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terpgirl42's review against another edition
5.0
I wish this could be required reading for HS civics courses. Dense material requiring full engagement, I am planning to read it again, this time with a pencil in hand to fill the margins with notes. I found this utterly fascinating and enlightening.
sjgrodsky's review against another edition
4.0
Densely written, hard to read, I read a little more than half before I quit.
I don’t quite believe the author’s assertion that all differences in conservative versus liberal outlook can be explained by the “strict father” versus “nurturing parent” analogy that he presents.
But they are good paradigms and they do seem to explain quite a bit.
Conservatives believe the world is a challenging place, full of people that will take advantage of you if you’re not smart and suspicious. They place a great deal of value on strict upbringing. They like hierarchical organizations such as the military. They don’t want to give welfare to people because they think people should rise and fall on their own efforts. But they don’t have a problem giving subsidies to businesses, because businesses offer jobs to people. People who run successful businesses are much to be admired. Even though they are getting handouts from the government in the form of subsidies or favorable tax structures, conservatives think that is fine.
They don’t have a problem spending huge amounts of money on prisons, because prisons punish people who’ve done wrong. And people who’ve done wrong deserve to be punished. Anything else is coddling them.
All of this sounds like malarkey to someone with my point of view. But Lakoff explains these contradictory positions with an overarching paradigm that is consistent.
I don’t quite believe the author’s assertion that all differences in conservative versus liberal outlook can be explained by the “strict father” versus “nurturing parent” analogy that he presents.
But they are good paradigms and they do seem to explain quite a bit.
Conservatives believe the world is a challenging place, full of people that will take advantage of you if you’re not smart and suspicious. They place a great deal of value on strict upbringing. They like hierarchical organizations such as the military. They don’t want to give welfare to people because they think people should rise and fall on their own efforts. But they don’t have a problem giving subsidies to businesses, because businesses offer jobs to people. People who run successful businesses are much to be admired. Even though they are getting handouts from the government in the form of subsidies or favorable tax structures, conservatives think that is fine.
They don’t have a problem spending huge amounts of money on prisons, because prisons punish people who’ve done wrong. And people who’ve done wrong deserve to be punished. Anything else is coddling them.
All of this sounds like malarkey to someone with my point of view. But Lakoff explains these contradictory positions with an overarching paradigm that is consistent.
bootman's review against another edition
5.0
Excellent book with a fascinating perspective on liberal vs conservative morality
arielrichardson's review against another edition
3.0
This book shaped the way I think about the world!
alfia's review against another edition
2.0
While I greatly appreciate George Lakoff's contribution to the understanding of conceptual metaphor, this book demonstrates how metaphoric theory can also be used to paint stark and politically unhelpful subjective stereotypes. These serve more to elucidate the mind of the theorist than they do to accurately depict an electorate. It may indeed be that a certain sector of the liberal electorate has a worldview informed by a "nurturant parent" model, but the average democratically-leaning American is nowhere as groovy as the bi-coastal Berkeley-based model Lakoff draws. Contrasted with this beatific, nurturant, Earth-loving intellectual is the "strict father" model of Lakoff's prototypical Republican. The strict father model depicts the opposite extreme, which is, you guessed it, the child-beating, Bible-thumping, money-grubbing, pollution-spewing eugenicist of MSNBC nightmares. The average Republican-leaning American is nowhere as draconian as this model. "But these people exist!", you may aver. Sure they do. Read "Strangers in their Own Land" for an excellent, and much more measured treatment of this demographic. Both extremes are clearly over-represented in politics.
My main objection is that these models of liberal and conservative are not presented as extremes in the book, and the fact that the default liberal view is presented positively (no overly indulgent, anti-vaxxer bubble-dwellers here!) and the default conservative negatively (the traditional family and environmentalism are mutually exclusive in this world) shows egregious bias in my opinion. This is not the way to the center; it's the way to generalize and demonize political opponents, and to pander to liberals who want to feel self-righteous.
My main objection is that these models of liberal and conservative are not presented as extremes in the book, and the fact that the default liberal view is presented positively (no overly indulgent, anti-vaxxer bubble-dwellers here!) and the default conservative negatively (the traditional family and environmentalism are mutually exclusive in this world) shows egregious bias in my opinion. This is not the way to the center; it's the way to generalize and demonize political opponents, and to pander to liberals who want to feel self-righteous.
geolatin's review against another edition
5.0
This is an important, yet depressing read. Liberals have really dropped the ball in underestimating conservatives and are now having to play catch-up.
alexander0's review against another edition
2.0
As far as one could go as trying to interpret the minds of a nation that (at least at the time seemed relatively partisan) perhaps this is the best a great cognitive scientist could do. There's clearly a lot of thought that went into Dr. Lakoff's explanation, but afterwards I found it lacking in a few serious and central ways.
Firstly, this is particular to a finite point in U.S. political history that also appears to be the end of an era. If one reads this, it most certainly rings as a classic 20th century perspective of politics. This doesn't come close to explaining the reactions and explanations of "liberals" and "conservatives" that were born digital in my experience. This is a book for old American politics.
Secondly, and closely related to the first point, we are in a time of higher velocity of varying political information and methods of production. If this book is accurate, then certainly the "family" it supposes must be very small in the minds of the individuals it describes now. Certainly there could be very little reconciliation of the modern view of our family and the country at large, but yet, people are still attached to the notion of country. Perhaps there is a better metaphor that would undermine this argument as Lakoff argues in Chapter 19, but there's no indication that he would know of one that matches current circumstances.
Thirdly, there is a lot of work which both assumes the rationality of American political minds while also aggregating/stereotyping them to the point that it's not clear at the level of granularity that Dr. Lakoff speaks that there could both be rational perspectives of liberal or conservative views and complications without all views being radial to a relativistic metaphor. While Lakoff claims he is no moral relativist, it seems at times that he must assume most "central radial" conservatives and liberals are.
Lastly, there is a lot of assumption that this book has the ability to aggregate or merge states of mind. I don't believe this is possible. I think perhaps this simplifies Dr. Lakoff's explanation, but it seems to do great injustice to the distribution of conservative views that Lakoff later criticizes in the last part of his book as well as the liberal failure of empathy towards conservatism argument that he criticizes in the first part. From chapter 16 onwards, it reads as though Dr. Lakoff is trying to account for odd variations that he can't seem to fully explain in political opinion. He attempts Libertarianism and some strange form of pragmatism in either case, but he fails to account for more knowledgeable views of these platforms, and worse, he seems to miss a lot of views that are about small government on the left entirely. With the rise of antifa, socialistic anarchy (or libertarianism) and lesser active groups in these areas, it seems we have missed something terribly important.
Firstly, this is particular to a finite point in U.S. political history that also appears to be the end of an era. If one reads this, it most certainly rings as a classic 20th century perspective of politics. This doesn't come close to explaining the reactions and explanations of "liberals" and "conservatives" that were born digital in my experience. This is a book for old American politics.
Secondly, and closely related to the first point, we are in a time of higher velocity of varying political information and methods of production. If this book is accurate, then certainly the "family" it supposes must be very small in the minds of the individuals it describes now. Certainly there could be very little reconciliation of the modern view of our family and the country at large, but yet, people are still attached to the notion of country. Perhaps there is a better metaphor that would undermine this argument as Lakoff argues in Chapter 19, but there's no indication that he would know of one that matches current circumstances.
Thirdly, there is a lot of work which both assumes the rationality of American political minds while also aggregating/stereotyping them to the point that it's not clear at the level of granularity that Dr. Lakoff speaks that there could both be rational perspectives of liberal or conservative views and complications without all views being radial to a relativistic metaphor. While Lakoff claims he is no moral relativist, it seems at times that he must assume most "central radial" conservatives and liberals are.
Lastly, there is a lot of assumption that this book has the ability to aggregate or merge states of mind. I don't believe this is possible. I think perhaps this simplifies Dr. Lakoff's explanation, but it seems to do great injustice to the distribution of conservative views that Lakoff later criticizes in the last part of his book as well as the liberal failure of empathy towards conservatism argument that he criticizes in the first part. From chapter 16 onwards, it reads as though Dr. Lakoff is trying to account for odd variations that he can't seem to fully explain in political opinion. He attempts Libertarianism and some strange form of pragmatism in either case, but he fails to account for more knowledgeable views of these platforms, and worse, he seems to miss a lot of views that are about small government on the left entirely. With the rise of antifa, socialistic anarchy (or libertarianism) and lesser active groups in these areas, it seems we have missed something terribly important.
rmattbill1's review against another edition
5.0
A fascinating look into the minds of liberal and conservatives. Anyone interested in politics, or who has ever argued with a family member with different political beliefs, should read this.
orangejenny's review against another edition
3.0
Intriguing and powerful argument, but a little bit unsatisfying.
The bulk of the book describes two alternative metaphors for morality. The metaphors are coherent and described thoroughly. There are clear explanations of how the two metaphors apply to liberal and conservative viewpoints on a number of issues. The issue discussion is a little dated, but it's not too bad for being 25 years old, and even the dated parts do a decent job of demonstrating how the metaphors can be applied to reality. I'm not convinced that these two metaphors are 100% comprehensive, but they do cover a lot, and Lakoff does mention a few other metaphors that come up in political thought.
The general idea of metaphors as structuring thought is very compelling. One way to use this book is an introduction to Lakoff's general work on metaphors. It's dry, but not as dry as [b:Metaphors We Live By|34459|Metaphors We Live By|George Lakoff|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388194058l/34459._SX50_.jpg|34433] (which is excellent, just a little hard to get into).
The unsatisfying piece is the lack of discussion of how and why specific people use these metaphors. There's nothing about why one metaphor or another resonates with a particular person or how people unconsciously decide which metaphor to use in a given situation. Lakoff's desire to reach a broad audience limits the effectiveness of the latter parts of the book, which ultimately make an argument for liberalism.
A conservative view, in the broadest sense of preferring the status quo, is going to be attractive to people who feel the current system is working, which is going to include a lot of people in power, but Lakoff describes approximately this idea as the "cynical liberal view" and makes it sound a bit like a conspiracy theory.
It also bugged me that Lakoff says "strict father" but uses the gender-neutral "nurturant parent" to describe what's really the stereotypical mother role. He does discuss feminism briefly and notes that what he calls the "strict father" metaphor is essentially patriarchy, but says he avoided that word as too ideological. That makes his final recommendation in the afterword - to promote "nurturant parenting" - hollow, since he can't discuss any feminist work on the barriers to promoting this highly feminized concept.
The theoretical parts of this are good. The practical application parts need to be supplemented with other works.
The bulk of the book describes two alternative metaphors for morality. The metaphors are coherent and described thoroughly. There are clear explanations of how the two metaphors apply to liberal and conservative viewpoints on a number of issues. The issue discussion is a little dated, but it's not too bad for being 25 years old, and even the dated parts do a decent job of demonstrating how the metaphors can be applied to reality. I'm not convinced that these two metaphors are 100% comprehensive, but they do cover a lot, and Lakoff does mention a few other metaphors that come up in political thought.
The general idea of metaphors as structuring thought is very compelling. One way to use this book is an introduction to Lakoff's general work on metaphors. It's dry, but not as dry as [b:Metaphors We Live By|34459|Metaphors We Live By|George Lakoff|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388194058l/34459._SX50_.jpg|34433] (which is excellent, just a little hard to get into).
The unsatisfying piece is the lack of discussion of how and why specific people use these metaphors. There's nothing about why one metaphor or another resonates with a particular person or how people unconsciously decide which metaphor to use in a given situation. Lakoff's desire to reach a broad audience limits the effectiveness of the latter parts of the book, which ultimately make an argument for liberalism.
A conservative view, in the broadest sense of preferring the status quo, is going to be attractive to people who feel the current system is working, which is going to include a lot of people in power, but Lakoff describes approximately this idea as the "cynical liberal view" and makes it sound a bit like a conspiracy theory.
It also bugged me that Lakoff says "strict father" but uses the gender-neutral "nurturant parent" to describe what's really the stereotypical mother role. He does discuss feminism briefly and notes that what he calls the "strict father" metaphor is essentially patriarchy, but says he avoided that word as too ideological. That makes his final recommendation in the afterword - to promote "nurturant parenting" - hollow, since he can't discuss any feminist work on the barriers to promoting this highly feminized concept.
The theoretical parts of this are good. The practical application parts need to be supplemented with other works.