Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to Has your dad disowned you yet?

re: Has your dad disowned you yet?
Robert — (archived)

You mean Attila the Republican? Nah, we get along just great, and enjoy arguing politics. Remember, I learned to argue with RightWingers at my daddy's knee. These days, it usually begins when he says "Now, I don't want to bring up politics, but..." and we're off!

You really ought to check out Lakoff for his ideas. Doing a side-by-side comparison of Carville and Begala in "Take it Back!" versus Hugh Hewit in "Painting the Map Red" is all well and good, a fine excercize in comparative partisanship, but the claims of the partisans don't seem to shed much light on the underlying worldview. Lakoff takes on an explanation, and despite the fact that he has a point of view in the matter--progressive all the way--his theory seems to have explanatory and predictive power, like any useful theory should.

Lakoff's formalized the old notion of the two poles of American partisanship characterized as parental archetypes, and analyzes how each side creates cognitive structures based on the strict-father versus the nurturant parent mental model. Interesting ideas too on systemic causation versus direct causation, and how each type of mental model is related to how well a person perceives system causes, such as individuals contributing a little to pollution each and effecting a large harm to the environment--progressive; versus seeing the world in terms of direct causation, as conservatives do, focusing on the direct cause-and-effect of individual actions, and ascribing poverty to character failure, etc.

It's an interesting alternative to the Kabuki dance of "collectivist commie bastard!!!" versus "greedy selfish uncaring bastard!" schools of explaining each other, don't you think?

Lakoff also describes "biconceptuals", conservatives who ascribe to a distinct strict-father political model in national matters, yet wax idyllic about the distinctly nurturing environment of small towns, where people take care of their own (or so it says in the hymnal). That rings true to me, and might shed some light on why several dozen conservatives can stand hanging around a discussion site moderated by an avowed Liberal/Progressive/Democrat/"Lefty"/Collectivist, who even practices his principles by minimizing the authoritarian schtick in favor of negotiating, conflict resolution, and just in general exhorting everyone to play nice. Know what I mean?

I'm still in the middle of "Whose Freedom?", but rest assured that I'll afflict you (and of course Tom) with the gems I glean. I promise.

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