Morals of Conservatives vs. Liberals
George Lakoff’s book Moral Politics uses political reasons to describe the differences of conservatives and liberals by using metaphors, they put the political aspect on how it changes the way you think about certain things, and they can be seen as the opposite of one another. In his book he uses the ideal family worldviews of the liberals and conservatives. While he talks about conservatives use of the “Strict Father” model with ‘Moral Strengths’ right versus wrong, therefore liberals are focusing more on the “Nurturant Parent” model with ‘Morality as Empathy’ showing more care for their family and others. As he describes in a metaphor about Americans, on either sides of the political views, a nation as a family.
The “Strict Father” model focuses on how the father is responsible for supporting and protecting the family, along with setting the strict rules for the children to learn self discipline, self reliance and to respect authority. Lakoff puts “Strict Father” as “exercising ones authority to help create more self disciplined people, that is, the right kind of people, for their own benefit of others, and because it is the right thing to do.” (Lakoff 70) Learning right from wrong, to punish them when they do something wrong and to be bring them up to be self disciplined and self reliant. This model, seems to have a reward and punishment to it, if you act this way towards your children, then they will act this way towards others to gain rewards to avoid the punishments. If they’re not self disciplined and rely on being helped by others then they are seen as being irresponsible for their actions, as Lakoff says “people should accept the consequences of their own responsibility or lack of self discipline, since they will never become responsible and self disciplined if they don’t have to face those consequences.” (Lakoff 97) This brings ‘Moral Strength’ into Lakoff’s theory.
Lakoff’s metaphor of ‘Moral Strength’...