "one of his prisms into the society. . .and the man closest to Saddam" as Anderson describes him. In an article on Aljazeera.net, Bashir is described as

"a prominent Iraqi painter, sculptor and internationally known plastic surgeon who once treated thousands of Iraqi soldiers for disabilities arising out of wounds sustained during the 1980-1988 war with Iran. He was also a senior surgeon at Baghdad's Ibn Sina hospital where he provided medical services to Saddam Hussein and senior Iraqi cabinet members. Dr Bashir left Iraq after US-led occupation forces reached Baghdad on 9 April and stayed in Qatar for a while before moving on to Norway."

Anderson described the friendship the two developed and the point at which he eventually broke his silence months before the war broke out. The two met in an art gallery where, as Anderson tells in the captivating interview Bashir

"stood, I'll never forget it, about four inches from my face, it was very unusual. There was an air conditioner nearby, a very noisy old one. . .and began to tell me that everything I had heard about Iraq was true, that there where thousands of disappeared people, that the fear that I felt, that the silence was because everybody was terrified, that nobody was ever going to tell me the truth. It was as though the earth moved or opened beneath my feet-this was the man, I mean after all was Saddam's confidant. This was his personal doctor who had served him faithfully for years and he was telling me that the man he served was after all a terrible killer. And he was taking a huge risk in telling me this."

The reporter goes on to describe his further meetings in Bashir's home during which he expanded on the their conversation in the meseum.

"And it was quite extraordinary because there was something unreconcilled in this. He would swerve between telling me graphically about the brutalities of Saddam or people around him and then he would fall back on statements about how Saddam was necessary for Iraq, that Iraq's history has always been about killing and dying. There was a kind of fatalism to his reflections on Saddam. And like many people around figures of often great and brutal power, he attributed the excesses to the people around Saddam."

The Connection interview continues and Anderson tells of Bashir's hiding in his sister's home during the invasion of Baghdad after being summoned by Saddam. Bashir did not obey the summons and escaped according to Anderson. Bashir worked with the CIA and helped to turn over many of the individuals on the infamous deck of cards.

Bashir is now living in Qatar where he is paiting a series of canvases titled the "Masks of Cain" (one of which can be seen on the Aljazeera link above and another of his paintings can be seen here).

I found listening to this conversation and learning about Dr. Bashir fascinating as it gives us a look inside the real Iraq that most Americans have no context for. This man obviously is a very intelligent and complex individual and l hearing his story is effective tool for creating that much more context for this war that has split not only the U.S. down the middle but changed the world.

Read John Lee Anderson's "Letter From Baghdad" regarding Dr. Ala Bashir and check out Anderson's book, The Fall of Baghdad.

the first post

the first post