The usage of sexual and relationship models to define political parties and movements
Lakoffs model describes politics and essentially state level politics in family terms with the head of state as the head of a family. While Lakoffs model is somewhat controversial in academic circles especially because of it’s rather unique approach to power and control[1] it is none the less quite famous and a very commonly used model in describing the nature of state power. The basis of this model rests on its view of conservative and liberal political parties and their view on the nature of leadership. Conservatives are viewed to look for a strong authoritarian centralized leader figure who rules the state with what is essentially an iron grip. While liberals are viewed as looking for a welfare state that takes care of its citizens and promotes laziness and baby killing. These are the starting points of lakoff’s model. The point from which he starts to go more in depth at both political factions and their views on the world to discover a very deep undercurrent of misunderstanding between the two political factions. While it is a generally accepted reality that the far end of conservatism leads to fascism and the far end of liberalism leads to anarchy[2], the perception that both political factions have of each other in modern day debate in the USA is badly twisted by their mutual hatred and hate-speech. Lakoff goes deeper than the surface levels of hate-speech and seeks to truly understand both political parties and why they form as such. His academic background in linguistics leads a level of credence to his claims of a psychological background but still I personally found his theory lacking. I will however describe it in its major points as they relate to both conservatives and liberals in the present day US presidential elections.
Conservatives:
According to Lakoff the main undercurrent in the conservative party is its desire to for a strong state and the desire of individuals to live according to their heart. While this is what his books state albeit not verbatim it is the general idea. When reading Lakoff’s more recent ideas it is easy to notice that he has began to change his ideas, if not dramatically then at least noticeably[3]. When one truly studies politics of any state especially one as convoluted as the United States of America one must keep in mind that for every truth a politician says he invents ten lies. While Lakoff is generous in his assessment of the honesty and in his book is rather quick to assume that the reason why the conservative strong father model with its moral codes is getting through to a certain kind of people because they feel an affinity for its morals. He is also rather quick to bypass without mention that the reason people feel an affinity for one political model or another is not an inbuilt code and ethics, it’s a taught code and ethics. As he said in an interview one of the reasons why conservatism is so strong at defining the language and the wording of a debate in its favor is that since the 1970’s they’ve been spending billions of dollars in what is essentially marketing for their political agenda[4]. The conservative undercurrent generated by this advertising can be compressed into the following statements “Conservatives take care of you while you’re still in the womb but once your out you’re on your own”. The present trend in the US where conservatives are seen as being for small government, fiscal responsibility, pro-life, pro small business and so forth is on very dubious grounds when one truly observes the results of conservative politics as opposed to conservative marketing[5]. When a party can define themselves as pro-life and their opponents as pro-choice it is not a long stretch of imagination in peoples head to define one party as being for all life and another party as being full of murderers. As is clearly obvious in the present US political debate with the various hate groups on a mission to murder doctors who perform abortions, conservatism isn’t about pro-life nor is liberalism about pro-choice, the debate is far more academic and murky than something that can be clearly defined into two camps. Lakoff’s strict father model and the caretaker model can be applied here to understand the mindset in psychological terms. Conservatives as a whole are not nearly as much about abortion or strong government or fiscal responsibility as they are about a government that strongly states that it is for these things. In essence it matters not what the state does, only as long as it does it authoritatively, as is blatantly obvious in the lack of a public outcry due to the torture memos from bush’s office or bombing the city of Fallujah in Iraq and causing an estimated 150.000 fatalities[6]. The best way to describe the conservative mindset as Lakoff views it is not in focusing on issues but focusing on grand scale models. Using relationship and parenting models to define the actions of political parties and their supporters. So while the conservative ideology is officially one thing it is unofficially something completely different. Same holds true for liberals. While it is important to understand what kind of a purpose conservative politics officially has it is nearly irrelevant when compared to its actions.
Liberals:
According to Lakoff the main undercurrent of the liberal party is its desire for a caretaker state that takes care of its citizens. As conservatives look for a Shepard to rule over the state liberals look for a mother hen who will look over her eggs and underlings with love and care and make sure everyone has the best that society has to offer. While these models are adequate and sometimes even excel in portraying the modern differences between the conservatives and liberals. It does not in anyway portray the starting positions for both movements and why they ended up in their present configurations. While it is very easy and politically correct to disregard any real differences between the political parties and focus on how they are all cuddly and all about protecting the same things, freedom, liberty and a share of the American dream, it is often just as easy to forget that both the liberal and conservatives movements actually stand for different things not just the same thing in a different package. I’ll leave the actual details of lakoff’s model for the liberals on sidelines and simply point out that most conservatives view liberals as baby killing, bible burning, anarcho-femmo-nazi-jew-black-white-hitlerlovers. Since the political debate has escalated to such a point in its use of hate-speech that any real differences are difficult to bring to the fore and even if they brought to the surface the conversation quickly returns to emotional substance and not the issues.
Comparisons and differences, are there any?
I will however point out that while I might as well use the terms democrat and republican and compare their differences I believe it is more accurate to describe the differences between liberals and conservatives. The terms and definitions of liberals and conservatives are somewhat more concrete than democrats and republicans, especially post-bush. The irony of comparing cold war conservatives and 21st century conservatives should not escape anyone[7]. I will not delve deeper into the obvious mask statements that both parties make in an effort to distract any potentially aware voters from the simple fact that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are nearly interchangeable[8]. Despite some rather cosmetic differences in their policies what an astute observer will be left with is a distinct impression of watching a puppet show. Both sides of the show are controlled by the very same interests that Eisenhower and others warned about, the military industrial complex[9]. Just as any good student or master of political sciences will tell you, there are no conspiracies, there are no men behind the curtain, politicians are always honest, there is no doublespeak, war is peace and there is no world behind you outside the cave where you’ve always been in. Doublespeak and Orvellianism aside it should be obvious to anyone in the political field left, right, center, top, bottom or anywhere else that former chairmen of vast military corporations should not lead civilian governments and be in charge of the military budget decisions[10]. People are fallible and temptation to embezzle billions of dollars legally is difficult to resist. Few even reputable political scientists know that in the summer of 2001 there was an investigation ongoing into the budget of the Pentagon due to 2.7 trillion dollars being unaccounted for[11]. After the 9.11 this investigation was dropped in silence and nothing of it has been heard since. If you are the chairman of a major corporation such as Enron with billions of dollars at your disposal you have the ability to buy any congressman or senator or even president you want. When both candidates for presidential elections, Obama and Mccain receive millions from their corporate friends no matter which side wins both candidates are bought and paid for. What does it matter which side has more supporters, Democrats or Republicans when in the 2004 presidential elections there were 34.000 reported cases of electoral fraud[12]. Voting precincts with only a few hundred eligible adults totaled tens of thousands of votes. Diebold voting machines have no paper trail, no way to recount the votes, no way to see what really happened, democracy is left into the hands of the vote counters and the vote counters have a abysmal record[13]. What should a political observer say of this situation, does it matter that Obama shakes the hand of a Jordanian and Mccain dispatches his friends to Georgia as if he is a president already? What does it mater who supports who when both candidates receive millions, both candidates go to the same schools, same fraternities, when the votes aren’t even tallied anymore and we have a green box that may or may not count your vote with software that nobody is allowed to read that can be hacked in under 15 seconds[14].
Conclusions:
So then, as a conclusion I must ask? What does it matter what Obama says, what does it matter what Mccain says? What does it matter what the activists think when neither party says the truth, when both parties hate to look at the simple truths of our time. There is only one form of government where the military-industrial leaders also lead the civilian government, with rampant corruption, creeping militarism, militarization of the police, suppression of dissent, torture, illegal wars and occupations, massive civilian casualities inflicted intentionally. There is only one word that can describe this form of government, it is the F word. And I assure you, the F word is not Fuck, it is something even more vulgar that I will not write here.
The gilded cage and the impression of democracy, I hope future generations will not know us as the lazy generation, the generation that had it all but let it slip simply because we could not stand up, open our eyes and admit that out government is no longer for the people by the people. It is for the corporations by the corporations. In the distance I can see the day when our politicians will be like our sports teams, covered in stickers. “Coca-cola for Obama, keeping our young politicians active and supporting our way of life!”
Sources and references:
[1] http://webserve.govst.edu/users/ghrank/Political/Not-So-Great%20Expectations/lakoff_critics.htm
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum especially http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/36/European-political-spectrum.png
[3] http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lakoff/lakoff_p1.html Not the best example of his opinions changing but google Lakoff interview and look at the more recent interviews and they are changing.
[4] http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml
[5] Compare the stated goal of conservative party and their realized actions.
[6] http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf
[7] Read 1960’s writings on the conservative party and fiscal policies and compare to present day conservative party (neo-cons)
[8] http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=136054 Good starting point to read
[9] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdrGKwkmxAU
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney (“Cheney was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton Company from 1995 to 2000.” Now the company to receive huge no bid contracts from Bush & Co in Iraq. Conflict of interest?)
[11] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlnQTcLHaMM
[12] http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen good starting list for studying this topic
[13] All throughout history vote counters have been the ones most common to fraud the voters. Read the history of early democracies and Greece-Rome-Babylon-Celtic societies to see how this came about.
Closing remarks:
While doing some research on this topic I had an email exchange with Paul Craig Roberts(He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration earning fame as the "Father of Reaganomics".) , one of the most outspoken critics of the present US government stopping a mere hairsbreadth away from calling it a fascist state “Unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the US could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran.” So please don’t treat my opinions as that of just a disgruntled outsider to the political scene. The opinion that the present US presidential elections is nearly irrelevant since both parties are bought and paid for is one that is shared very widely amongst the politically informed. I simply ask that you treat my essay in a fair manner.
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