Horrifying to Watch, Bush vs. Kerry, '04
Horrifying to watch, but satisfying in the sense that there must always be satisfaction in seeing the solution to one of human nature’s mysteries unfold according to a scarce believed-in blueprint: that was my reaction to the political campaign (Bush vs. Kerry, ’04) and election just conducted for the edification of interested Saucer People, Martian anthropologists and those persons removed sufficiently from our planetary hurley-burley to have an objective perspective.
One man with adequate perspective is George Lakoff, who has used his background in linguistics to analyze political jargon and the behavior it describes, and which all that talk is used to justify. Lakoff has identified the two mental sets, generally called conservative and liberal from their metaphorical underpinnings, calling these mental stances those of the Strict Father and the Nurturing Parent. The fundamental importance of metaphor in our thinking is highlighted by the observation that both views are extrapolations of family relationships to the forum of community and national politics.
Reducing his years of careful research and volumes of delicate explication to something wearable on a T-shirt by someone who has never spoken the words, “supersize me,” would give us the choice of two t-shirts: one reading, “Punish the Bad,” the other inscribed with, “Reward the Good.”
The Strict Father point of view holds that good should be rewarded, but more importantly, bad must be punished. The Nurturing Parent would hold to the point of view that the single most important function of a parent, of a political leader, of a government and of any society would be to support the weak and develop the strengths of the strong, emphasizing common bonds. The Strict Father, in contrast, goes it alone, against all opposition, listens not at all to the arguments of his opponent, which may weaken his resolve, enforces what he sees as the natural hierarchy of man over woman and woman over child. The Nurturing Parent would like to go forth in company, negotiate with opposition, promote the equality of genders and generations and reward desirable behavior more than punish bad behavior. Science insists that a theory receive its primary validation by conditions in the field. That the major-party candidates for President could step with uncanny neatness into these two profiles Lakoff’s theory has outlined must be that sort of proof.
So what might the future hold for our nation, and since we are such a large gorilla nowadays, for the world?
Clearly, Strict Fathers are running the show, and not just in the United States. The Moslem world is obviously in the hands of Strict Fathers, very strict. Russia, China, Australia..., the entire globe is spinning towards the right. Well, we have a more military world to look forward to. Militarized societies are nothing new, most of human history is the story of nations in which the soldier’s virtues were idealized. Conservatives still praise the warrior (our warriors, not theirs) and quite consciously recognize that military service inculcates those values in the young–a good thing, a conservative would say, in itself. In fact, it is a social process which develops its own mass and momentum over time.
And yet, the medieval period did come to an end, for all its periodic flare-ups. How is it that men are not all still the subjects of kings and lesser, inflexible rulers over their own households of veiled women? Something is driving the development of an alternative world-view which, on the face of it, would seem inherently doomed to extinction.
Lakoff believes that the Nurturing Parent viewpoint began as the tactical response of women to a male-dominated society in which they were severely disadvantaged for confrontations of power. Necessity forced women to learn to negotiate and raised compromise as a virtue. While a woman can be an adherent to the Strict Father point of view, and even act as surrogate for the Strict Father, when need arises, it would have been easier for a woman to step out of that mental stance and to take note of the effectiveness of rewarding good behavior rather than simply punishing the bad. Behavior Modification, a sub-set of that branch of psychology called Learning Theory, came along eventually and proved quite unarguably that, indeed, it is vastly more effective to reward good behavior than to punish bad behavior. It matters not a whit whether one is a white rat, a planarian flat-worm, a junior high school student or any other lower form of life, or whether an individual holds a D.Ed. in school psychology and an honorary L.L.D. from Bob Jones University, we all learn in the same way. In all but the last case, this might have something to do with common evolutionary ancestors.
As recently as my own college years, it was every-day usage to disparage the social sciences along with H.L. Mencken as, “common sense codified.” DeCarte posited that he thought, therefore he was, but he was clearly taking a flier on this, a circumstance which could not be hidden from even the most sophomoric…, especially from the most sophomoric. Despite quite respectable sales stats over time for, ‘I Think, Therefore I Am,’ it eventually succumbed to ridicule as the figurehead for sloppy supposition, tenuous argument and untestable conclusions.
Since my school-days, disparaging references to the social sciences in contrast to good old common sense have dropped out of use. This because there has been developed quite a respectable body of experimentally validated knowledge to do with how we go about thinking and what makes us learn. We actually have discovered something about human nature. It seems fair to say that, just lower than the angels, as we may be, we are not infinitely variable. Humans have considerable unrealized potential, but it is probably not infinite, and at least in the actuarial sense, we are predictable.
The Industrial Revolution was well under way (though the study of economics was not), when the budding economist, Karl Marx, wrote down his thoughts on the ideal society. Unfortunately, the Industrial Revolution moved forward in unexpected directions, leaving Marx’s suppositions behind. Even more unfortunate was the turmoil and blood-shed which followed when revolutionaries attempted to found societies on Marx’s theories. For some years now, I have been looking around for the next utopianism, one which will be based on the findings of social researchers, not just a collection of futuristic jargon, such as Scientology, or those yearnings toward an older, simpler time (just when was that?), which eastern religions, Wicca, and neo-conservatism represent. When the new utopia begins to stir in the world, the Four Horsemen will need Harleys to cover the territory.
But until then, what? Someone observed that each revolution has resulted in tighter, more centralized control by whichever government came out on top—the French Jacobins, the Chinese and Russian Communists, and so on. Look for that, for we have not only a cultural revolution at home and a military one abroad, but conservative ones, and Strict Fathers need control.
But, aha! There is an inherent flaw in the web. Those conservatives at the head of government feel the need to increase their ability to control society in order to enforce the natural order, while the conservative individuals, who form their political base, were at least partially motivated to elect a leadership based on promises to reduce the size and intrusiveness of government. Less control from above would allow the lower ranking individuals more freedom to serve in the role of autonomous Strict Fathers. This conflict can be suppressed for quite a while, as humans are inherently hierarchical–pack animals. An external enemy produces excellent unifying, self-sacrificing tendencies. Look for wars.
Two large components have united to form the present conservative dominance in our government. As long as they cooperate, they will very likely continue to have the power to control. They are: business and fundamentalistic religion. They can be brought together by their common feeling that a Strict Father is what we need at the head of our government. But overlap between the two groups is not great. That is, most people are not both fundamentalist Christians and businessmen. Economic class divisions are the greatest threat to this union. The policies which will satisfy corporate leaders will create dissatisfaction in blue-collar workers, be they ever so fundamentalist. For a time the religious coterie can be gratified with victories over such issues as abortion and gay marriage, but at some point it must become evident that these, essentially inconsequent issues, do not serve to better the condition of the salaried voter. Other inexpensive gifts can and, no doubt, will be made to the fundamentalist block, but that group will suffer over time as the rewards asked by and granted to business management lower the welfare the working voter.
A great span of years could elapse, while growing economic dissatisfaction was assuaged with resounding, if insubstantial, victories in the courts, in the grade schools, in churches or in a number of other well-sounding but inexpensive venues. That is, the inherent conflict of management and labor could take a long time to surface as a danger to the present conservative lock on political power, if the business interests, which make up the other side of the conservative political equation were willing to be satisfied with substantial but moderate rewards for their support. This does not appear to be the case.
In the course of every nation’s history there are periods looked back upon with much head-shaking by historians as times of deplorable corruption, malfeasance and profiteering–in our country the Teapot Dome Scandal and the Louisiana Bubble come readily to mind. We have the luck of being able to examine one of those times first-hand. Not since the 1890's has crony capitalism so prospered. Billions are dispensed to favorites with never a word of public notice, a stroke of oversight or a lick of explanation. Governmental gifts received by the wealthy--favorable tax treatment, make-work military adventures generating profitable contracts, friendly labor laws, agreeable trade regulations, freedom from regulation, access to natural resources in the public trust--expenditures, in other words, cannot even be shifted onto the backs of the middle and lower classes presently in existence and will have to be paid off over the generations, if ever, by children, grand-children and great grand-children yet unborn.
Still, while human nature remains fixed, civilization seems to be on a liberalizing tangent, achingly slow though it may appear. Kicking and screaming, the right wing of our body politic is gradually dragged away from the dark where the sun once set in glory and towards the promise of dawn. Why, the world would have to end to put a stop to this progressive motion. Look for the end of the world.