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In the middle of the above chart we have the realm of "legitimating myths" (LMs), those which are "hierarchy enhancing" (HE-LMs) and those which are "hierarchy attenuating" (HA-LMs). In my view, Lakoff's SF/NP model provides profound insight into the interior workings of the realm of the legitimating myths. In turn, SDT describes the stabilizing materialist matrix that maintains the broad outlines of hierarchical relationships that are generally preserved across periods of upheaval. This matrix provides the underlying framework for understanding the hegemonic ideological struggle between egalitarianism and authoritarianism. Lakoff's SF/NP model can also be seen as providing an abstract description/explanation of the two sides of this struggle. However, the actual way in which the HE-LMs and HA-LMs interact in the real world is more complex than Lakoff's SF/NP model-just as the hierarchical structure involves more than social dominance orientation (SDO), the empirically-measured attitudinal factor associated with SDT.
In fact, I think that Lakoff is primarily right as far as he goes, in the way that he situates his analysis of what Obama is seeking to do. However I differ from Lakoff in three ways. First, I believe there are other cognitive factors he does not take into account in has analysis. Second, he gives insufficient attention to the historical dimension of hegemonic struggle. Third, he gives insufficient attention to the realworld circumstances we face. Because I think Lakoff's case is the best one out there, it is particularly fruitful to critique it, as it is most likely to advance genuine understanding, and to contribute to constructive criticism.
Ironically, the one area in which Lakoff has repeatedly steped beyond his professional expertise is to point out the continuing need for greatly strengthening progressive infrastructure-a concern that takes him to the very threshold of the realms that SDT helps us understand::
The conservative message machine is huge and still going. There are dozens of conservative think tanks, many with very large communications budgets. The conservative leadership institutes are continuing to turn out thousands of trained conservative spokespeople every year. The conservative apparatus for language creation is still functioning. Conservative talking points are still going out to their network of spokespeople, who still being booked on tv and radio around the country. About 80% of the talking heads on tv are conservatives. Rush Limbaugh and Fox News are as strong as ever. There are now progressive voices on MSNBC, Comedy Central, and Air America, but they are still overwhelmed by Right's enormous megaphone. Republicans in Congress can count on overwhelming message support in their home districts and homes states. That is one reason why they were able to stonewall on the President's stimulus package. They had no serious media competition at home pounding out the Obama vision day after day.
Such national, day-by-day media competition is necessary. Democrats need to build it. Democratic think tanks are strong on policy and programs, but weak on values and vision. Without the moral arguments based on the Obama values and vision, the policymakers most likely [will] be unable to regularly address both independent voters and the Limbaugh-FoxNews audiences in conservative Republican strongholds.
Because I agree with the core of Lakoff's analysis coming from cognitive science, and I agree with his stress on the need to develop countervailing progressive infrastructure, the differences in viewpoint are naturally going to be relatively small, at least conceptually, compared to the areas of disagreement. But that doesn't mean the disagreements aren't important. It does, however, mean that they can be much more clearly defined than they might otherwise be.
So, let me examine a few key points in his diary and discuss where our differences come from, and where they lead.
In his introduction, Lakoff writes:
The pundits will stress the nuts-and-bolts policy issues: the banking system, education, energy, health care. But beyond policy, there will be a vision of America-a moral vision and a view of unity that the pundits often miss.
What they miss is the Obama Code. For the sake of unity, the President tends to express his moral vision indirectly. Like other self-aware and highly articulate speakers, he connects with his audience using what cognitive scientists call the "cognitive unconscious." Speaking naturally, he lets his deepest ideas simply structure what he is saying. If you follow him, the deep ideas are communicated unconsciously and automatically. " The Code is his most effective way to bring the country together around fundamental American values.
For supporters of the President, it is crucial to understand the Code in order to talk
overtly about the old values our new president is communicating. It is necessary because tens of millions of Americans-both conservatives and progressives-don't yet perceive the vital sea change that Obama is bringing about.
I would agree with this, but one significant addition: part of the reason that people might not yet the "vital sea change" Lakoff writes about is that Obama himself has contributed to blurring the change he represents, in a variety of different ways, and for a variety of different reasons. Sometimes he really is doing something more subtle that jaded professionals just fail to appreciate. And sometimes he's just playing 11-dimensional 52-card pickup. And sometimes, maybe, it's a little bit of both.
Turning from the general to the (slightly more) specific, here's the first area where I would differ somewhat (emphasis added last paragraph):
1. Values Over Programs
The first move is to distinguish programs from the value systems they represent. Every policy has a material aspect-the nuts and bolts of how it works- plus a typically implicit cognitive aspect that represents the values and ideas behind the nuts and bolts.
The President knows the difference. He understands that those who see themselves as "progressive" or "conservative" all too often define those words in terms of programs rather than values. Even the programs championed by progressives may not fit what the President sees as the fundamental values of the country. He is seeking to align the programs of his administration with those values.
The potential pushback will come not just from conservatives who do not share his values, but just as much from progressives who make the mistake of thinking that programs are values and that progressivism is defined by a list of programs. When some of those programs are cut as economically secondary or as unessential, their defenders will inevitably see this as a conservative move rather than a move within an overall moral vision they share with the President.
This is basically a restatement of one of Lakoff's main themes in his political work, dating back to Moral Politics: that conservatives generally are far more conscious of the rooting of their politics in a moral vision, while liberals routinely get lost in policy details and can't see the forest for the trees. Conservatives can fall into the same trap as well, but generally are much less prone to do so.
I would agree with Lakoff that this is a potential pitfall for progressives to fall into. But the reverse is also possible: Obama may cut something unwisely out of an ideological commitment to "pragmatism," "inclusion" or whatever. Obama's invocations of such ideals can be every bit as knee-jerk in its own way as turf-defending a particular program may be. You have to actually look, think, and test whether rhetoric and reality are matched to one another on a case-by-case basis.
Lakoff tends to exhibit a bias towards Obama because of the three-legged stool syndrome: Question: Which leg of a three-legged stool is most important? Answer: The one that is missing. Obama excels at the sorts of things that Lakoff's theory indicates liberals and progressives have been missing. And because this absence has been so deeply debilitating, Lakoff repeatedly tends to see Obama's strengths as paramount. However, Lakoff's own work provides another interpretive possibility. In Don't Think of An Elephant, Lakoff describes six different flavors of progressivism, without claiming that any one of them is inherently superior to the others:
From the point of view of a cognitive scientist, who looks at modes of thought, there are six basic types of progressives, each with a distinct mode of thought. They share all the progressive values, but are distinguished by some differences.
1. Socioeconomic progressives think that everything is a matter of money and class and that all solutions are ultimately economic and social class solutions.
2. Identity politics progressives say it is time for their oppressed group to get its share now.
3. Environmentalists think in terms of sustainability of the earth, the sacredness of the earth, and the protection of native peoples.
4. Civil liberties progressives want to maintain freedoms against threats to freedom.
5. Spiritual progressives have a nurturant form of religion or spirituality, their spiritual experience has to do with their connection to other people and the world, and their spiritual practice has to do with service to other people and to their community. Spiritual progressives span the full range from Catholics and Protestants to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Goddess worshippers, and pagan members of Wicca.
6. Antiauthoritarians say there are all sorts of illegitimate forms of authority out there and we have to fight them, whether they are big corporations or anyone else.
All six types are examples of nurturant parent morality. The problem is that many of the people who have one of these modes of thought do not recognize that theirs is just one special case of something more general, and do not see the unity in all the types of progressives. They often think that theirs is the only way to be a true progressive. That is sad. It keeps people who share progressive values from coming together. We have to get past that
harmful idea. The other side did.
Without necessarily positing any sort of direct match, it is certainly plausible to argue that some (if not all) clashes between Obama and various progressive constituencies are not simply a matter of Obama prioritizing within a more comprehensive progressive vision. Rather, it can be seen as clashes between different varieties of progressive visions. Indeed, while Obama certainly does distinguish himself in some ways by specifically reflecting an intuitive understanding of aspects of cognitive science and politics that Lakoff discusses, this hardly means that his approach is the only way to apply Lakovian principles, or that his embrace of Lakovian principles is the defining difference between him and other progressives. In particular, Chapter 2 of Don't Think of An Elephant presented an argument for a particularly confrontational approach to the GOP. In discussing the frames advanced in the California recall in 2003, Lakoff discusses in some detail the "power grab" frame. Thus, there is considerable room for political variation that is still consistent with Lakoff's insights.
Two specific examples can provide further clarification. First, let's consider civil liberties and the "war on terror." Despite some very heartening moves that break decisively with Bush Administration policy in this regard, Obama has not broken consistently Bush policy across the board, as Glenn Greenwald and the ACLU have both noted. This is not the sort of difference that can sensibly be explained in terms of "programs [that] are cut as economically secondary or as unessential." Rather, they must be seen as manifestations of a different ideological vision, one that is distinctively more conservative on issue of civil liberties, though the reasons for this have not been articulated as of yet. (This was foreshadowed during the campaign, when Obama responded to the organized push-back against his FISA flip-flop with an "explanation" that was factually and logically incoherent.)
This example is particularly clear, since budget priorities do not enter the picture at all. Yet, it is at least arguable that similar sorts of ideological differences within a broadly progressive framework are at work across the board, and thus one cannot concur with Lakoff's seeming claim that the misperceptions here will all be one-sided. It seems much more realistic to assume that Lakoff is highlighting one of several potential reasons why both sides might misunderstand one another.
Indeed, Obama's elitist tendencies, seeking to find cross-ideological elite consensus, would seem to be a persistent factor across virtually all issue areas that cannot simply be discounted out of hand, relying on the logic Lakoff articulates above. This is not to say that the logic is spurious, only to say that it is contestable. Once one acknowledges a multiplicity of possible progressive approaches, it is no longer a question of who grasps the progressive way more truly and fundamentally. Rather, it is a question of which progressive way offers better guidance in which particular sense. As I have argued on previous occasions, Obama's seeking of elite consensus makes him more similar to early 20th Century progressives than to post-Vietnam progressives, who were distinctly more populist in their orientation. This constitutes a profound difference in outlook which Lakoff appears to gloss over, despite significant evidence that profoundly different cognitive orientations tend to be associated with each of these political traditions.
Also instructive is the example of Social Security. I would join many others in arguing that Obama is making a fundamental conceptual mistake by allowing it to be lumped together with Medicare and Medicaid. There is no crisis in Social Security, while the crisis in Medicare and Medicaid is directly grounded in the much more basic crisis in American health care costs. I would add to the criticisms others have mounted, focused primarily on the subject matter, a very Lakovian criticism: this approach represents a a very basic error in framing on Obama's part, which allow others with roughly two decades of organizing history behind them to take full advantage of that long history of framing the issues this way, in a manner that makes it much harder to make headway in the direction that he himself wants to go-the way that his recently announced budget shows he still wants to go. One can only conclude that Obama is not exactly the master of framing issues on this count, and Lakoff's overall account needs to be flexible enough to recognize this.
In section 2, "Progressive Values are American Values", Lakoff writes:
President Obama's second intellectual move concerns what the fundamental American values are. In Moral Politics, I described what I found to be the implicit, often unconscious, value systems behind progressive and conservative thought. Progressive thought rests, first, on the value of empathy-putting oneself in other people's shoes, seeing the world through their eyes, and therefore caring about them. The second principle is acting on that care, taking responsibility both for oneself and others, social as well as individual responsibility. The third is acting to make oneself, the country, and the world better-what Obama has called an "ethic of excellence" toward creating "a more perfect union" politically....
The logic is simple: Empathy is why we have the values of freedom, fairness, and equality - for everyone, not just for certain individuals. If we put ourselves in the shoes of others, we will want them to be free and treated fairly. Empathy with all leads to equality: no one should be treated worse than anyone else. Empathy leads us to democracy: to avoid being subject indefinitely to the whims of an oppressive and unfair ruler, we need to be able to choose who governs us and we need a government of laws.
Obama has consistently maintained that what I, in my writings, have called "progressive" values are fundamental American values. From his perspective, he is not a progressive; he is just an American. That is a crucial intellectual move.
Those empathy-based moral values are the opposite of the conservative focus on individual responsibility without social responsibility. They make it intolerable to tolerate a president who is The Decider-who gets to decide without caring about or listening to anybody. Empathy-based values are opposed to the pure self-interest of a laissez-faire "free market," which assumes that greed is good and that seeking self-interest will magically maximize everyone's interests. They oppose a purely self-interested view of America in foreign policy. Obama's foreign policy is empathy-based, concerned with people as well as states-with poverty, education, disease, water, the rights of women and children, ethnic cleansing, and so on around the world.
All this is very good at the conceptual level, but it has two big problems in practice: First, that Obama doesn't explicitly argue that American values are fundamentally liberal or progressive-despite the abundant evidence that this is so-not just from Lakoff's cognitive science perspective, but from the very words of towering historical figures such as Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Paine, Lincoln, and countless others. Second, that Obama himself does not fully embrace this logic-as can be seen with his failure to fully repudiate Bush's violations of civil liberties, for example, or his further ambiguities regarding Mideast foreign policy. What Lakoff calls "a crucial intellectual move," is, in fact, a move in the wrong direction-a move to accommodate conservative/authoritarian hegemony, rather than challenging it outright.
It's important to note that Obama could challenge this hegemony without personally rebuking the people he seeks to reach out to. Indeed, there are profound differences between everyday self-identified conservatives and hardline movement conservatives, and a truly effective political strategy at this time would wisely focus on highlighting these differences in a wide variety of ways. See for example, Greg Sargent's story, "Top Dems Planning Amped Up Efforts To Elevate Rush As GOP's Public Face".
Obviously Obama's main focus should not be the same as this, but it could and should be complementary to it. In fact, he could develop a whole shtick about praising specific ordinary, everyday, self-identified conservatives, and contrasting their views and their actions with the views and actions of those who pretend to represent them. What comes into focus here is that while Lakoff has repeatedly-much to his credit-focused on the need to for progressive institution-building to fight against rightwing hegemony, he has done so as a committed citizen, not in any professional capacity. He has not connected his brilliant work as a cognitive scientist with any more extensive analytical framework that connects his work in cognitive science with the historical and institutional study of hegemonic struggle. And this is where his analysis falls short.
Lakoff's analysis is similarly incomplete in the next section:
3. Biconceptualism and the New Bipartisanship
The third crucial idea behind the Obama Code is biconceptualism, the knowledge that a great many people who identify themselves ideologically as conservatives, or politically as Republicans or Independents, share those fundamental American values-at least on certain issues. Most "conservatives" are not thoroughgoing movement conservatives, but are what I have called "partial progressives" sharing Obama's American values on many issues. Where such folks agree with him on values, Obama tries, and will continue to try, to work with them on those issues if not others. And, he assumes, correctly believe, that the more they come to think in terms of those American values, the less they will think in terms of opposing conservative values.
Biconceptualism lay behind his invitation to Rick Warren to speak at the inaugural. Warren is a biconceptual, like many younger evangelicals. He shares Obama's views of the environment, poverty, health, and social responsibility, though he is otherwise a conservative. Biconceptualism is behind his "courting" of Republican members of Congress. The idea is not to accept conservative moral views, but to find those issues where individual Republicans already share what he sees as fundamentally American values. He has "reached across the aisle" to Richard Luger on nuclear proliferation, but not on economics.
Biconceptualism is central to Obama's attempts to achieve unity -a unity based on his understanding of American values. The current economic failure gives him an opening to speak about the economy in terms of those ideals: caring about all, prosperity for all, responsibility for all by all, and good jobs for all who want to work.
Because Lakoff's approach lacks a grounding in any sort of theory of hegemonic struggle, one can-as I do-readily concede his argument in principle, while rejecting it in practice on the grounds that, for example, he is doing far more to validate and empower those on the other side than he is doing to advance his own cause. One can also point out that there's nothing particularly unique about him working across the aisle with Richard Luger. This may be fine as an example clarifying what Lakoff means here, but it does nothing to advance the argument that there's anything particularly special to Obama's approach when we get down to brass tacks.
Furthermore, this approach only serves to wave off the considerable problems associated with reaching out to Rick Warren in particular. Again, this is an example where the general principle may be sound, but the particular application is not. It again shows the need for a more robust analytical framework.
In sum, I wholly agree with Lakoff that biconceptualism is vitally important. However, I think that a more sophisticated analysis of hegemonic struggle-both in theory and in practice-is required in order to take full and realistic advantage of it.
Finally, I want to comment on a part of Lakoff's analysis where what we have is not a lack, but rather the presence of other analytical frameworks reinforcing what he observes:
6. Systemic Causation and Systemic Risk
Conservatives tend to think in terms of direct causation. The overwhelming moral value of individual, not social, responsibility requires that causation be local and direct. For each individual to be entirely responsible for the consequences of his or her actions, those actions must be the direct causes of those consequences. If systemic causation is real, then the most fundamental of conservative moral-and economic-values is fallacious.
Global ecology and global economics are prime examples of systemic causation. Global warming is fundamentally a system phenomenon. That is why the very idea threatens conservative thinking. And the global economic collapse is also systemic in nature. That is at the heart of the death of the conservative principle of the laissez-faire free market, where individual short-term self-interest was supposed to be natural, moral, and the best for everybody. The reality of systemic causation has left conservatism without any real ideas to address global warming and the global economic crisis.
With systemic causation goes systemic risk. The old rational actor model taught in economics and political science ignored systemic risk. Risk was seen as local and governed by direct causation, that is, buy short-term individual decisions. The investment banks acted on their own short-term risk, based on short-term assumptions, for example, that housing prices would continue to rise or that bundles of mortgages once secure for the short term would continue to be "secure" and could be traded as "securities."
The systemic nature of ecological and economic causation and risk have resulted in the twin disasters of global warming and global economic breakdown. Both must be dealt with on a systematic, global, long-term basis. Regulating risk is global and long-term, and so what are required are world-wide institutions that carry out that regulation in systematic way and that monitor causation and risk systemically, not just locally.
President Obama understands this, though much of the country does not. Part of his challenge will be to formulate policies that carry out these ideas and to communicate these ideas as well as possible to the public.
Reinforcing this perspective is Kegan's formalized theory of cognitive development which generalizes the work initiated by Piaget and continued by Kohlberg, which I've written about repeatedly here. In Kegan's formulation, each successive level of development takes the subject/context/background of consciousness of the previous level as its object/content/foreground. Conservatives primarily reflect a level-3 consciousness defined by the existing social structure, and incapable of taking that systemic environment-or anything else at the level of abstraction-as object. Liberals primarily reflect a level-4 consciousness that takes social roles and relationships-and other similarly abstract structures -as objects. Thus, there is a second framework of cognitive structuring reinforcing the structuring Lakoff discusses.
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