Little More Lakoff

I'm not sure how much more appetite anyone has for The Great Lakoff Debate but I found this critique of Lakoff's work very clear and level-headed. It talks about the Pinker-Lakoff debate that Matt V. brought up but is from a third party at The New Republic and therefore is not mired in personal attacks:

http://www.tnr.com/blog/open-university/frame-game

The points that are brought up at the end speak to something that troubled me about the implications of Lakoff's theories. These metaphors not only try to link seemingly disparate policy preferences but also contend that the roots of those policies stem from two diametrically opposed moralities. I'd be really impressed if anyone could find a way to link Lakoff's two sides in any kind of meaningful dialogue on issues based on his moral frameworks which sound to me to be opposites on pretty much every issue. As the blog post above notes at the end “once you start thinking of liberals and conservatives as distinct kinds of people, divided by deep moral differences that grow out of their early family experience, then it's easy to fall into the hyper-moralizing rhetoric of political polarization.” Maybe it's the idealist in me, but I'm personally repelled by a theory that has no interest in paths to agreement or negotiation and is more concerned with defining which set of metaphors is the “right” one. True, Lakoff talks about being able to understand what the other side is really saying when using the language the main metaphors provoke, but it seems like an understanding with a tactical view to fighting the other side's language, not one of empathy and communication. Of course, all that desire from empathy could just be because I'm a nurturing parent.

-The Other Matt (Schuneman)