George Lakoff on the Post-Katrina Era

[pegkerr]

I'd mentioned George Lakoff and his analysis of moral reasoning in conservatives and liberals. Here is what he says on that subject, post-katrina.

Thanks to minnehaha B. for the link.

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Pas de quoi.

B

[redbird]

Picked up for my Weblog. Thanks. (www.yawl.org)

[cheshyre]

Ooh, thanks. I'll probably blog it after work.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm at work and can only skim now, but will go back and read more thoroughly later. I eyed it warily to start with because I was afraid it was going to dismiss the political in favor of the moral; instead, it does what we should all be doing: connects the two.

For me this connects up to a conversation I had with Julian a few days ago, when she told me that there's an 'Impeach Bush' rally in DC planned for the 24th. Bush has done several things in the past which I felt were worthy of impeachment, so it was weird to find myself hesitating. But angry as I've been over the decisions he's made which allowed the response to this disaster to be so very bad, an impeachment is about criminal activity. I thought he'd made bad decisions, immoral decisions, but I wasn't sure they were illegal decisions. And so I thought we should have rallied for impeachment over the election debacles, or the manufactured evidence supporting a war in Iraq, or a few other things, but I wasn't sure about Katrina.

Then Julian quoted me the part of the inaugeral oath, the part about using the powers of command 'to secure the welfare of the nation.' And I thought, "That's it. That's where the law says, 'it's your job to make /good/ decisions, to the best of a reasonable person's ability,' and that's what he hasn't done."

I still don't think focusing it all on one person is a useful approach. I'm not writing this as an "Impeach Bush! Rah, rah!" response. I'm more saying that it startled and worried me how far I had to reach to find something concrete that could be used to evaluate the choices the administration has made. Lakoff's essay is about spelling out the philosophies at work; what seems strange and disturbing to me is how greatly the task of the government has been left to individual interpretation, so that it's /possible/ for an administration which sees no useful role for the government in 'securing the nation's welfare' at all can procede accordingly.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I can't tell you how much I hate to play devil's advocate, but I find it hard to embrace any philosophy that discounts nearly half of the people in the country. There has to be a way of transcending the dichotomy between "we're all in this together" and "every man for himself." Where's the political/moral philosophy that recognizes both our reliance on one another as a community and the need of individuals to acheive a degree of independence and personal reward?

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

I really like where he says that it's about "empathy" and "responsibility".

[dustybinx.livejournal.com]

First, I have to say I didn't read the entire article. I read just enough to make me mad. Ok, I'll grant that the Republicans are the party of individual responsibility. But, who has been running the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans for longer than President Bush has been in office? Perhaps the Democrats? The party of the people, the compassionate party. So, why didn't the Mayor who knows his city best do something to get his people out? His people, the unemployed, the sick, the old, the destitute. Where is the compassion of a city run by the compassionate party that can't take city buses, school buses, u-haul trucks, whatever and get out the folks who cannot help themselves? I have great empathy and sorrow for those who have suffered so greatly, but, darnit, why is it the President's fault? This is just too darn convenient.

/off soapbox/