Top Takes: Moral Politics by George Lakoff

Take another look at the post that, as of this writing, has the eighth most pageviews on this entire blog:

Moral Politics by George Lakoff

In this book the author presents a theory about how political liberals and conservatives think; a theory that basically has two parts. One, people’s political attitudes are driven by their underlying morality and, in America, there are two basic moral frameworks at play, both arising out of different view of the family.

Conservatism, as we shall see, is based on a Strict Father model [of the family], while liberalism is centered around a Nurturant Parent model. These two models of the family give rise to different moral systems and different discourse forms, that is, different choices of words and different modes of reasoning.

And two, these family-based moral systems are relevant to political opinions because of the widespread view of the Nation through the metaphor of a family.

The link between family-based morality and politics comes from one of the most common ways we have of conceptualizing what a nation is, namely, as a family. It is the common, unconscious, and automatic metaphor of the Nation-as-Family that produces contemporary conservatism from Strict Father morality and contemporary liberalism from Nurturant Parent morality.

It's a fascinating read, with a lot of unexpected twists and turns along the way, especially when Lakoff attempts to argue for one of the two moral systems are the "right" way to approach political questions. But beware the false equivalency embedded in his approach. Since the Nation-As-Family metaphor is, at best, an approximation of reality, it's not fair to condemn one moral system because it more frequently fails in raising well-adjusted children.

To wit, Strict Father morality may be a horrible way to raise children. But is it a horrible way of running a country?

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This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.