A review of George Lakoff's latest book, Whose Freedom?, sparked a spirited discussion over his views on the perceptial differences between Right and Left when talking about freedom, "America's most important idea." Much of the debate revolved around Lakoff's use of the terminology of the "strict father" versus the "nurturing parent" to characterize these divergent views. What follows are some critical thoughts sparked by that discussion.
I find the whole notion of defining the debate in terms of parenting models highly suspect. To begin with,there is no tradition of viewing the government as a sort of national or local parent in our political history. To the degree that such models have emerged in our political discourse, it has almost always been in the form of a negative critique.
I can think of only two salient exceptions to this and they represent not the definition of our governance but honorifics of respect applied to temporary occupants of the oval office.
Historically, going back to the Declaration of Independence, we have viewed government as pure instrumentality. Governments are constituted for the benefit of the governed and only have legitimacy through the consent of the governed. Government is neither Mother, Father nor family. It is a collective enterprise by the people, in the interest of the people as a whole. Such interest has been broadly defined as "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness"
This constitutes the radical taproot of U.S. politics from which the progressive impulse in our history grows.
The central point of contention in that history has been the definition of liberty or freedom. So central was this question that the ratification of the Constitution hung directly on the adoption of a bill of rights which expanded the definition liberty to the individual citizen rather than limiting it soley to the sovreignity of the states.
From that moment on, given the existence of slavery as an economic institution, US politics was fated to be a struggle over competing definitions of freedom, citizenship, et al. Every great social advance in our history, from emacipation onward, has revolved around such conflicting conceptions. The current conflict is a continuation of this history. Entrenched interests of privilege, property and prejudice on the one side, the interest of the greater mass of the citizenry on the other.
In this context, the conceptions of positive and negative liberty are of far more practical value than analogies equating governance with styles of parenting. If you were to conduct a poll of citizens inquiring as to what style of parenting the government should practice, is there any real doubt that the majority of respondents, whatever their political coloration, would reject the whole notion of government as parent out of hand?
Liberal and Left perspectives embrace both positive and negative liberty. FDR's famous Four Freedoms encapsulate the synergy between these ideas. Freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of worship and freedom of speech.
Current rightwing thinking, in contrast, is almost wholey negative, unremittingly hostile to any notion of liberty that is unconstrained by wealth, position and religious belief. When they speak of the nation or the national interest, they do not mean the actual broad communities of individual and collective interests that make up the body politic. They mean their narrow and cramped perception of their own interests.
It is worthwhile to recognize, as Lakoff does, the linguistic legerdermain that the right has employed to obscure this reality. Likewise, it is valuable to understand the psychology that drives them. It is a mistake though, to infantilize both them and the population as whole by presuming that we are all prisoners of our childhood socialization.
More useful, I think, is recognizing that the success of rightwing manipulation is well rooted in the confusion, dislocation and general insecurity that rapid social and economic changes have engendered.
However, the primary responsibility for the right's dominance lies, as some have pointed out, with the liberal establishment and the left. Complacency, arrogance, cynicism, political cowardice and corruption all played a role.
At present though, the most pressing handicap for the left generally and for democrats in particular is confusion. This confusion has found expression in numerous forms but in the present discussion it takes the form of attempting to identify a consistent and comprehensive, if not necessarily coherent, mindset or overarching ideological/psychological perspective that defines the rightwing movement in this country. This is of a piece with an outlook that divides the population between two ideological poles which are battling for the allegance of the broad mass that lies between them.
As useful as this model is for theoretical and academic discussions, one has to ask first and foremost whether it really is reflective of the political realities on the ground. Is it really the case, for example, that the conservative label actually represents a monolithic entity? Is it not the reality that there are a variety, colorations, interests and attitudes that travel under this banner? In fact, isn’t the splintering of the GOP’s constituency and the decline of its public standing in the wake of the 2006 elections proof of this? More, if we extend the timeline back to 2004, were not the collapse of the Social Security privatization scheme and the Schiavo debacle clear indicators that conservatism was a label that served to obscure deep contradictions in the GOP’s base?
It ought to be plain by now that contemporary conservatism is not a coherent political movement at all, much less one that can be summed up in a single psychological or linguistic model. At best, such models can only describe the ideological extremes of a movement and really are of little help in explaining their appeal to the broader, more conflicted polity. Arguing that the success of the rightwing is due to the neurological shortcomings of the masses is really just a gussied up version of the old saw that people are too stupid for self government.
If people wish to take this position they are free to but they ought not to be under any illusion as to how it will be perceived. Further, they ought to recognize the selfserving and irresponsible character of this argument in that places the onus for the failure of progressive politics on the inate shortcomings of the electorate rather than on the failures of the liberal establishment and the left.
As I indicated earlier, a major characteristic of rightwing thought is it’s focus on negative freedom. This is no accident. It is this quality more than any other that can be ascribed to contemporary conservatism as a whole. It’s the point of greatest unity between the disparate elements that have made up the right wing electoral coalition. Freedom from taxation, regulation, secularism, accountability and the social responsibilities inherent to citizenship in a heterogenous and diverse society. Most of all, freedom from the demands and instability of change.
Of course, not all of these brands of "freedom" are reconcilable. The demands for "liberty" espoused by the market theocrats cannot really be composed with those of the religious theocrats. The logic of their
positions drives them in conflicting directions on the question of individual liberty and choice. Likewise, the libertarian devotion to the "free market" cannot be reconciled with the corporate version of the market. In order to maintain this volatile coalition it has been necessary to submerge these differences within broad slogans., One of thes most effective being an opposition to "Big Government", seen as synonymous with "creeping socialism" and only slightly removed, during the heyday of the Cold War, from soviet style communism.
The success of this style of conservatism is rooted in its effectiveness in identifying "big government" as the enemy of freedom and liberalism as the exponent of intrusive government power and social engineering.
None of this was particularly innovative or new. None of it would have ever enjoyed the success it has without the moral capitulation of the of the liberal establishment or the inability of the left to articulate its positions in the vernacular of liberty that typifies the historic political narrative of the US.
It was not always so. Throughout the 1960’s, at the highpoints of the popular social and political movements that transformed our society, the left had no difficulty in couching its arguments in the narrative of liberty. Freedom from discrimination. Freedom of opportunity. Freedom from militarism. Freedom of conscience. Freedom of expression. Freedom from enforced conformity. So profoundly rooted in the narrative of liberty were these movements that liberation became the watchword of the decade.
Rather than devising new narratives based on partial , speculative models, what is really required is a return to basics. An approach that recognizes the centrality of liberty to American politics as the closer thing we possess to a national ideology. A solid commitment to combat the right's narrow, one sided, ersatz definition of freedom and a clear, forceful articulation of the need for a synthesis of positive and negative liberty.