morgan_dhu (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
morgan_dhu) wrote2004-10-17 04:20 pm
morgan_dhu) wrote2004-10-17 04:20 pm
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Father Figuring
As a Canadian, I have been watching the current American electoral process very closely, for reasons that should be obvious. As former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau once said, in speaking about the Canada-U.S. relationship, “Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” The elephant is doing a lot more than twitching and grunting these days, and no longer seems all that friendly and even-tempered, so it is, I believe, even more important for the mouse to pay close attention, not just to what the elephant is doing, but to anything that can shed some light on why the elephant is doing it.
In this context, I have lately been hearing a great deal about George Lakoff, a UC Berkeley professor of cognitive linguistics who has made a considerable study of the language of politics. He has been getting a fair amount of media time of late with his discussions of framing in political language. (For anyone who has missed this, here is an interview with Lakoff that discusses framing.)
Lakoff has also theorised that much political thought in the United States is influenced by the “Nation as Family” metaphor, in which both liberals and conservatives see the nation as a family, with the government as the parent and the citizens as children. One of the results of thinking about politics within this metaphorical framework is that personal and family values, goals and morality are mapped onto the policies and actions of the state.
Lakoff observes that, while both liberals and conservatives use this metaphor, they rely on two different models of the family, which he calls the strict father model and the nurturant parent model; therefore, the two main political constituencies in the U.S. see the nation as two very different kinds of families – which in turn means that they have different expectations of the policies and actions of their governments.
Well, the progressive worldview is modeled on a nurturant parent family. Briefly, it assumes that the world is basically good and can be made better and that one must work toward that. Children are born good; parents can make them better. Nurturing involves empathy, and the responsibility to take care of oneself and others for whom we are responsible. On a larger scale, specific policies follow, such as governmental protection in form of a social safety net and government regulation, universal education (to ensure competence, fairness), civil liberties and equal treatment (fairness and freedom), accountability (derived from trust), public service (from responsibility), open government (from open communication), and the promotion of an economy that benefits all and functions to promote these values, which are traditional progressive values in American politics.
The conservative worldview, the strict father model, assumes that the world is dangerous and difficult and that children are born bad and must be made good. The strict father is the moral authority who supports and defends the family, tells his wife what to do, and teaches his kids right from wrong. The only way to do that is through painful discipline — physical punishment that by adulthood will become internal discipline. The good people are the disciplined people. Once grown, the self-reliant, disciplined children are on their own. Those children who remain dependent (who were spoiled, overly willful, or recalcitrant) should be forced to undergo further discipline or be cut free with no support to face the discipline of the outside world.
So, project this onto the nation and you see that to the right wing, the good citizens are the disciplined ones — those who have already become wealthy or at least self-reliant — and those who are on the way. Social programs, meanwhile, "spoil" people by giving them things they haven't earned and keeping them dependent. The government is there only to protect the nation, maintain order, administer justice (punishment), and to provide for the promotion and orderly conduct of business. In this way, disciplined people become self-reliant. Wealth is a measure of discipline. Taxes beyond the minimum needed for such government take away from the good, disciplined people rewards that they have earned and spend it on those who have not earned it.
Full article here.
This leads me to the recently published book Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values. by Michael Adams.
This book was written by the founder of the Canadian public opinion polling firm I work for, and is based on research we and our research partners in other countries have been conducting for more than a decade into the predominant social values in a number of countries, including Canada and the United States. I’m not shilling the book here, I honestly think the research is of some importance to an understanding of a number of social trends in both Canada and the U.S.
Adams argues, based on more than a decade of research into social values in the United States, that there is a growing trend towards an acceptance of both traditional patriarchal authority and hierarchical social structures in the United States today.
One of the most striking items we have been tracking during the past decade addresses Americans’ orientation to traditional patriarchal authority. In 1992, 1996 and 2000, we asked Americans to strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree or strongly disagree with the statement, “The father of the family must be master in his own house.”
In 1992, 42 percent of Americans agreed (either strongly or somewhat) with this statement. The number seemed high at the time (1992 wasn’t so very long ago), but we hadn’t, as they say, seen nothing yet. Support for the Father-knows-best credo was actually on the rise. In 1996, 44 percent of respondents agreed with the statement, and in 2000, a full 49 percent of our sample – almost half the population – agreed that Dad should be boss; this is in spite of the frontal assault on patriarchal authority waged by Homer Simpson and Bill Clinton during the 1990s.
This growing acceptance of traditional patriarchal authority is truly remarkable – and seriously divergent with the patterns in other advanced industrial nations. But it is not only patriarchal authority that is enjoying increased acceptance among many Americans. When we asked Americans in 1996 whether it was better for one leader to make decisions in a group or whether leadership should be more fluid, 31 percent agreed with the more hierarchical position that a single leader should call the shots. In 2000, the proportion agreeing with the hierarchical model had shot up seven points to 38 percent. These Americans were becoming more and more willing to fall in line and do what the boss tells them to do, and this was before their president and commander-in-chief began to rally them for a post-9/11 war on terrorism.
Here, then, is the link between Lakoff and Adams – Lakoff suggests that conservatives in America see the nation/family in terms of a strict father who disciplines his citizen/children into his model of self-reliant individualism, and punishes those who fail to achieve this goal, and Adams presents evidence supporting the view that an increasing number of Americans find the “strict father” family model to be comfortable – and perhaps even comforting. I do not argue a causal link here – it is impossible to say, given the available data, if the observed increase in the acceptance of patriarchy and hierarchy is supporting a move toward the political right in America, or is merely documenting shifts in social values resulting from an overall trend to the right that is also reflected in political ideology and policy.
However, if both the theory and the research do in fact reflect the reality of American politics and society, then the current rightist administration under Bush may not be an aberration, but a real reflection of where American society, and the United States as a sovereign entity, is headed. And if this is so, then it may also suggest that those in the U.S. seeking to counter this trend may need to focus on not only on political action, but also on social movements such as the feminist movement to influence the values that may well be feeding the march to the right.
no subject
I believe it is available in the U.S., because there have been American reviews and some Americans of my Internet acquaintance have mentioned reading it. You’re probably correct in that it’s unlikely to be available in Australia.
The idea that Canada and the United States are diverging is an intriguing one. Determining what direction a country as diverse and fragmented as Canada is moving in (aside from apart) would be a daunting challenge.
Obviously, the social values analysis goes beyond the national level and looks at regional trends, in both Canada and the U.S. For instance, on the patriarchy item discussed above, the Canadian numbers in the six regions we look at range from 15 percent agreeing in Quebec to 21 percent agreeing in the Prairies, while in the U.S., the numbers range from 29 percent agreeing in New England to 71 percent agreeing in the Deep South. Looking at either country, one can find similar regional spreads on all 300-odd items that we track in this research.
With respect to Canada (where we have been tracking these trends for a longer period of time), while it is true that not all regions are moving at the same speed on all trends, overall, they are in fact moving in the same overall directions. We may have a number of political problems to solve at the moment, but there is not as much fragmentation at the social values level as one might think.
That a group with a leader is more capable than one without, even if the leader is incompetent, is pretty basic and I would place the dissenters in a bucket with the folks who are uncertain as to whether the world is round.
I think it really all depends on what kind of group it is and what it’s doing. I’ve been in a number of groups that functioned well without leaders. However, the particular item tracked above does not ask people to chose between a single leader and no leader, but between a single leader and a fluid approach to leadership – if you and I are part of a group that has several things to do, and I know more about doing X while you know more about doing Y, then it might be appropriate for you to take charge when we work on Y and for me to take charge when we work on X. Or if you have excellent people skills while I’m good at logistics, we might make a good set of co-coordinators. That’s what we mean by fluid leadership in that particular tracking item. And besides, the earth isn’t round – it’s squashed very slightly at the middle. ;-)
The part on family sits oddly, as George W. Bush has a nurturative rather than conservative outlook on family. Moreover, the "conservative" translation of that into government is not what we are seeing at the present time at all! In fact, it seems more like the "Nanny State" running rampant.
I’m certainly not an expert on American culture – I’ve never lived there, and though I’ve visited frequently, I don’t think that really gives one a “feel” for the culture. So I really don’t know if Lakoff’s model is a more-or-less accurate reflection of what is happening politically or not. But based on what I see peeking down from the north, I would not call Bush and his administration nurturant – toward the family or toward the state. In his approach to taxation and funding social programs, he seems to be clearly in line with Lakoff’s description – the rich are the good children, who should be allowed to do whatever they want with as little interference as possible, while a disciplinary or punitive approach of cutting funding is applied to those who don’t make the grade.
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘Nanny State,’ but if you mean to suggest that most people in the U.S. are being coddled or are receiving more benefits than they need from the state, that doesn’t fit in with what I’m reading and hearing. Would you care to expand on your thoughts on this point?
no subject
Okay I confess. This is a reference to this article (http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1065064/posts) which was subject of a lot of discussion a few months back.
"There has always been a tension in conservatism between those who favor more liberty and those who want more morality. But what's indisputable is that Bush's "compassionate conservatism" is a move toward the latter — the use of the government to impose and subsidize certain morals over others. He is fusing Big Government liberalism with religious-right moralism. It's the nanny state with more cash. Your cash, that is. And their morals."
no subject
What Sullivan is describing, even though he calls it a nanny state, is more along the lines of a government lurching toward theocratic and corporatised fascism. The Bush government's attempts to impose a particular moral perspective on the American people is, I think, not a result of so-called "compassionate conservatism" but rather a pandering to the influential Christian fundamentalist movement in the U.S. It has always been a truism that "ya dance with them what brung ya", and the fundamentalists were a significant element in the rightist coalition that currently serves as the electoral base of the American Republican Party.
As for some of the other actions that Sullivan ascribes to "nanny statism", many are actually measures adopted to satisfy the Republican Party's other main support base - corporations. Banning of certain herbal remedies, for example, is not really about protecting the consumer, it's about limiting alternatives to the product base of the influential pharmaceutical industry. The same reason lies behind aspects of the Bush administration's recent medicare bill, which actually limits consumer options available to seniors and ensures that they will have less opportunity to seek out competitve prices for pharmaceutical products.
I would argue that the Bush administration is neither compassionate nor truely conservative in the old-school sense of adhering to principles of fiscal responsibility. And it's certainly not liberal - classical liberal theory being associated with the freedoms of individuals to dissent, particularly in political and religious arenas, and to engage in free use of property.
no subject
Did that question explain what is meant by "fluid leadership"? I had no idea what you meant by the term until you explained it, so I doubt if the people surveyed would understand what it means.
Also, I wonder if a better term could be used. "Rotating leadership" is only one form of fluidity, so that's not a good choice. "Flexible leadership" is better, until you think that it could mean there's one leader who is flexible. "Adaptable leadership"? Maybe it needs to be reframed altogether. I do see why a thinktank is needed -- a group of intelligent people who can discuss and work through ideas together (and bounce them off one another and thrash them out and all those other sports-related or fighting-related metaphors).
BTW, I would suggest that one problem that all too many left intellectuals suffer from is an addiction to polysyllabic words and convoluted, turgid syntax. I'm not innocent of it myself -- and reading your post, Morgan, neither are you. This is meant as a reminder of a place where both of us can improve and something both of us need to be aware of. I'm thinking in particular of the last two paragraphs of your post, from "I do not argue a causal link here" on. I know myself I retreat into formal, intellectual language when I'm feeling threatened; whether you do the same thing you've never told me.
However, there's an extremely important point you make in the next-to-last paragraph: "Adams presents evidence supporting the view that an increasing number of Americans find the 'strict father' family model to be comfortable – and perhaps even comforting." Yes, I believe that's true. And one thing progressives need to get across is that the nurturing parent model can be far more comfortable and comforting. The phrase "social safety net," for instance, is a good example of progressive framing. It implies that life is adventurous and potentially dangerous, but also exciting and enjoyable -- and that there's a safety net there to catch you if you fall, so it's okay to take a few risks when you want to.
One other thing we need to be aware of, though, is one appeal of the "strict father" model, at least to men: the fact that they will have the chance to become the strict father, the rulemaker, the authority figure, themselves. That's the big motivation for putting up with the punishment -- well, that and the hope of winning the approval of the authority figure.
no subject
Yes, it did. You have to realise that I have to walk a thin line here in talking about this research, which is proprietary. If a particular item wording has been released to the public, as the question on the father being the master of the house has been, then I can quote it exactly. Michael has not, AFAIR, specified the wording on the leadership item in his public writings, so I’m limited to using his language when discussing the issue in public. The actual question wording is precise with respect to the meaning of what Michael calls fluid leadership in the book.
BTW, I would suggest that one problem that all too many left intellectuals suffer from is an addiction to polysyllabic words and convoluted, turgid syntax. I'm not innocent of it myself -- and reading your post, Morgan, neither are you.
To quote Neil Young, “It’s my sound, man.” Even when I’m being colloquial, I tend to convoluted syntax and endless qualifications and disclaimers. ;-) The more important the topic is to me, the more academic, polysylIabic and convoluted I tend to become in my discourse, because while it may be difficult, academic language can also define more precisely (of course, whether I succeed in using it precisely is another question, but that's my goal, at least). Colloquial language is often vague, and direct language, for me at least, often lacks nuance, and I live for nuance. Plus, I figure that if I can’t use my own natural styles in my own Live Journal, then I’m really in trouble. I can’t speak to why other left intellectuals use high-falutin’ language.
One other thing we need to be aware of, though, is one appeal of the "strict father" model, at least to men: the fact that they will have the chance to become the strict father, the rulemaker, the authority figure, themselves. That's the big motivation for putting up with the punishment -- well, that and the hope of winning the approval of the authority figure.
A very good point. That would indeed be part of the reasoning behind any argument that – again assuming that this link between authoritarian family structure and right-wing political positioning is valid – opposition at a political level to right-wing administrations in the U.S. would benefit from revitalised progressive social movements such as feminism.