TO BE STRICT OR NURTURING
To restate a claim that the last posting offered, “Reality is the source of individual man [or woman] transcending to what is self-defined and intuitive: ‘the perspective of knowledge as they radiate from the self.’”[1] So does George Santayana describe the thrust of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s version of transcendentalism. The concern that that posting expressed is that this view significantly diminishes the disciplinary effect of Calvinism on Americans during its early history. The result was that a division emerged in how they saw good and evil, right and wrong.
This division of perception materializes in what Daniel Elazar[2] describes as two competing views of social relations: the marketplace view, in which relationships among people are primarily defined in terms of bargaining arrangements when individuals seek self-interest, and a commonweal where all citizens have undivided interests.
Within this division, Elazar identifies three political subcultures commingling within the American landscape. They are the individualistic, moralistic, and traditional subcultures. Overall, the individualistic subculture presently holds the dominant view in the minds of Americans. It parallels the market mentality central to the nation’s economic system. But the other perspectives, up until the turn from the last century, were (and still might be) strongly shared by people living within certain, areas of the country.
This posting zeroes in on a conceptual framework by which to consider these subcultures which will, in turn, be described in the upcoming postings; that is before outlining these subcultures, the reader should keep in mind that the reason for this review is to get a handle on how moralistic beliefs are socialized within the American political culture. And, in turn, those beliefs provide what civics education more efficiently should encourage, i.e., good citizenship. After all, that is a moral issue.
In that, George Lakoff offers two models for socializing moral standards: the strict father morality and the nurturant parent morality.[3] Lakoff writes of the strict father morality,
In short, good parents set standards, good children obey their parents, disobedient children are bad children, good parents punish disobedient children, punishment makes disobedient (bad) children into obedient (good) children, and parents who don’t punish are bad parents because they produce bad children by not punishing them when they disobey.
In general, the concept of moral authority within communities is patterned on parental authority within families. The general metaphor looks like the following:
· A Community is a Family.
· Moral Authority Is Parental Authority.
· A Person Subject to Moral Authority Is a Child.
· Moral Behavior by Someone Subject to Authority Is Obedience.
· Moral Behavior by Someone in Authority Is Setting Standards and Enforcing Them.[4]
While one can readily find this view of morality and parenting among various American (and other nations’) institutions – athletic teams, the military, law enforcement, business, religion, and others – the general thrust is to link moral claims, biases, and other forms of thinking to moral authority. A metaphor of a moral order emerges and in that, there are various forms depending on exactly how it is viewed. And various forms may appear in each society and there are overarching elements to this model that cover those various forms.
So, in each one there is an instance of dominance that can be stated as “A” has legitimate control over “B.” “The moral domain, creating a corresponding hierarchy of legitimate moral authority”[5] ensues. Since it is recurring, the legitimacy of such a view analogizes the following: God is dominant over the world and humans; humans are dominant over nature; adults over children; and men over women. In more common language, the following results: God is morally in authority over humans; humans over nature; adults over children; and men over women.
As offensive as that might sound to readers (hopefully, most of them), one has to recognize that these beliefs still have currency among many within the citizenry. And one should keep in mind that variations are possible. So, there might even be a feminist version in which this strict role is shared by both parents. And of course, such a view can expand outward to include views of one race having legitimate dominance over another.
Lakoff summarizes, “Race, sex, and religion are, however, very much involved in cultural dominance and so they enter into possible versions of Moral Order.”[6] His general categorizing of this view strikes true as one looks around and searches for why some portray what otherwise seems unreasonable in a republic.
It points out that adopted political models – especially to the degree they are not in line with the natural tendencies of people – demand active political socialization. By doing so, it helps secure a populous being logically in line with its basic, underlying values. In part, it demands a proactive civics program in its schools if for no other reason than to point out the inconsistencies.
What of the other model, the nurturant parent model? Lakoff writes,
Nurturance presupposes empathy. A child is helpless, it cannot care for itself. … We [see] that there are a number of forms of empathy – absolute, egocentric, and affordable. … Empathy is rarely simple or straightforward or pure. … [T]here are complexities of nurturance that mirror the complexities of empathy.
Nurturance also involves rights and duties; it inherently involves morality. A child has a right to nurturance and a parent has a responsibility to provide it. A parent who does not adequately nurture a child is thus metaphorically robbing that child of something it has a right to. … [That would be] immoral.
In conceiving of morality as nurturance, this notion of family-based morality is projected onto society in general.
The conception of morality as nurturance can be stated as the following conceptual metaphor:
· The Community Is a Family.
· Moral Agents Are Nurturing Parents.
· People Needing Help Are Children Needing Nurturance.
· Moral Action is Nurturance.
This metaphor has the following entailment, based on what one knows about being nurturant toward children:
· To nurture children, one must have absolute and regular empathy with them.
· To act morally toward people needing help to survive, one must have absolute and regular empathy with them.
· Nurturance may require making sacrifices to care for children.
· Moral action may require making sacrifices to help truly needy people.
If one’s community is, further, conceptualized as a family, a further entailment follows from this metaphor:
· Family members have a responsibility to see that children in their family are nurtured.
· Community members have a responsibility to see that people needing help in their community are helped.[7]
And all this empathy presupposes a level of self-nurturance. One needs to be healthy, well-employed, and sustaining meaningful and positive relationships with other significant friends and family members. Consequently, a balance needs to be kept with empathy being felt outwardly and inwardly toward the community and toward oneself. To place in balance these two domains is not selfish; it is just being responsible for what it takes to live out a nurturing role.
A final concern – in terms of this review – one needs to proactively establish and maintain healthy social ties. That is, to be moral means to actively sustain social ties, to sacrifice when needed, to honor the duties that such ties demand, and to view those ties as the source of moral duties toward keeping them cogent and vibrant.
And with these two models, strict father morality model and nurturant parent morality model, one can apply them to the three political subcultures Elazar identifies: the individualistic, the moralistic, and the traditionalistic. Through these analyses, one can apply Lakoff’s models and derive the social necessities one needs to meet in applying the elements of the various subcultures. By doing so, one can delve further into each.
[1] George Santayana, “The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy,” The Annals of America, vol. 13 (Chicago, IL: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc, 1968), 277-288, 281.
[2] Daniel J. Elazar, American Federalism: A View from the States, (New York, NY: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1966).
[3] George Lakoff, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2002).
