Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Moral politics, the sequel.

So i'm about halfway through the book. To put it simply: Moral Politics by G. Lakoff may be the most insighful book about politics ever written. It explains the moral system undergirding liberal and conservative standpoints on issues. It explains the values that we hold that give us our national and personal political platforms.

In real life, i saw a couple political advertisement for each [maybe better put against the other] candidate in the NJ Corzine-Forrester race. I saw exactly what values each attack played upon in the liberal or conservative moral viewpoint. What i thought was ingenious though, was that one ad attacked the other candidate for having certain values that their candidate didn't have. The other ad attacked the other candidate by pointing out the inconsistencies between his platform and his behavior in his own moral system.

Simply put democrat attack republican for being a republican and republican attack democrat for spouting democrat views but behaving like a republican. What was especially hot was how that second attack centered on a particular view of republicans that democrats vilify about republicans.

One thing that i noticed was that Lakoff put his book in terms of conservative and liberal viewpoints. What i liked about that was that it almost explained why there are so many 'moderates' on both sides of the fence. This comes from people having a few values from both moral positions.

When you have some conservative views and liberal veiws (maybe you're for gay rights[liberal stance] but also for gun control[conservative stance]) it's because you hold certain values that allow for these things. Not many people are fully conservative or fully liberal, we usually have a mix of views. This book will explain what you value, which guides you to hold the political positions that you have.
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