Strong Fathers, Glass Ceilings & the Neurobiology of Politics

VoteConscience“A human brain is a remarkable thing. It isn’t what you think it is, and every part of it matters in politics. If you are going to be a good citizen—conservative or liberal—you should know how your brain is working.”

Cognitive scientist George Lakoff has spent four decades studying how the human mind makes meaning, and how that factors into politics. He concludes that while people may believe they are “voting their conscience,” for the most part they are voting their “un-conscience.”

Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at UC-Berkeley, says 98% of what we call our reasoning is going on unconsciously. “It is what our brain is doing while we’re busy thinking we are being conscious.”

Through his academic work as well as books like The Political Mind (2008), Don’t Think of an Elephant (2004), and Metaphors We Live By (2003 –with Mark Johnson), Lakoff stresses that we cannot understand modern politics using an 18th century view of human reason.

This classical view, which prevails in many public policy circles, was initially defined by Descartes in the 1600’s. It holds that reason is:

  • Conscious–that we know when we’re doing it
  • Disembodied and abstract
  • Dispassionate; Universal
  • Able to assess the world as it is
  • Purposeful in the service of rational self-interest.

“What cognitive science and neuroscience has shown us over the last 30 years is that every part of this is false. Every single part,” Lakoff told Holistic Primary Care in an interview. The science indicates that human reason is:

  • Largely unconscious—most of the time we are unaware of it
  • Not abstract, but determined by the body and its needs
  • Shaped more by images, metaphors, and culturally-determined frames than measurable facts
  • Highly emotional, even when it seems dispassionate
  • Driven as much—perhaps more—by social pressure as rational self-interest.

Lakoff is among a group of linguists, sociologists, and cognitive scientists including Noam Chomsky, Erving Goffman, and Charles Fillmore, focused on the ways language shapes perception, behavior, and political choice.

Though he personally leans leftward and aligns strongly with the Democrats, Lakoff stresses that people across the political spectrum benefit from understanding what shapes their decisions.

Skyrockets, Glass Ceilings, Warm Welcomes

The neurological truth, says Lakoff, is that we do not see the world as it is. We see it through cognitive frames that emphasize, de-emphasize, amplify or lakoffmute the input from our senses.

“When you perceive something—something comes into your eyes– you have about 1/10th of one second before it becomes conscious, and it will change in that 1/10th of a second to fit what you already know or believe. When facts come in that do not fit the way you already understand the world, they will go unseen, or will be ignored, ridiculed, or attacked,” he explained.

The frames through which we perceive are culturally conditioned and largely unconscious. They create rules, roles, and expectations. Take a simple example: the word “hospital.”

Anyone beyond the age of six knows what a hospital is and what happens there—even if he or she has never been to one. We all know that people go there when they’re sick. Doctors and nurses with special knowledge and tools take care of them. Other kinds of people make sure this occurs in an orderly way.

All this—and more–is instantly evoked by that one word.

Breaking a frame causes discontent. “Imagine you walk into a hospital to visit a friend and the receptionist gives you a scalpel and ushers you into an OR where there’s a doctor on the table. You know something is wrong because that’s not what’s supposed to happen.”

There can be more or less agreement about the meaning of a given frame. For “hospital,” there’s strong consensus. But what about a frame like “family?”

Along with frames, our reasoning is governed by metaphors, which seem simple but are neurologically complex. Take the idea of the “Glass Ceiling.”

Because a ceiling is “above,” the metaphor is based on verticality as indicator of success, so it involves centers that process spatial relations. The image suggests purposeful motion toward a destination, which implies desire. Since it signifies a goal clearly seen but invisibly blocked, it triggers frustration. Finally, it implies that the striver has the skills and smarts to reach the goal, and would do so were it not for an uncontrollable variable like gender, race, ethnicity. Thus it evokes anger at unfairness.

These two simple words engage a myriad of neurological pathways.

Lakoff says complex metaphors like this begin with simple bodily realities. The notion that more is up, and less is down begins when a child sees that adding liquid to a cup makes the fluid level rise, while pouring it out makes it go down. Simple enough, but we’re not conscious that this is the basis of a vertical metaphor like, “skyrocketing healthcare costs.”

Similarly, the use of temperature terms to describe emotionality has roots in infancy. “When you are held as a child and you simultaneously feel affection and warmth, your brain is activated in two places. The more they’re activated the stronger that association gets, until those brain centers find the shortest path and form a circuit, which ultimately manifests as metaphor.” Thus, we talk about a “warm welcome” or a “cold shoulder.”

From Primal Reasoning to Politics

Metaphors like this are primary, physical, and rooted in survival, says Lakoff. We all form hundreds by the time we’re 6 or 7 years old. Descartes was wrong to suggest reason is disembodied or dispassionate. In the absence of emotion, reason falters.

In his book, Descartes’ Error, neurologist Antonio Damasio describes people with damage to brain regions connected with emotion and empathy. They do not become super-rational like Star Trek’s Mr. Spock. On the contrary, they are incapable of rational decision. “If you can’t feel emotion– yours or others–how would you know what to want? You wouldn’t be able to decide what to do in any situation,” Lakoff says.

While the capacity to create frames is biologically hard-wired, the process of defining and linking them is learned. It is social—and ultimately political.

A person’s self-identity and “world view” are based on cultural narratives learned from others. These are, essentially, chains of metaphors linked to create stories and character types. Our culture is filled with them: rags to riches; the underground railroad; striving immigrants; victorious underdogs; intrepid pioneers; lovable rogues; virtuous outlaws; the champion of the common man; the tortured genius; the rugged individualist who “pulls himself up by his bootstraps.”

Hate His Policies, Love Him

For many people, Barack Obama embodied the underdog myth, beating the racial odds to become the first Black president. Reagan was a beloved workingman’s hero. John McCain is the loyal soldier who sacrificed for freedom. Many see Hillary Clinton’s candidacy as the epitome of the glass ceiling drama.

1133346 1More than specific policies or issues, people vote for mythology and metaphor. It is not a conscious process, but Lakoff says it definitely has its own logic.

Early on in Ronald Reagan’s first presidential bid, his chief strategist, Richard Wirthlin, noticed a curious phenomenon: many Americans strongly disliked Reagan’s policy stances, but they liked him—and would vote for him despite their reservations. Wirthlin sought to understand this.

He found that when it came down to it, voters didn’t really care about “issues”. They cared about five things: Values, Communication, Authenticity, Trust, and sense of Common Identity.

Dr. Lakoff, who knew Wirthlin, says that those five items became the central tenets of Reagan’s highly successful campaigns. He won because he embodied a set of spoken as well as unspoken values. Despite—or perhaps because he was an actor—he could project authenticity and therefore trustworthiness. At the polling places, this mattered far more than any stated policy.

Nation as Family, Leader as Parent

In the course of his work, Dr. Lakoff began to wonder why it is that certain political stances seem to cluster together. He wondered why people who are against abortion rights often support the right to own machine guns? This same group also generally likes the idea of a flat tax and tort reform but tends to oppose environmental regulation. Similarly, people who advocate gun control usually oppose tort reform, but identify as pro-choice on abortion.

On face value, the issues are unrelated. There’s no obvious reason these policy stances should constellate so closely.

“I started asking why conservatives always talk about “family values” and what those values consist of. What I found is that we have a big cultural metaphor that the nation is a family. It makes sense, because for all of us the first experience of being “governed” is in the family.”

People across the political spectrum share this unconscious “Nation as Family” metaphor. But conservatives and liberals hold different frames and narratives on what a family should be. Lakoff observes two basic family models that get metaphorically projected into the political sphere:

The “Strict Father” model: This is the vision epitomized by influential conservative groups like James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. It holds that a strict father is necessary to support, protect, and direct a family. This is a man’s job, and the woman’s role is to support and enforce the father’s leadership.

The “Strict Father” view holds that children are essentially born “bad” in that they just want to do what feels good. They have to be taught right from wrong. The most effective way to do this is via physical punishment. Dobson holds that punishment must be painful enough so a kid learns to avoid “wrong” and develops discipline to do “right.” A father has a moral duty to administer necessary punishment, though he should not enjoy causing pain.

This family model emphasizes obedience. It’s the “This is not a democracy!” approach. The father’s discipline, reinforced by the mother ideally becomes internalized self-discipline, which makes a person strong enough to succeed and prosper in “the market.”

The Strict Father world is a well-ordered moral hierarchy; those who traditionally dominated should dominate owing to moral authority. The hierarchy is: God above Man, Man above Nature, Men above Women, The Disciplined (Strong) above the Undisciplined (Weak), The Rich above the Poor, Employers above Employees, Western culture above others, America above other countries.

The Nurturing Parent model: This model, prevalent among Democrats and liberals, emphasizes empathy over obedience, consensus over command, relativism over hierarchy. In this view, authority is not gendered nor is it God-given. It is merited, not ordained.

Good parents teach children how to be compassionate and responsible to others.

From this comes the “ethic of excellence”—the vision of teaching children to be the best they can become, not out of fear of punishment but out of a desire to do good. It’s an aspirational rather than punitive approach.

In the Nurturing Parent view, protection, security and prosperity arise not from dominance but from mutual understanding, negotiation, compromise, and rational problem-solving. Instead of a strict hierarchy, the ideal world is one of inter-connected networks of diverse, empowered people. Fairness, freedom, tolerance and social justice are the keywords.

Both models have strengths—because both evolved through thousands of years of human survival struggle. They also have limitations and blind spots.

In reality, most people have unconsciously internalized both models to varying degree. Someone might show a Nurturing Parent style at work, but play out Strict Father dynamics at home.

While individuals are often “bimodal,” Lakoff says political campaigns tend to posit the two models as incompatible opposites. When push comes to shove—as it does in an election—people tend to polarize.

Poverty, Prosperity & Morality

When the Strict Father model is applied politically, “Father-as-decider” becomes “let the market decide.” Ultimate paternal authority is conferred onto the “free market,” Lakoff explains. The “market” is supposed to reward self-discipline, productivity, and intelligence, while punishing laziness, stupidity, and poor performance.

By this logic, success and failure are indicators of character. Prosperity reflects moral virtue; poverty indicates moral weakness. If people are poor, they probably deserve to be, because they lack discipline and ambition or because they made bad choices. Social and historical factors are secondary, and prosperous citizens are not under obligation to help —though they may choose to do so via charity.

People with the Nurturing Parent worldview see poverty as symptomatic of societal injustices not personal moral failings. They believe a nation has an obligation to care for its neediest.

Applied to healthcare, the Strict Father logic would view a condition like obesity as a character flaw—a lack of self-control. A Nurturing Parent view sees it as the result of genetic predisposition—beyond a person’s control—driven by social forces like lack of education, price disparities between junk and healthy food, relentless ads that promote over-consumption.

How you feel about an issue like universal healthcare will depend on whether you unconsciously view illness as the “just” consequence of moral weakness, or the result of factors largely beyond a person’s control.

The reason issues like environmental regulation, taxation, worker’s rights, and tort law bother many conservatives is because they challenge the fundamental paternal authority of “the market” and the people who run it. Liberals with a Nurturing Parent ideal want to challenge that authority, so they support these.

Self Interest vs Self Identity

Working people struggling to make ends meet do not benefit from things like lax environmental rules, the breaking of labor unions, tort reforms, estate tax breaks or deregulation of corporate campaign contributions. Why do many of them support leaders and policies that don’t serve them?

“It is because they’re not voting on their interests, they’re voting on their identity,” says Lakoff, “and that identity was constructed consciously.”

Beginning around 1966, Richard Nixon’s campaign realized there were many working-class Americans who identified as liberals because the labor movement had raised their living standards. At the same time, they held “Strict Father” views about family and the military. These were threatened by feminists, anti-war protests, and the “counter-culture.”

To win that demographic, Nixon ran on patriotism, anti-communism, and “traditional” American values. The campaign belittled feminists as “bra-burners,” and defined anyone questioning the Vietnam War as unpatriotic. The campaign also coined the idea of the “liberal elite” – over-educated, cosmopolitan people who’d never worked an honest day and who look down on working people.

It was a deliberate attempt to break the working class identification with the political left. For the most part, says Lakoff, it worked.

Manufacturing Mindsets

Projection of values is contingent on crafting and projecting specific language frames. Are those armed men “freedom fighters” or “terrorists”? Is that beggar “downtrodden” or “lazy”? That scientist, is she projecting “expertise” or “elitism”? “Open-minded” or “wishy-washy”? “Outspoken” or “domineering”? “Peaceful protester” or “Angry militant”?

The same phenomenon can be framed in different ways, says Lakoff.

Consider immigration. The issue is typically framed around the idea of “illegal aliens.” This directs moral condemnation toward the immigrants, most of whom are simply seeking honest work and the chance to improve their lives. But the cognitive leap from “illegal” immigrant to “criminal” is not very big. Any discussion about “illegal immigrants” is already biased.

The issue could just as accurately be framed as “illegal employment,” putting culpability on the agricultural firms, manufacturers, and private citizens who hire immigrants for wages far below US norms, to work hazardous jobs, outside all regulations and protections. It would also implicate all of us who like cheaply priced goods. That’s why it’s never framed that way.

Lakoff contends American political discourse is defined largely by conservative cognitive frames.

That’s because the conservative movement has invested heavily—to the tune of $4 billion over the last 35 years—in think tanks, leadership institutes, market research firms, media strategists, academic chairmanships, and ownership of media companies. The Republicans, in short, have a very strong cognitive strategy that reinforces Strict Father frames, and dismisses the Nurturing Parent model with terms like “Nanny State” and “Meddling Government.”

Democrats and progressives, Lakoff says, have not made nearly the same investment. Many still hold a Cartesian version of reason—think Al Gore in the 2000 election. Further, American liberals view any intentional cognitive framing as “spin” or “propaganda,” all of which they find abhorrent.

The net result is that even when they win—as has been the case with the Obama administration–the Democrats must try to lead within a cultural and cognitive landscape curated and cultivated by their alleged political opponents.

That’s not to say there is no framing and re-framing coming from the political left. Much of the debate around “political correctness” comes from a conservative reaction to left-wing language challenges.

Frames & Metaphors in Healthcare

American medicine is largely defined by Strict Father frames and war metaphors: “fighting infections,” “invasive carcinoma,” “therapeutic armamentarium,” “war on cancer,” “barrage of radiation.” “heart attack,” “magic bullet”….the list is long. Traditionally, medicine has been very hierarchical in its organizational structures, with an almost military-style chain of command.

In recent decades the military metaphors have been merged with the language of business, which defines practitioners as “providers” and ill people as “consumers” that “utilize” resources. Political discussion about healthcare is framed around cost and control. It seldom focuses on actual health or care.

Even when pushing for change, as was the case with healthcare reform, progressives argue using frames and metaphors defined by business interests, says Lakoff.

What if Democrats had proposed the reform plan as “The American Families Plan” or “PatriotCare,” rather than the “Affordable Care Act”?

“The Democrats are not saying what is true. They’re giving policy lists. What they’re not saying is, insurance industry healthcare is failing us! Insurance companies deny care because of the profit motive. The reason it is so expensive is because one-third of the money goes to administrative costs and profit to the investors.”

Healthcare, says Lakoff, is a moral issue. It involves matters of life and death. But policy language doesn’t focus on that. “They’re not saying, “Have you ever had to wait for weeks for an authorization? Or lost your HC benefits because you lost your job?” They don’t say it, but they should.”

On any political issue, the cognitive frames shape the outcomes. This is why Lakoff believes it is essential for citizens to become more aware of and reflective about the language used by politicians and media figures.

It is only by understanding one’s own unconscious frames, metaphors and narratives that one can truly vote one’s conscience.

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