Since our assignment for tomorrow is to read George Lakoff's book, I was finishing the last chapter tonight and going over my notes in the margins one more time, and even though our discussion over this is tomorrow, I feel the need to begin a dialogue about it now.
While I agree with a few points in his book, the majority of it (to me) seemed illogical and hypocritical. I admit that I am not as deeply entrenched in the political scene, and do not know as much as Lakoff, but I feel like my upbringing is the polar opposite of his, and, therefore, if we were to ever meet, we could probably have quite a dynamic conversation.
Throughout his book, Lakoff argues (through backhanded compliments and risky assumptions) that the conservative right has mastered the art of conning the American people through the use of language and, in some cases, outright deception. Lakoff says in the opening chapters of the book that the right winged conservatives base their ideas of policy and value on the all-knowing and all-powerful father figure. He says that the right believes that there is a right and a wrong, good and evil, and that good should always prevail. However, throughout the book he clearly makes his opinion known: that right-winged Americans are evil and left-winged "progressives" are good, and that the left side should triumph over the crazy right-wingers. How are these any different? He condemns the right side for thinking that way, but clearly demonstrates in his writing that he thinks through the very same frame. A very strong example: [talking about how to cure the problem of terrorism] "Country by country, the conditions (both material and political) leading to despair need to be addressed, with a worldwide commitment to ending them. It should be done because it is a necessary part of addressing the causes of terrorism - and because it is right!" How can he critique the conservatives for arguing that there is a right and a wrong when he says in so many words the same thing. This causes me to doubt not one, but pretty much everything he says.
Secondly, (even though it is a minor detail), his description of James Dobson is not fully correct. Trust me, I grew up on James Dobson and even visited that zip code that Lakoff discusses in Colorado. What Lakoff fails to mention is that Dobson also emphasizes to parents that they must be nurturing when raising children...similar to what he described as the "other" side of the coin of the conservative right. I am curious to find out which of Dobson's books Lakoff read. I can see how he would get the father-figure impression by looking at the titles of Dobson's books ("Dare to Discipline," "The Strong-Willed Child," & "Love Must be Tough" to name a few), but he missed the part when Dobson discusses having a love for your children like God loves you the parent...which is forgiving, understanding, nurturing, unyielding and, above all else, unconditional.
Throughout the text Lakoff is an idealist. Of course we would all like wars of all kinds to end. Nobody wants to see innocent lives lost (and if they do, then that is a problem much larger than political affiliation). He makes overly generalized statements, such as "Idealistic progressives see beyond the material benefits..." (page 49); [talking about the causes of terrorism] "But a conservative government, thinking of the enemy as evil, will not take the primary causes seriously."
Finally, in the last part of the book, he talks about "what the right wants." The first thing he mentions about the right is God. From his description, he is talking about the traditional, western picture of God that one would find in writings like the Bible or the Book of Mormon. In fact, he writes on page 81 -82, "God wants good people to be in charge. Virtue is to be rewarded - with power. God therefore wants a hierarchical society in which there are moral authorities who should be obeyed...Those who are disciplined enough to be moral are disciplined enough to become prosperous and powerful." Later on page 82, under the Economics section, he says "The poor remain poor because the lack the discipline needed to prosper. The poor, therefore, deserve to be poor and serve the wealthy. The wealthy need and deserve poor people to serve them." But in order to make assumptions about what a religious right thinks, you must go to the source of where you believe the ideas came from. In this instance, it would be the Bible (since it is the foremost Western book concerning God). In Proverbs 22:22 (New Century Version) it says, "Do not abuse poor people because they are poor, and do not take away the rights of the needy in court." I could give examples for paragraphs and paragraphs about how this statement contradicts the Bible, which, Lakoff infers, is where the conservative right seem to get their moral standards.
In general, the impression that I got was the Lakoff was trying to talk about a viewpoint (a "frame") that he doesn't understand as well as he thinks he does. He gives the impressions while talking about the Bush administration that he thinks George Bush is evil and purposely abused the American people and doesn't care who has to die, so long as he gets his way. I cannot think of a more childish viewpoint. Yes, conservatives and progressives think differently. They have different priorities and different frames to look at situations. But to chalk it up to "the right side is bad and evil and you should be a progressive" is such a juvenile thought process. I expected more from this book. I expected at least an attempt at objectivity, and I was very disappointed. At least in my fence-sitting case, Lakoff would have been more successful at persuading me if he would have made less generalizations about the opposing side, and would have also pointed out that the progressives have had their share of mistakes in political history as well.
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This is a nice and provocative post and a good excuse to continue chatter about the book (something that at least I am interested in doing). It is always fun jumping into some controversy anyway and Lacy has certainly raised some serious concerns about the book. I will address them as three:
1. Lakoff is a hypocrite for calling the other side evil. To begin, I don’t think it is hypocritical for someone with progressive values to call the president or the right evil. I’m not saying they are, I’m just saying if it walks like a duck… However, I believe there is a more interesting point here. Kenneth Burke has frames of a different sort that he talks about. My favorite two are comic and tragic. Burke says that, among other things, a tragic frame assumes that when people get something wrong it is because they are evil and bad. The comic frame, on the other hand, is willing to view wrongdoing as error, mistake or lack of judgment. The other side isn’t evil, just misguided. I think Lakoff’s critique of the right looks much more like the comic than the tragic frame. He openly disagrees with conservative morality but he is happy to admit that from the perspective of conservative morality the actions of the right actions are defensible. This is a far cry from calling Bush evil and assuming that he does what he does because he likes to kill innocent Iraqi’s and torture Muslim Americans.
2. Lakoff doesn’t get Dobson. This may be true (I wouldn’t know one way or the other) but I don’t think he needs to or intends to. He isn’t analyzing the strict father model as it applies to parenting. He is looking at is as a metaphor for conservative politics. If it sounds like He thinks conservatives don’t care about the poor it isn’t because he thinks Dobson promotes a callus, loveless household. As far as I recall Lakoff takes no position on the strict father model as a parenting technique. He may play fast and loose with the metaphor but I think he can without sacrificing the strength of his point. I wouldn’t go so far as to call a Professor of cognitive sciences at the University of California at Berkeley and former Professor at Harvard and the University of Michigan immature and juvenile even if he did miss some of the details of the referent in his metaphor. These aren’t his political musings, this isn’t a side project, this is the research that pays his bills. To paraphrase Anchor Man, it’s a scientific fact.
3. It is true that the bible encourages compassion for the poor. Conservative politics, however, clearly do not. This is why some of the most Christian people I know are also among the most socially liberal. Social conservatives must find a way to reconcile their openly callus politics with the humanity and compassion of their beliefs. I think Lakoff is arguing that the way so many of the religious right can justify ignoring the commandment of the bible for charity is through the metaphor of the strict father. Perhaps your arguments about the importance of love and support are a good way to frame policies that promote compassion. I wonder how a new testament, compassion based politics would change the debate about healthcare or welfare reform.
Anyway, I thought this was a fun post. I hope the practice of dialoging about the reading on the blog continues…clearly I have too much time on my hands : )
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