Moral politics
What do conservatives know that liberals don't? According to George Lakoff, they know that American politics is about morality and the family. Moral Politics takes a fresh look at how we think and talk about politics and shows that political and moral ideas develop in systematic ways from our models of ideal families. Lakoff reveals how family-based moral values determine views on such diverse issues as crime, gun control, taxation, social programs, and the environment. He shows why it is consistent for conservatives to oppose subsidies for the poor but endorse them for business, or for liberals to oppose the death penalty but support abortion. He also explains why liberal and conservative stances contain the constellations of policies they do. Drawing on studies showing that we think in terms of metaphorical concepts, Lakoff analyzes the language of political discourse and finds it rife with metaphors. He shows how both liberals and conservatives link morality to politics through the concept of family. But they diverge in their opposing ideas of what an ideal family is. Conservative metaphors are united by the concept of a patriarchal family in which the parent's role is to develop self-discipline in the child by enforcing strict rules. By contrast, liberals view caring interaction in the family as the most effective means of creating competent and responsible children.
Stats for nerds
4recommend
12mentions
8people
2011–2026years
67% recommend33% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Narrative is defined by ideology and the media machinery able to sustain it. Facts are woven in only when serving the desired reality.
If you and I listened to the propaganda on the regular basis, our intuitive knowledge would associate clean energy with isolated from reality snowflake liberals, hippies, abortion, subsidies, as opposed to fossil fuel energy associated with manliness, strength, common sense, “good old values”, military strength, and freedom.
Just like beef (“it’s what’s for dinner”) and a delicious juicy rare steak. See?
I recommend checking out George Lakoff’s work on the power of identity and metaphors. Look up his “moral politics” lecture on YouTube.
- Russ Olsen, author of Getting Closure, Eloquent Ruby and Design Patterns with Ruby, telling the story of the moon landing as a conference talk.
Inspired me beyond measure and brought tears to my eyes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3XwpSKqNZw
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George Lakoff’s lecture on Moral Politics. Instantaneous understanding of political language and identity politics. Incredibly important, especially today in time of extreme polarization.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5f9R9MtkpqM
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Sir Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity
- In this lecture on Moral Politics, George Lakoff addresses the “nonsensical” speech, metaphors, framing and more.
Changed how I listen to mass media and political speech.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5f9R9MtkpqM
Also highly recommend his Truth Samndwich methodology to defanging propaganda messages in the media.
https://twitter.com/georgelakoff/status/1068891959882846208?...
- Moral Politics, by George Lakoff: this book offered a new perspective on not just the discussion and language of politics, but sent me down the rabbit hole of cognitive linguistics and "embedded mind" in books he authored or co-authored, such as "Metaphors We Live By", "Philosophy in the Flesh", and "Where Mathematics Comes From".
Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond: Gave me a deeper insight into the geographic underpinnings of civilization and history, and how available resources and climate allowed some early settlements to grow into mighty empires, while others struggled to subsist. It also improved my Civilization 3 game playing. ;)
The Language of Mathematics by Keith Devlin: Sparked a renewed interest in mathematics through historical narratives of the development of our number systems, mathematicians and numerous mathematical topics.
The Code Book by Simon Singh: Kicked off my historical and professional interest in cryptography and keeping secrets.
Flow by Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi: Showed me how to make the best use of every minute, especially waiting at bus/train stops, and helped me recognize what I really like doing.
- There's a good book called Moral Politics which covers this topic in depth.
- This would be a great way to prevent polititians from framing the bills.
For more on framing, see George Lakoff’s lecture on moral politics — reveals the way political language uses metaphors and How framing a debate ensures its outcome.
Repeating the frame reinforces the intended meaning. Merely Using the name of the bill defines its outcome.
“Tax Relief” - no one wants to fight a “relief” effort. Tax cuts for the rich would be the correct name.
“Clear sky initiative” is the name of a clear cutting bill.
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