Morals_of_Conservatives_vs._Liberals

Morals of Conservatives vs. Liberals George Lakoff’s book Moral Politics uses political reasons to describe the differences of conservatives and liberals by using metaphors, they put the political aspect on how it changes the way you think about certain things, and they can be seen as the opposite of one another. In his book he uses the ideal family worldviews of the liberals and conservatives. While he talks about conservatives use of the “Strict Father” model with ‘Moral Strengths’ right versus wrong, therefore liberals are focusing more on the “Nurturant Parent” model with ‘Morality as Empathy’ showing more care for their family and others. As he describes in a metaphor about Americans, on either sides of the political views, a nation as a family. The “Strict Father” model focuses on how the father is responsible for supporting and protecting the family, along with setting the strict rules for the children to learn self discipline, self reliance and to respect authority. Lakoff puts “Strict Father” as “exercising ones authority to help create more self disciplined people, that is, the right kind of people, for their own benefit of others, and because it is the right thing to do.” (Lakoff 70) Learning right from wrong, to punish them when they do something wrong and to be bring them up to be self disciplined and self reliant. This model, seems to have a reward and punishment to it, if you act this way towards your children, then they will act this way towards others to gain rewards to avoid the punishments. If they’re not self disciplined and rely on being helped by others then they are seen as being irresponsible for their actions, as Lakoff says “people should accept the consequences of their own responsibility or lack of self discipline, since they will never become responsible and self disciplined if they don’t have to face those consequences.” (Lakoff 97) This brings ‘Moral Strength’ into Lakoff’s theory. Lakoff’s metaphor of ‘Moral Strength’ with an example of “being bad is being low” (Lakoff 126) shows that in doing bad in any nature, people you know around you will start to look down on you for what you have done. So as the “strict father” model comes into place, there comes a punishment to what bad thing has been done and realizing that if someone in the future will do what you have done in the past, that you will be able to gain a reward by letting someone know that what they’ve done, wasn’t the right thing to do. So it brings in the lack of self discipline and to refuse self denial to the children to build strength against the evil things that will punish them later on. The “Nurturant Parent” model has either one or two parents, that share household responsibilities and more is focused on empathy, nurturance, self nurturance, social ties, fairness and happiness for their children. Lakoff explains how the model is more towards “being cared for and cared about, living as happily as possible, and deriving meaning from mutual interaction and care.” By being a “Nurturant Parent” the children would be gaining the love from their family and others, and not the fear of being punished in the long run. Good communication is crucial because it is only when parents explain to their children why their decisions serve the cause of protection and nurturance that their authority is seen as legitimate. All in all being a “Nurturant Parent,” one of the highest priorities would have to be empathy. The metaphor ‘Morality as Empathy’ is “being an empathetic person to feel what’s its like to have another persons values and to see the world from their perspective” (Lakoff 136-137) along with feeling the grief of someone going through something, something like “I know what it’s like to be in your shoes. I know how you feel. I feel for you” (Lakoff 114) yet most times; you don’t know how they feel and how it really affects them. You can have empathy for just any kind of emotion. Using the Golden Rule, you would be basing your actions on their values, not on yours, so as Lakoff says “do unto others as they would have you do unto them” (Lakoff 115) or karma “what goes around comes around” as its said, be careful on what you do or say because it will come back in the future to haunt you. I have concluded that George Lakoff is a committed liberal, who says, he cannot remain completely silent on which conceptual model is the better one. While he admires the coherence of the conservative position and the “intelligence and cleverness” with which conservatives have articulated their views, he finds that their underlying morality is unhealthy for society since it broadens the culture of exclusion and blame, since it is very contradicting, you can say one thing and then it gets turned around into something else. You can blame someone for doing the wrong thing and the next thing excludes them the next second, along with being a “Strict Father” the children would gain a punishment for what they do, to gain self discipline and to respect authority. I believe that most people would know to respect authority instead of doing the wrong things. Yet liberals tend to be less insightful than conservatives at recognizing that morality and the family are the main points of the political values. The values of liberals have cost a lot, while conservatives have organized the way to show their values to everyone. Liberals have misunderstood their politics as being coalitions of interest groups, such as providing basic needs of its citizens with food, shelter, education, and health care. Being an environmentalist, caring for human being, protecting people from pollution, helping women with safe and affordable abortions. With the conservatives, it imposes a family – based morality on politics, they favor more government by increasing military funds, the three strike law with prisoners, the promotion of orphanages and tort reforms. Works Cited Lakoff, George. Moral Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2002.