Thinking Points Discussion of Chapter 4 - Part 2: Conservative Morality

True conservatives do overlap fairly well with the Strict Father metaphor. Many true conservatives are absolutely distraught at what the Bush Administration and the formerly Republican controlled Congress have wrought.

The example you cited of the Bush Administration and the unitary executive is a truly non-conservative initiative. True conservatives are generally aghast at any attempt by one branch of the government to strengthen its hand at the expense of another branch. They like the way separation of powers works as a check and balance to government overreaching, thank you very much. The enormous spending of the Republican controlled Congress unhindered by the Republican Administration was just another sign that true conservatives were pretty hard to find in Washington lately.

The Bush administration and the Tom DeLay led Republican Congress were a lot of things, but true conservatives wasn't one of them. I wouldn't worry too much about the Strict Father metaphor not fitting these people.

Joe,

You have raised a number of interesting questions. Let's take a look at one of them first. You are really raising the question of a Conservative - Progressive continuum as if it were linear. In fact, there is no such thing. A fun way to illustrate this is over at Political Compass ( http://politicalcompass.org/ ). There they also take the view that conservative to liberal is not linear at all. They give you a test to measure attitudes towards certain propositions and then measure your responses on an x-y axis. One axis runs from Authoritarian to Libertarian. The other runs left to right along classical economic liberal - conservative lines. Taking the test is an interesting exercise, and it is a little more descriptive of real life than a linear model.

This goes to the very heart of biconceptualism. But it also tells you something else. That people who primarily hold the Strict Father worldview and people who primarily hold the Nurturant Parent worldview can be in agreement on certain issues for the same reasons. For example, both worldviews hold that the parents must protect the family. Taking the nation as family metaphor, this view can have "conservatives" and "progressives" agreeing on the need for a strong national defense as the first priority of government. At the same time, you can have other progressives whose sense of family extends beyond national borders and who abhor the thought of spending any money on defense.

Your final question revolves around the idea of attacking a conservative label. The problem with that concept is that that label is attached to a person. In doing this, you will be making the mistake of attacking the person. There is an old adage in politics - be soft on the people but hard on the issues. We should not put ourselves in the position of attacking a label. We need to be in the posture of explaining how our values lead to our positions. We may show how there are contradictions in the values expressed of someone who holds a different position, not as an attack on that person, but on the logical value failure of their positions.

To have a positive tangible effect on our communities, I like to start by finding a place where my values and the values of the "opposition" intersect, as they inevitably will. From that point you can begin to work towards wider areas of agreement until you have reached a place where a mutually acceptable solution can be found.

That's progress.

Joe, your statement "there are ways to find shared values with people who often disagree" made me think of an experiment I am trying with my father, who is a bedrock conservative, but who is actually a very decent guy who everybody seems to like. In a way it's good that he has the views that he does, as it gives me someone to practice on! Anyway, when the Walter Reed scandal broke, it struck me that this would be a good place to talk about progressive values, since he is WWII veteran and at age 83 is always telling stories about his war experiences. So I thought, bingo, here is an issue where the responsibility of the government to be caring is very clear. Everybody says we need to care for the troops. Another issue is health care, since like most senior citizens he is slightly obsessed about health; if I get to that age I'm sure I will be too. So here is an opportunity to introduce progressive values by way of two issues where the idea that the government has no role to play doesn't hold water to a lot of people. I figured I'd limit my proseletyzing to those two issues.

Unfortunately I haven't followed up on these yet, so I can't report the results of the experiment, but I am seconding your notion of finding common concerns with people who might otherwise reject your ideas out of hand and starting from there. It's one thing for a person to think about an issue in the abstract and another to think about a policy that will affect them emotionally and/or directly. In fact, it was said of Reagan that he was a compassionate individual, yet that he didn't see the connection between that and the social policies he was espousing. There was a disconnect between his own compassion and his uncompassionate policies because he couldn't expand his compassion to persons outside his direct experience.

Joe at Rockridge raises the issue, “If we attack the label "conservative" we will alienate potential allies who share nurturant values with us. This is the problem I want to understand. How can we get past this when the word "conservative" is currently applied to a political group of people who are not philosophically conservative at all.”

I’ve wrestled with this as well.

As a large collective group, “conservatives” don’t seem to care: they take their point of view, find the polar opposite, assign it to progressives and castigate progressives. Thinking linearly, they assume progressives all oppose everything they stand for. They don’t seem to care about alienating the progressives that might share some of their values.

However, we do care, so we wrestle with it.

We need labels in order to identify things; if you don’t have a name for a thing, it is hard to get others to understand what thing you are talking about.

In this case, what I want to do is, on the one hand be able to make the case, forcefully, against those policies and approaches that I see as detrimental and also marginalize those people who advocate for those policies and approaches (the “radical right”, some call them) and on the other hand, be sure that there is “wiggle room” for people associated with those first types but who have a greater percentage of bi-conceptualism (“prudential conservatives”, say).

Therefore we need to label the radical, fundamentalist, authoritarian, intolerant, “conservatives” in some way that helps isolate them from “traditional conservatives” and “moderates”.

The challenge seems like it has been that the conservative mindset, rooted in hierarchy and the resulting “culture of obedience” has caused the moderate conservatives to “fall in line” with the controlling, authority group of radical fundamentalists. When even the “moderates” denigrate liberals, making it so they can’t be comfortable associating with them, we are indeed in a tough spot.

The current political climate should help. Now that the manifold built-in flaws of the conservative mindset for governing that result in corruption, incompetence, indifference and constitutional violations, are now plastered on front pages across America on a daily basis, people are beginning to ask themselves how we got here. (Yes, we all saw it coming, but they didn’t and now they’re surprised.)

Unforturnately, there is a tendency among conservatives to blame Bush and his ilk as not a “true conservative”, but not to see their own complicity in not examining his appointments fully, not providing oversight, and following in obedience without question. At least Andrew Sullivan and some other conservatives are wrestling with this and are trying to find a way to distance prudential/true/doubting conservatives from the fundamentalist/radical conservatives.

So, anyway, it seems we need to label the extreme, radical, fundamentalist segment of the conservatives in a way that allows others to distance themselves from them. While some use “radical right”, I find the notion of “fundamentalist” more attuned to the real problem we’re trying to address.

I don't know if you've seen a book by John Dean (of Watergate fame) by the title of "Conservatives without Conscience", but he takes up the issue of what has happened to the conservative movement. (The book title was a takeoff on Goldwater's book "The Conscience of a Conservative", published in 1960.) He goes into some depth about research on authoritarian personalities, and "cuts to the core of this often stunning research to uncover for the general reader the striking authoritarian character of contemporary conservative beliefs, attitudes, and prejudices, and how these are expressed in policy and practice." (from the book jacket) And "he presents a compelling portrait of leaders who are indifferent to the founding principles of liberty and equality, and who cloak their actions in moral superiority while pushing the country further and further from its constitutional foundations." Sorry for the long excerpts, but that neatly summarizes his thesis. I went to Stacey's bookstore in San Francisco last summer to hear him speak out of idle curiosity, with no intention of buying anything, and walked out with an autographed copy because I was so impressed. He has a whole chapter on "How Conservatives Think".

Dean said that Sen. Barry Goldwater, who many consider the founding father of the modern conservative movement with his 1964 presidential bid, was also upset with what conservativsm had become, and the two of them were planning to write a book about it. Unfortunately Goldwater became ill and died before they could write the book, but Dean said he has Goldwater's files and is going to write the book by himself. Both of them thought the modern conservatives (Goldwater died in 1998) are not conservatives but radicals, reckless ones at that.

I'm actually not trying to plug Dean's book, though it is excellent, but I think it's very important to recognize that the Bush-Cheney-Gingrich-DeLay brand of authoritarian conservatism is fundamentally different from classic conservatism, so we shouldn't be confused when the two are conflated.

How do I make moral decisions? Like many people I suppose, I grew up with both conservative and progressive people in my extended (aunts, uncles...) family. I also had a largely strict father morality father and largely progressive morality mother. I was raised Catholic and taught the Ten Commandments well, though I have not practiced any religion since high school (I am in my 50's). I was taught a strong work ethic, to stand on my own two feet, be honest, trustworthy, and responsible. Things that might be construed as more strict father type morals, though they are taught as well by progressives I think. I was also taught to be kind, empathetic, generous (with time and effort as well as money), helpful, cooperative, and that I had a responsibility to help those not as fortunate as me. Things that might be considered more as progressive moral principles, but are also taught by strict father types I think, except the recipients in this case sometimes seem to be a more exclusive group that must pass a litmus test - a practice considered immoral by me.
 
I draw on all these values to make moral decisions. I am foremost guided by the first commandment. Remember the sermon on the mount? "This is the first commandment, and I say to you it is the greatest commandment of them all..." Love thy neighbor as thyself... A progressive sentiment I think. I am definitely a progressive - feeling moral outrage with the position that those that fall behind deserve to, and should not be helped. But I also feel moral outrage at those that take advantage of generousity, because they are not TRYING to stand on their own two feet. In this same vein, I also feel moral outrage at those who take advantage of others weaker than themselves. I guess I apply the Ten Commandments with a nurturant parent interpretation. The transgression that most offends me is a betrayal of trust, which is why I so despise members of the present executive branch, and some members of congress. Also because they have been fiscally irresponsible and betrayed the founding principles of our country.

I also am cognizant of "systemic" causes, feeling outrage when people with wealth are characterized as the "best" simply because they are wealthy, without regard to the tremendous advantages they leveraged to get there. A very simple example is the advantage a person raised in a family with two parents who have professions has over one raised in a family with poorly educated parents. Add to this parents who are wealthy and strongly engaged with their children versus parents who are not, or are abusive, and the advantage is staggering. Many times conservative coworkers like and admire me for practice of the "strict father" values mentioned above (and I them for the same reason), but stare blankly at my consideration of systemic causes. I am many times reminded of George Lakoff's words: If it doesn't fit the frame... which scares the hell out of me. I like those people. They have some very good traits. But it seems on moral issues we tend toward a take no prisoners mindset. We have GOT to get around this and be satisfied with where we can find common ground.

I think you are on to something very profound when you talk about how conservatives think in a linear fashion- from cause to effect. Reality is that very little in our world operates in that fashion, the environment and weather, business, relationships with people and countries and on and on. Most of what goes on in the world I believe can be better understood by using the paradigm of systems thinking championed Peter Senge in the Fifth Discipline. Most of Senge's work deals with the concept of a circular flow to anything that is dynamic. Taking the time to identify the system, review the inputs and feedback loops and then write or comment upon the activity being observed brings one to a whole new and more useful and truer understanding of what is going on in our world. Systems thinking is progressive thinking in that it incorporates an iterative process that looks at the whole picture, with all of its complexities, to arrive at a way to observe and discuss a policy, a problem or a way of communicating. Taking the time to use systems thinking as a way to solve the problem by finding the correct way to do, does take more time, takes more thinking and sometimes discloses counterintuitive outcomes or solutions, but it is a way of thinking that will provide great benefits to all concerned and less disruption. I encourage all progressives to become familiar with systems thinking as a way to orderly think about our complex lives and society going forward.

Very interesting thread. I realize I'm late to the discussion here but I wanted to share some of what I've learned from political discussions with my two conservative parents.

Accepting your assessment of us as bioconceptuals, and that all humans contain both nurturant parent and strict father models. However, let me go further and propose that, within a single organism, or a nation thereof, the <i>activation strength</i> of one model over another depends largely upon how that human organism perceives its environment on a continuum from safety<-->danger, or from abundance to scarcity.

The "strict father" model is paramount during percieved conditions of fear or scarcity. This reflects a <i>Hobbesian</i> view of society, in which the social contract is tenuous at best. Individuals in the larger world will play a zero-sum game to obtain material advantage. This reflects conservatives current overall percieved reality of the world. Attacked on 9/11, wary of foreigners, immigrants, and even our allies in Europe, America must act unilaterally in a field of isolated agents, all struggling to maximize their power at the expense of others. Within the country, we can improve the lives of the less fortunate through discipline and threat of penalty. The operative word here is <i>"wack"</i>.

The "nurturant parent" model is paramount during percieved conditions of abundance and safety. Correspondance here is with <i>Rousseau</i>. Liberalism and the Great Society flourished under these conditions of percieved abundance and confidence. We could "afford" to be generous since we had so much prosperity, and could anticipate a quid-pro-quo from the rest of the world. Belief in the UN, international treaties, and mutual well-being are the hallmarks of this approach. Within the country, we can improve the lives of the less fortunate via opportunities and support. The operative word here is <i>"phat"<i>.

What I have noticed in discussions with conservative individuals is that many are more amenable to the "phat" approach to policy problems <i>as long as their emotional state vis-a-vis the larger world is one of relaxed trust</i>. I imagine this is why our present administration (as well as foreign terrorists) value the perpetuation of fear within the body politic. Fear is a biological response that clenches the muscles, quickens the pulse, and drives the body to seek immediate, shortcut solutions to issues. More importantly, it raises the stock of the "tribal leader", the alpha (male) who will defend the fearful group from outside threats.

By contrast, in conditions of abundance, the nurturant parent can emerge. Only when security is assured and trust with the outside world is established, can we devote ourselves to the more long-term project of love and nourishment. This "feminine" side to ourselves (which exists in both men and women) is always available to us, but will recede either 1. if outside conditions are not appropriate or 2. if the context of consideration is non-threatening.

So, for example, a political strongman can enjoy a movie about family-relations if his outside security is established just as easily as a progressive guy can enjoy watching a movie like Rambo if he knows it is all in fun.

meant to be "The phat and the wack: percieved environment and its influence on model priority"

Also I guess this form doesn't take html markup. But I overuse italics anyway :)

Thanks Joe,

Your response triggered a memory from my critical theory classes as an undergrad, regarding Bataille's concepts of a "restricted" vs a "general" economy. I'm no post-structuralist, but I like it when I find consilience across different disciplines.

The NP model supports non-competitive "play"

unstructured time that helps us practice problem-solving and develop intuition. However, "play" is not possible when boundaries are insecure. So when insecurity and fear dominate, SF becomes necessary and "play" seems a waste of time and productivity. When security is assumed and trusted, an SF participant appears overbearing and unnecessary--spoiling the fun.

This is why (neo)conservatives stress so often that "9/11 changed everything"--to them, it acted as a lightning bolt of fear that catalayzed the necessity for SF models across all political spectra and contexts. I watched 9/11 happen, but my post-fear response was grief and willingness to help, not outer-directed anger. I had no illusions that the world was a "safe place" but I recognized that the larger reality of life is that safety is an impossible promise once we all accept the inevitability, and universality, of death.

Conservatives loathe the dream of the united earth, because without difference and struggle, the SF model becomes useless. It completely obviates the necessity for the tribal leader who extracts loyalty in exchange for protection. Unless, of course, we are attacked by aliens. :)

Overall, it seems that the best, balanced meta-model is one that harmonizes SF and NP models where each is appropriate in different situations. I know for a fact that SF-dominant approaches work best when cooperative approaches are not applicable, or security is not established. So much of "framing" becomes a struggle on a normative level--the definition of the problem does more to influence the solution, than the solution itself.

Consciousness and language among humans though, is innately political in that in politics, by definition there is no single normative reality at the political level, beyond competing collective hallucinations.

Hi Joe,

When we encounter new frames, in childhood and all the way through our lives, we have to evaluate them to determine whether they're going to be reliable. We use a set of heuristics to evaluate new frames. I discussed this some last week or the week before. Some of those framing heuristics are:

* Scope - Can this frame be applied to a wide range of experiences?
* Simplicity - Does this frame's strategies rest on few and easy decisions?
* Support - Is this frame widely accepted in my community?

These heuristics are not arbitrary. A frame - a pattern of analysis - that has a broad scope is one that we can use often. The more often we use it, the more adept we can become with it. A simple frame which offers fewer and easier decisions feels more reliable, in that it offers fewer opportunities for mistakes. A frame that is widely supported in our community offers two advantages: (a) the chance to "test" our understanding and application by asking others who use it; and, (b) "failure-inclusion," in that even if we make mistakes in applying that analysis, others can understand and thus validate our reasoning.

Viewed in the abstract, a frame which fits these heuristics is MORE LIKELY to yield good decisions: we can apply it often enough to master it, its simplicity makes it easier to apply correctly, and the social support helps us to learn its nuances and to feel validated in using it, even if we fail in a given instance.

That's in the abstract. In the real world, fraught with incomplete information and increasingly greater complexity (spawned by better worldwide communication), these heuristics can steer us toward that seem like they should work, but just don't.

But because we validate our frames against these heuristics - and not against measured, empirical experiences - we cling to failure-inducing frames. After all, our friends, colleagues, and society use these same frames, so "they must work." When we fail, the problem was not the frame itself, but our execution of it. So we do the same things again and again, hoping this time we can "do them better."

These frame-evaluating heuristics may be grounded in biology. We begin applying them at a very early age, and we can observe the same sorts of framing preferences in other species. They do make sense - especially if one's range of experience is likely to be comparatively narrow and one's challenges fairly homogenous in nature. If you're likely to encounter similar kinds of problems again and again, having a brain programmed to preference frames that are broad in scope, simple to use, and supported by your community DOES offer profound evolutionary advantages.

Why is the "Strict Father" frame more widely attractive than the "Nurturant Parent" (or "Loving Mother") frame? Because it better fits these heuristics:

* Scope - The "Strict Father" frame seems more broadly applicable, especially if one experiences the world as "dangerous." A "Nurturant Parent" is fine when hearth and home are secure, but when the sabre-toothed tigers are at the mouth of the cave, a warm breast to suckle offers little protection. Conversely, a "Strict Father" can still provide for the family, even when hearth and home are secure.

* Simplicity - The "Strict Father" frame offers fewer and easier decisions. In many cases, the decision is made for us by the "Father." We don't have to think about it; we can simply obey and we will be validated (see below). Even when we are expected to make decisions, the "Strict Father" frame offers simpler, black-and-white choices of direct causation. The "Nurturant Parent" frame gives us shades-of-grey - empathy for individuals, indirect causation - and that complexity offers more chances to make mistakes.

* Support - The "Strict Father" frame has a greater base of support, both in our present experience and in our history and cultural mythology. Given at least three millenia of almost universal application, there is no shortage of sources for how to apply the "Strict Father" frame. Even if we fail, the failure can generally be seen as a failure of execution rather than a failure of analysis. Conversely, there are comparatively few sources for how to apply the "Nurturant Parent" frame; if we fail, we're likely to be on our own, with friends, colleagues, and society saying "If you had just taken charge (did as you were told, did what the Book said)...."

Given that the "Strict Father" frame DOES more closely fit our genetically-wired framing heuristics, should we at least CONSIDER whether it is, indeed, "better?" Take the example of Mr. Cho, whose outburst of violent rage ended 33 lives last week, including his own. When we're made aware of Cho's behavioral history, many of us are left wondering why this totally broken young man was left to roam a college campus, rather than being in a mental hospital getting the treatment he needed.

Is it at least POSSIBLE that the reason is because we as a society have tried too hard to overlook personal idiosyncracies, to "let people be themselves," to the point of ignoring obvious and critical dangers? Would a more "Strict Father" society have demanded that this "misfit" be quarantined?

I recognize the converse argument. Would a more "Nurturant Parent" society have seen how troubled this young man was, how full of rage and absent of reason? Would it not have ignored him as a "misfit," but rather stepped in to ensure that Cho got the help he so desperately needed?

Which of these frames - which pattern of analysis - seems more likely to have yielded better decisions by those whose duty it was to protect Cho and the rest of us from his broken, twisted mind?

I'm not positive I can answer that question. I'm at least willing to concede that whatever answer I give might be wrong.

I guess what I'm saying in this post is that the "Strict Father" frame for "Nation as Family" is not a new idea. It has been the dominant moral frame - individually and for "Nation as Family" - for millenia. That didn't happen by accident, or by arbitrary decisions from The Powers That Were. It happened because that frame more closely fits what we as human beings are programmed to seek in our deepest frames: scope, simplicity, and support.

We ought to be mindful of that, lest we spin for ourselves a Wolkenkuckuckscheim... a cloud-cuckoo-land with little connection to or utility in real experience. I'm not saying that the "Nurturant Parent" moral frame CAN'T work. But it does require more work to implement, leaves us more prone to making mistakes, and forces us to make moral stands that will not be supported by our society.

Crissie

Joe,

My experience is that conservatives may mean something completely different when they say they care about "social responsibility" and "human dignity." When we promote "human dignity," we may be advocating rights for assisted suicide. They may be opposing embryonic stem cell research.

Their approach to “social responsibility” may include eliminating all environmental regulations and trade restrictions to enable the full power of the marketplace. They often believe that the salvation of the poor depends on eliminating our public school system. When conservatives start specifically advocating universal health care and increasing the minimum wage, I’ll believe we may have something truly in common with them.

Hurricane Katrina was a perfect example of the differences in right/left views of “social responsibility.” After the hurricane, conservatives gave profusely. But before the hurricane, they gutted FEMA and appointed political operatives to run it. Years of bare bones budgets prevented the repairs that were needed for the levees.

We need to discuss all of our issues in detail.

Hi Joe,

The struggle between "Strict Father" and "Nurturant Parent" has been around for a long, long time. Two thousand years ago, a great leader advocated the "Nurturant Parent" model, using frames that were very accessible to the people of his time, as those frames were grounded in the everyday experiences of those people.

For example, the people of that era baked loaves of bread that looked very much like stones. One of the lessons that leader taught was "What father, hearing his son ask for a stone, would not give him a loaf of bread instead?" The meaning was clear to those at the time: a good parent cannot simply give the children what they ask for, but must instead understand and provide for their real needs.

When the "Strict Father" advocates came to this leader, trying to trap him by asking what was the most important law of all, he replied "Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself; these are the greatest commandments, and all other laws and prophecies come from them."

Recognizing that mere words were not enough, this leader performed miracles as well, proving the transformative power of a morality based on love, respect, compassion, and reaching out to those who had been rejected by the "Strict Father" advocates.

That leader was, of course, Jesus of Nazareth. The "Strict Father" advocates were the Pharisees, whose understanding of and relationship to God and their people was legalistic and authoritarian. Jesus' "Nurturant Parent" model of morality was truly radical - enough to get him murdered - and it is no less radical today.

The point of my heuristic-based critique is that "Strict Father" morality is inherently more attractive than "Nurturant Parent" morality. It seems to apply in more circumstances (e.g.: whether we feel threatened or safe). It offers fewer and simpler decisions. It's widely supported by our society, and indeed can be made to seem like it's "nature's way." In terms of what our animal brains are programmed to consider, the "Strict Father" morality seems like it should be better.

"Nurturant Parent" morality is more difficult. It forces us to focus on our own moral failures, rather than allowing us to set our moral compass by the worst among us. Under the "Nurturant Parent" model, the question is not whether others can or will do evil acts to us, but whether we will respond to those inevitable evil acts with evil acts of our own. It forces us to perform complex, nuanced analyses that often will not yield a "perfect" solution, but will instead compel us to make hard judgments. We're more likely to make mistakes, because of this greater complexity, and we have to be able to accept responsibility for those mistakes, learn from them, and forgive ourselves and others.

And ... often ... we'll have to struggle with these decisions largely on our own, as "Strict Father" moral analysis remains our society's preferred approach. Even when we do find friends or colleagues who support "Nurturant Parent" moral analysis, they're often just as perplexed as we are in how to apply it in specific cases. And when we encounter failure - even having made what seemed like the "right" decision - we're likely to hear that we could have avoided that failure by just looking at the problem from a "Strict Father" perspective. We're told our frame of moral analysis is "naive" or "unrealistic."

The "Strict Father" frame presumes we will have mastered it by early adulthood (at the latest) and can apply it correctly for the rest of our lives. The "Nurturant Parent" frame presumes that we will struggle with it throughout our lives, that the struggle will often be lonely, that we will often be criticized for even trying.

"Nurturant Parent" morality will always be a minority perspective. The "Strict Father" party can (and does) sell its deepest frames directly. The "Nurturant Parent" party can't, because its deepest frames just won't sell in a popularity contest. They didn't for Jesus of Nazareth. They won't today.

Crissie

Hi Joe,

Thank you for your kind comments. You wrote:

> The message your post promotes - whether intended or not - is that
> conservatism is naturally dominant and progressivism is fundamentally
> disadvantaged.

Yes, that was my message. I believe that is true, in terms of how our brains are "naturally pre-wired" to evaluate frames. Our innate heuristics - our genetic predisposition to prefer frames that are broad in scope, simple in application, and supported by society - are often reliable. These heuristics express the core values of fields as diverse as law and theoretical physics.

However....

These natural heuristics don't work as well for enlightened moral frames, because enlightened ("Nurturant Parent") morality IS NOT NATURAL. Enlightened morality requires us to struggle against our "natural" preferences, the law of the jungle in which we evolved, toward higher ideals like love, forgiveness, compassion, empathy, and responsibility for the weakest among us.

That moral frame will always be a "hard sell." It forces us to rethink "survival" in a communal and global way. It says I haven't succeeded MORALLY if I've survived individually at the expense of harming others. It was a hard sell in first century Judea, and it's only marginally less so today.

What Rockridge is attempting - to your credit - is to frame progressive policies in terms of enlightened morality. In order to sell those policies, we have to sell the enlightened moral framework on which they rely. We progressives can't go on acting as if politics and morality are separate spheres of human experience. We can't ask voters to adopt a position of Realpolitik, because Realpolitik doesn't comport with progressive policies and enlightened morality.

But if we're going to do that - and we must - we must acknowledge that enlightened (NP) morality is far more difficult to sell than natural (SF) morality. We have to expect to encounter more resistance. We'll always have to work harder, especially when world events seem (or are made to seem!) threatening in ways that make us want to rally around a Daddy-in-Chief.

We can't expect to ever have the "default" frames, especially in times of perceived danger. We can't expect to ever be able to tell as palatable a narrative as arises from "jungle rules" morality. We're always going to be fighting that current; that is the price of choosing enlightened morality as one's ethical and political basis.

We have chosen "the way of the prophet" rather than "the way of the prince." And the most dangerous temptation we'll face, as progressives, is remembering that we must continue to choose "the way of the prophet," even when that might not be the most expedient way to consolidate princely power.

This is not a message of depair. It's calling us to a more difficult vision, with our eyes open to the difficulty of that vision.

Crissie

Joe, I didn't find Crissie's comments despairing. I found them realistic. Also revealing, and leading to the true nature of frames.

The simple fact is, as every follower of the Nazarene who truly pays attention knows: frames must be changed from within. This can be a massive struggle, one most people don't even want to attempt. As Crissie pointed out, our society and upbringing have for a long time adopted the SF model. Most of us adopt frames like that from early childhood.

Changing a frame is especially difficult when everyone around you accepts that frame as valid and viable. That's why some of the greatest frame-changers of all time came to bad ends.

This does not mean those frames can't be changed. But rather than trying to change the frames of others, we need to change our own frames first. There will be a great deal of resistance from both within and without.

That's not a despairing message. That's a clear-eyed, realistic one. We need to accept and understand the difficulty that we will face, and recognize that until we change our own frames it will be all but impossible to alter someone else's.

Allow me to provide one more example of the difficulty. Among Jesus' apostle were women. During the first two hundred years of the church, there were many women priests. But then the old, familiar patriarchal attitude kicked in, women were barred from priesthood, and the men who remained not only limited the priesthood to themselves, but demanded they be called Father as well. Even after two hundred years, that frame reasserted itself, and despite changing views of women today, the ascension of women to pastorship and priesthood in some sects has torn the sects apart. It's not going to be an easy frame to change.

But that doesn't mean it can't be done.

Sue

Hi Joe,

Thanks again for the kind words. After conceding that most of the world's governments have been based on SF moral frames, you wrote:

> The progressive framing of history is not focused on the strict dominance
> of people for two reasons:
>
> 1. When we focus our attention on the harmful structures in society, we
> are discouraged from believing progressive change can happen.
> 2. When we focus our attention on the inspiring efforts of people to change
> society for the better, we have a source of hope that change is inevitable.

Courage is a "contested" moral virtue. It exists in both SF and NP frames, but in very different forms. Both SF and NP framers talk about "courage" and thus it may seem like a common virtue, but they use that word very differently.

In the SF frame, the Strict Father makes truly courageous decisions; the courage of the children is that of trustful obedience. Within this frame, those who recognize difficulties in the Father's chosen path are undermining trust in and thus betraying the Father, because he is aware of them and would not have ordered the children to attempt something unless he were certain their success was inevitable (provided they obey). The Strict Father doesn't trust the children to make courageous choices on their own, so difficulties must be obscured. Instead, any discussion should focus on inspirational narratives that make it seem as if victory is inevitable.

In the NP frame, while the Parent teaches sound moral values, the children are expected to courageously apply those values, to make enlightened moral decisions and then act on them. Recognizing the difficulties is not "discouraging." Indeed, recognizing those difficulties "sets the table" for courage; if the decision were easy, no courage would be needed. The Nurturant Parent trusts the children to have the courage to make the right choices. Indeed, the Nurt