Missing the Point

Anal Philosopher recently linked to an article by his friend John Ray titled Lakoff "Deconstructed". Ray’s approach violates two ideals Anal Philosopher claims to admire. Scholarly writing and the principle of charity. Ray, in our opinion, has either not read Lakoff’s book or needs a remedial reading course.

Right in the beginning Ray gets Lakoff wrong. "Lakoff has written a book which purports to explain the Left/Right polarity of politics as Mother-oriented politics vs. Father-oriented politics… " It’s Nuturant Parent not Mother- oriented. There is a significant difference, and one, even a cursory reading of Lakoff’s book makes clear. In the liberal world view a Mother or a Father could be nurturant. So is Lakoff implying that mothers can’t be strict by calling the conservative world-view Strict Father?

I should say at the outset that, though I have used the term "Strict-Father" to name the model given, there are variants of the model that can be used by a Strict Mother as well. There are many mothers, especially tough single mothers, who function as Strict Fathers. But the model is an idealization, and is intended here only as that. (Lakoff, p. 67)

Not only does Ray exhibit bad scholarship, but he follows it with poor reasoning. Ray quotes Lakoff as saying "Leftists stand for civil liberties and equal treatment" He then offers the following as counter examples. "Tell that to conservative and Christian students who are regularly muzzled and intimidated on America’s leftist university campuses!" and "how is it equal treatment to have almost the entire university Professoriate politically leftist?" This doesn’t show that liberals don’t believe in equality and civil liberties, at most it demonstrates that they are fallible, aren’t we all. For the sake of argument let's concede that the "entire Professoriate" has leftist politics. Ray implies that because there are more liberal professors there was unequal treatment. Where is his evidence for this? This is an example of post hoc. There are other possibilities. For example, the low wages of university professors don’t deter as many leftists as they do conservatives who may be more likely to seek out positions in the private sector.

Even worse than the above, Ray makes the fundamental mistake of begging the question. "Lakoff further says that leftists believe in ‘the promotion of an economy that benefits all’. No economy benefits more people than a capitalist one so leftists are friends of capitalism? Not exactly likely!" It is a matter of vigorous debate whether a capitalist system benefits more people. What is Ray talking about anyway? There really are no functioning pure capitalist models. It is not a given that capitalism benefits the most people even if Ray tries to define it as such.

We have additional evidence that Ray has not read Lakoff’s book. He writes, "He [Lakoff] says that conservatives think that children should learn self-discipline, self-reliance, and respect for legitimate authority. What’s wrong with that?" In a word, nothing. Lakoff doesn’t say there is anything wrong with that. What differentiates the liberal view from the conservative view, for Lakoff, is how those values are prioritized. According to Lakoff, liberals value those things, but place a higher priority on fairness and compassion. Conservatives value fairness and compassion also, but place a higher priority on self discipline, self reliance and respect for legitimate authority.

Ray concludes his thoughts by masterfully constructing a straw man. In doing that he makes his most egregious misread of Lakoff’s book. He points to the fact that his politics are on the right and yet he doesn’t use corporal punishment on his child. He fails to account for the possibility of having a Strict Father model for your politics while having a Nurturant Parent model for child-rearing. Lakoff writes,

Nuturant Parent child-rearing practices are superior to Strict Father child-rearing practices. But that, in itself, does not show that liberal politics is superior to conservative politics. You might, for example choose the Nurturant Parent model for you family life and the Strict Father model for politics. (Lakoff, p. 364)

In short, Lakoff is not making claims that how you are raised forms your political attitudes. He is not claiming a causal link between the two. What he is claiming is that conservatives use the Strict Father model as a METAPHOR for their political thought. Lakoff argues the Strict Father model taken as a model for real child-rearing is an ineffective one so, by ANALOGY, it is not a good METAPHOR for politics.

Ray finally provides evidence in the form of a litany of references to the psychological literature, but it is alas irrelevant. Lakoff isn’t making the claim the provided literature discusses. Ray would know this if he’d read the book or if he was charitable.

Please direct your comments here

Posted by Chris at December 11, 2003 05:17 PM | TrackBack