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A review by alexander0
Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think by George Lakoff
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.