The Berkeley cognitive scientist/linguist George Lakoff has spent decades pursuing a deep understanding of how our word choices affect the thinking of others, as well as the psychological dynamics that form our social and political worldviews. We’ve discussed this in the past – and it has never been more relevant as it is in our current national moment.
In particular, Lakoff tees up our understanding of that current national moment in terms of opposing political forces polarizing the electorate: on the one hand, we have progressives/Democrats pushing to defend and fortify democratic institutions, as conservatives/Republicans increasingly push for a more authoritarian governance and social order. And Lakoff sees this confrontation as one occurring between two competing moral systems.
In the past, Lakoff has articulated those moral systems as follows; on the conservative side, there’s strict father morality – a hierarchical order, based on obedience, punishment/reward, and adherence to convention; on the other, there’s nurturant parent morality – a flat social order based on consensus, with cooperation and growth at its center, embracing exploration.
These are good starting points, and their dynamics are easily observed in our familial, societal, religious, and political tiers. Lakoff has labored tirelessly and persuasively to get these concepts across to those who shape our national conversation.
Now he appears on social media, sparking another such discussion with the following prompt:
How does the progressive moral system differ from the conservative moral system? It is rooted in nurturance — empathy, responsibility and a commitment to the good of your community.
Well, that’s a good conversation to be having, and it’s worth some effort to get people talking about such things. Yes, the progressive moral system and the conservative moral system certainly differ, and our social and political worldviews emerge – often into competition – for that very reason.
In starting this conversation, Lakoff posts a meme that repeats his concept of nurturance:
What does nurturance mean?
It means three things:
Empathy
Responsibility for yourself and others
A commitment to do your best not just for yourself, but for your family, your community, your country, and the world
These ideas were developed in his 2008 book Don’t Think Like an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, a great manual for mastering effective word choices (which he notes the conservative movement did long ago, and the progressive movement seems unable to do). It’s a book that everyone should read, despite their political/social persuasion, because it clarifies a great deal about how our brains work, in ways we don’t even consciously realize.
But now Lakoff makes the very mistake he counsels so adamantly against.
Per his explanation of word choices, he points out that conservatives tend to appropriate some domains as their own, passively excluding those outside their circles through their rhetoric. For instance, conservatives and Republicans like to call themselves “values voters,” meaning that their biases and preferences (mostly centering on their traditional worldview) should be considered as such – values. And when they use the word to create a category, and place themselves in it, they passively set up a second category by default – not-values voters.
And, indeed, that’s how it plays out: “values voters” rail endlessly about the moral turpitude of those who don’t possess their traditional worldview, or refuse to sanction the elements of the status quo that conservatives find untroubling. The “non-values voters” - people who aren’t conservative Republicans – find this offensive, because of course they possess values, and in fact they hold many values in common with them (love of family and country, belief in freedom, the need for safety, etc.). The manipulation of the term, however, sets the two groups – who have much more that unites them than divides them – at each other’s throats. Each side sees the other as more of an enemy than they really are, and cooperation is shunted aside in favor of winner-takes-all warfare.
The word values, then, has been repurposed as a political weapon, one designed to incite conflict and actively misrepresent the views of the excluded group. Can we agree that’s just wrong, as well as being egregiously harmful and counter-productive?
Lakoff calls this framing, a concept which goes beyond the example above. Framing, in his formulation, is the use of specific keywords in the presentation of an argument that either constrain or redirect the listener subconsciously. This effect can be positive or negative: it can set up false dichotomies (as above), or it can be used to open up new possibilities (argument-as-war vs. argument-as-dance).
Clear so far? I made that point in order to make this one: in today’s well-intended effort to spur a fruitful discussion about moral systems, Lakoff commits the same sin – using the word nurturant.
Strict father morality and nurturant parent morality are both valid constructs that Lakoff has meticulously and responsibly defined, and his books offer a great deal of useful explication. But by appropriating the word nurturant for the progressive system of morality, he sets up a false binary: Progressives are nurturant; conservatives are not!
This is just as untrue as conservatives are values voters; progressives are not! Does nurturant parent correctly embody the moral dynamic of the progressive? Yes, it does; but are conservatives not nurturant parents? Do conservatives eschew nurturance? They absolutely do not.
The difference between progressive and conservative moral systems is not about nurturance per se; both progressives and conservatives can be nurturing, and by and large most people are, to some degree. The difference in the moral systems is about who is nurtured.
In the progressive moral system, nurture extends to everyone – family, neighbor, country, human being. No one is excluded; it is a cornerstone principle of that morality. In the conservative moral system, nurture can be every bit as strong, when rendered, but is extended to a smaller circle: family, certainly; neighbor, certainly; countrymen and internationals? Sometimes, sometimes not.
A progressive will view those in their nation and in other nations, of their own ‘race’ or other races, as just as worthy of nurture as their families or neighbors. Many (but not all) conservatives will be more hesitant to extend that nurture to, say, persons of different race, persons of different religions, persons of differing sexuality. And less likely still to extend that nurture to immigrants.
The distinction between the moral systems, then, is a difference in the scope of the two moralities, not in the behaviors they call for: in-group, the moralities are equally strong and worthy; it is the circles of humanity beyond the in-group that mark the distinction that needs to become the focus of the discussion.
Lakoff might reframe his argument (which is a strong and useful one) in new terms, language that sets aside nurturance as its moving part – just as conservatives would do well to abandon the values voter discriminator, if they ever want to attract young people into their political sphere. There is much to discuss and debate, and there is substance in each moral system that is worthy of review.
But the real debate here is about inclusiveness, not nurturance. If we reframe that debate, we cease the pointless task of wondering how to foster nurturance in conservatives and begin to focus on how persuade them that there is value in extending the nurturance they already possess to others beyond their current boundaries.
Inclusiveness. Let’s talk about where it lives in our moral thinking...
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