Moral Politics

How Liberals and Conservatives Think, 3rd Edition

By: George Lakoff

Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi

When Moral Politics was first published two decades ago, it redefined how Americans think and talk about politics through the lens of cognitive political psychology. Today, George Lakoff's classic text has become all the more relevant, as liberals and conservatives have come to hold even more vigorously opposed views of the world, with the underlying assumptions of their respective worldviews at the level of basic morality. Even more so than when Lakoff wrote, liberals and conservatives simply have very different, deeply held beliefs about what is right and wrong.

Lakoff reveals radically different but remarkably consistent conceptions of morality on both the left and right. Moral worldviews, like most deep ways of understanding the world, are unconscious - part of our "hard-wired" brain circuitry. When confronted with facts that don't fit our moral worldview, our brains work automatically and unconsciously to ignore or reject these facts, and it takes extraordinary openness and awareness of this phenomenon to pay critical attention to the vast number of facts we are presented with each day.

For this new edition, Lakoff has added a new preface and afterword, extending his observations to major ideological conflicts since the book's original publication, from the Affordable Care Act to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the recent financial crisis, and the effects of global warming. One might have hoped such massive changes would bring people together, but the reverse has actually happened; the divide between liberals and conservatives has become stronger and more virulent.

To have any hope of bringing mutual respect to the current social and political divide, we need to clearly understand the problem and make it part of our contemporary public discourse. Moral Politics offers a much-needed wake-up call to both the left and the right.

©1996, 2002, 2016 George Lakoff (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Enlightening

Did not like the overwhelming redundancy. Liked the explanations given by the author for basis of stance of both liberals and conservatives.

extremely insightful. awful to get through.

After listning to this audiobook, I feel like I finally "get it." For the first time, I actually have a framework to understand why liberals and conservatives think the way they do, and why they support such a (previously) strange bunch of (seemingly) unrelated positions. I highly recommend this book, and I wish its message were more widely known.

The only down-side is that the text itself is extrmely inaccessible, and written by someone who obviously doesn't do anything but write extremely high-minded intellectual academic papers all day. I can't imagine anyone trying to actually read this book in hard copy - I think I only got through parts of it by simply letting the narrator talk and waiting until it started to get less abstract. That being said, I still think it's an extremely important book, and I can definitely say it lines up with all that I've leaned recently about human psychology and development (and I've been learning a lot, since I'm a new parent and have been absorbing developmental psychology like a sponge).

If you go for it... keep at it. I know, it's awful to slog through, but it starts coming together and gets much better around chapter 8 or 9.

Illuminating and timely

This book explains so much about politics that I have found confusing. Life-changing! I would like every American to read this book.

Insight like you have never seen

This is an amazing book that will interest any political junkie out there. The middle is a little long and repetitive but it begins and ends a with fascinating analysis of American politics. It will not disappoint.

muddled

It was presented as objective, but quickly became biased. I do recommend, but only as something to consider.

well hell...could have used this sooner

Lakoff walks through organization of thought and then helps the listener understand the downstream effects.

The other side isn't crazy.

Examines the moral frameworks of liberals and conservatives, showing how they're internally consistent, even reasonable.

Another Lakoff Book for Our Time

This is a nice book that goes a long way towards explaining American politics. It is thought provoking at the very least.

Excellent reading

The subject matter of the book was well presented. Lots to consider. Well worth reading again.

14 Hours Beating Up a Strawman

As a conservative I thought this book would be interesting. It was not. It was tiring.

First off, you should know before reading this book that is is dated to the late 90s. The "liberal" and "conservative" perspectives are from that time and where the author adds an afterword and attempts to bridge the foundational concept of the book to modern times and show that it still holds, like everything else in the book the case is poorly made. It is weird listening to this author complain about the stuff we used to complain about. It all seems so petty from my seat in 2023.

The author's premise is that there are two paradigms that shape our thoughts/beliefs/language/morality: 1. Strict Father and 2. Nurturant Parent. The author takes the Strict Father model and dials every aspect up to a toxic 11 and then explains why the nurturant parent is clearly better. You can guess which political side the author projects to which paradigm and you would likely guess correctly. The author is hopelessly biased and does not even try to handle both perspectives fairly. In the end, he comes off as a "strict father" himself. But he would argue that's OK because he is an intellectual and an "expert" - and they must always be trusted.