We have now laid a foundation in this series to get into the interplay between our various sources. This series is nothing if it merely regurgitates their work. All the books we are discussing are there in a common context. The context has the potential to weave them together but clearly it takes an agent to do that. I am trying to be that agent. So to take the next step in developing our thesis it seems reasonable to go back to one of our major sources and to interpret his ideas in this broader context. I suspect that this interpretation would shock him. Lakoff has done so much to get us out of the quagmire we are in and I see that he is not getting through to as many as I would like to see. In such a situation one has to ask "Why?' I think I have the answer. Read on below to see it.
I submit to you that Lakoff's Family metaphor comes as close to a strong model of our Nation's politcal dialog as any out there. To refresh you or if necessary introduce you to Lakoff's Family Metaphor, I will summarize it here.
The idea is this. He idealizes the types of family into more or less opposite poles. The one is the "Strict Father" family and the other is the " Nurturing Parent" family. He then takes the metaphor to the level of National politics. Now can you guess which end of the politcal spectrum each of these belong to?
If you need more I refer you to his many books and blogs here on Kos. I want to assert that the existence of these two very polar mindsets that underlie something to either side of the center of our political spectrum is a very strong way of stabilizing our system. System's gain stability by the ability to take on challenges that could possibly change them.
I submit to you that the "two party" system in this country is basically one entity from a system's point of view. furthermore I submit to you that Lakoff's attempt to explain our differences actually makes the reason why the system is stable and can not change very clear. Oh yes the different wold views are real and Lakoff does a magnificent job of spelling them out. However, he attributes their prolonged existence, in part, to the framing of ideas in our unconscious minds. He focuses on the money and intellectual effort the republican party has invested in framing political issues so that their "buzz words" and slogans can make their purchase of media exposure effective. None of that is wrong. It is actually brilliant!
Now we get to the nitty gritty. In fact if Lakoff's metaphor is to have validity, then in fact such family structures must exist and such world views must come from them. Is it at all possible that the parties have tapped into this well of unconscious thought? Yes it is is but not necessarily at the level of political discourse. People respond to sound bites and such devices because they touch something in the unconscious that these inputs resonate with.
Let me make a big jump here and suggest that the republicans who we attribute this masterful job of framing to were actually already framed to do this by their family upbringing? And those of us who are so inclined to adopt the "Nurturing Parent" other view may have done so because of our own family experiences? These are far from absolutes because people shift back and forth and remain inbetween because of events in their lives.
However, if Lakoff's thesis has merit, and I believe strongly that it does, then can we ask another, possibly more relevant, question. How did we get here? were not these polarities in upbringing and later experiences there from when our Nation began and did not we create a system of "checks and balances" etc to acknowledge such differences?
We were aware from the beginning and from history that monolithic world views are dangerous. We set up a very stable system that exists to this day because the illusion of difference has prevailed. Way back when Helen Keller and others mocked our two party system as it deserves mocking from that magnificent socialist humanitarian. But is goes on. It allows a plutocracy to dupe and swindle Americans year after year, election after election. Somehow we arrived at a staged contest between world views that arise naturally from our way of being raised, even if often altered by later experience.
The system grinds on and we pretend to deal with it as we deal with or dealt with our families and other authority in our life in the past. The grid lock and the broken political promises are forgiven because our families had gridlock and broken promises. Our authoritarian father and our nurturing mother live on in our relationship to our Nation. god forbid that there ever should be an instability like divorce! And the system grins on!