Truly Narrow Minded

I remember once, back when I had a much stronger stomach, I was listening to NPR's ironically misnamed "Fresh Air" program, hosted by Terry Gross. She was interviewing the left wing author of a book on conservatism. The two of them were exploring the ideology of conservatism like a couple of parasitologists examining a new species of hookworm.

Of course, conservatism came out looking pretty bad. It apparently never occurred to Terry Gross to have a conservative on her show to explain conservatism.

Ellen Goodman seems to have a similarly narrow minded view of the world. Today she does a psychological evaluation of President George W. Bush using what she learned about conservative parents from a book written by a left wing author who seems to consider conservatism a form of mental illness.

And, of course, for her final word, she ultimately consults that great upholder of families, Bill Clinton.

These beliefs reflect what George Lakoff has described as the two different worldviews of conservatives and liberals. A linguist by training and an ardent "reframer" of progressives politics, Lakoff describes the great divide as related less to political ideology than to child-raising models. Conservatives subscribe to the "strict father model" while liberals abide by the "nurturant parent model."

In a small handbook for progressives -- with the unfortunate name "Don't Think of an Elephant" -- he draws a line from the moral values of the strict father family to foreign policy in the starkest terms: "Good and evil are locked in a battle. . . . Only superior strength can defeat evil and only a show of strength can keep evil at bay." This is the language that Bush uses against evildoers and in his unshakable defense of the war in Iraq.

Nurturant parents have every bit as much at stake in protecting their children and their country. They have no illusions about empathizing with terrorists who behead their captives. But they have a (forgive me) nuanced view of the world in which security is not just calculated by body counts but also by the changing minds of those who can become either tomorrow's terrorists or democrats.

Most Americans carry both models in their minds, but in times of trouble they fall back to the protection of the strictest of fathers. As Bill Clinton once warned, "When people are uncertain, they would rather have somebody who is wrong and strong than somebody who is weak and right." That is precisely Kerry's dilemma.