![\"\"](\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-TF0Gsl9Tb74\/Tsrkdcvaa9I\/AAAAAAAAKX8\/etBKyEcFGxw\/s320\/00%2Bcreationism.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In a recent interview<\/a>, George Lakoff, author of Don’t Think of an Elephant<\/a>, highlights (again) his well-known disregard for “logic.”<\/p>\n To liberals, a\u00c2\u00a0lot of conservative thinking seems like a failure of\u00c2\u00a0logic<\/strong>: why would a conservative be against equal rights for\u00c2\u00a0women and yet despise the poor, when to liberate women into the world of work would create more wealth, meaning less poverty? And yet we\u00c2\u00a0instinctively understand those as features of the conservative worldview, and\u00c2\u00a0rightly so.<\/p>\n The nurturant-family model is the\u00c2\u00a0progressive view: in it, the ideals\u00c2\u00a0are empathy, interdependence, co-operation, communication, authority that is legitimate and proves its legitimacy with its openness to interrogation. “The world that the nurturant parent seeks to create has exactly the opposite properties,” Lakoff writes in\u00c2\u00a0Moral Politics<\/em>. As progressives identify failures of logic in\u00c2\u00a0the conservative position, so it works the other way round<\/strong> (one of Lakoff’s examples: “How can liberals support federal funding for Aids research and treatment, while promoting the spread of Aids by sanctioning sexual behaviour that leads to Aids?”).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Lakoff seems to be arguing that logic is not essential to political disagreement because each side thinks the other to have failed at logic in some way. \u00c2\u00a0What you need to do is highlight the strengths of your position:<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0It’s about time progressives got out there and said what’s true about themselves, as well as what’s true of the other side. If you have a strong position, let’s hear it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Point taken (maybe) about the adopting an exclusively critical position, but, I wonder, what sorts of things make your position “strong”? \u00c2\u00a0Could it be that your position accords with reality, overcomes relevant objections, etc.? \u00c2\u00a0It’s “logical” in other words?<\/p>\n If I’m not mistaken, Why We Argue<\/a> has a chapter on this very issue (featuring Lakoff!).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In a recent interview, George Lakoff, author of Don’t Think of an Elephant, highlights (again) his well-known disregard for “logic.” To liberals, a\u00c2\u00a0lot of conservative thinking seems like a failure of\u00c2\u00a0logic: why would a conservative be against equal rights for\u00c2\u00a0women and yet despise the poor, when to liberate women into the world of work would … Continue reading F**k logic, get votes<\/span>