Lakoff explains the conservative vs. liberal world view

[podfish]

pretty clearly here. Again, nothing particularly new but it's always good to have this perspective (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/what-conservatives-really_b_825504.html) articulately presented.


Budget deficits are a ruse, ... deficits are not what really matters to conservatives.
Conservatives really want to change the basis of American life, to make America run according to the conservative moral worldview in all areas of life. (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/what-conservatives-really_b_825504.html)

[busyb555]

You must be on drugs to actually think this. Quite amazing.


pretty clearly here. Again, nothing particularly new but it's always good to have this perspective (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/what-conservatives-really_b_825504.html) articulately presented.

[podfish]

You must be on drugs to actually think this. Quite amazing.
I don't see what the drugs have to do with it. Sure, it's a caricature, but why don't you pick some specific claims and disagree? Especially if you can point out some of the less inflammatory parts of his claims that you still disagree with. For example, I think this is kinda inflammatory:

Conservatives believe in individual responsibility alone, not social responsibility. They don't think government should help its citizens.. That's a fat target. But the themes ring true to me.
And what of people who are not prosperous? They don't have discipline, and without discipline they cannot be moral, so they deserve their poverty. The good people are hence the prosperous people. Helping others takes away their discipline, and hence makes them both unable to prosper on their own and function morally. Pretty much straight out of Ayn Rand. The part that rings most truly with me is where he identifies a strong respect for authority as key. Is that a virtue for you or not?
Of course conservatives help people - it's well documented that fundamentalist Christian churches come across with a lot of funding for charitable works, for example. But the public positions and policies favored by conservatives follow the logic Lakoff states. This site's for discussions - go ahead and blow my tripping mind, man... where's he gone so wrong?

[podfish]

I think the provenance of the “conservative” pov goes back a lot farther and is more straight out of Calvin yeah, I didn't mean to imply Ayn invented anything. She's just a popular spokesman for a common point of view, and one that as you point out has been long entrenched in our culture. I just find Lakoff's article shows an enlightening way to think about one's attitudes - not so much to stereotype people into these exaggerated portraits, but instead to put out a vivid portrait and see how you feel about the underlying principles. To stick with the example used in the last few posts in this thread - how much DO you think that people are reaping what they've sown, that their successes and failures are primarily due to their characters? I suggest that there's a huge correlation between your position on the political spectrum and how you'd answer that question.

[Sara S]

So, what's the poem? I don't think I still have my e.e. cummings book...







I agree. However, in my case, and many others, I think, I’ve slid so far from one side of the political spectrum to the other that I’ve fallen off. I still have a yes and a no. And I’ve taken my stands, sometimes after a lot of procrastination. But they rarely have had to do with any “political” principles that I know of. I think e e cummings had it right about politicians, about who has sat upon such a “man.“ A short poem that is not just some facile, snarky epithet despite its brevity and bite.

/mhqc/

[Dixon]

You must be on drugs to actually think this. Quite amazing.

busyb555, an ad hominem attack like that (i.e., calling people nuts without addressing the ideas you disagree on) is not a constructive nor mature response. If the ideas are as blatantly crazy as you apparently think, you ought to be able to articulate, at least briefly, what's wrong with them, rather than just insulting those who expressed them. When your response is nothing more substantive or intelligent than insulting spew, you succeed only in making yourself look like an asshole. Would you like to try again?

FWIW, as someone with years of experience as a conservative Christian (back in my youth), I thought that the article in question, though oversimplified and overgeneralizing, rang fairly true.