malvasia bianca

George Lakoff had an interesting article in The Nation recently, called “Our Moral Values”, where he analyses progressives versus conservatives in terms of the morality expressed by a nurturing family versus the morality expressed by a family with a strict father, and gives some tactical suggestions based on that. Pretty sensible; I should really read more of his stuff, and I know some of my friends have been into his linguistics books. I wonder how Lakoff’s split compares with Jane Jacobs’ division of morality in Systems of Survival? I should reread that book. (Looks like she has a new book out, too.)

It also reminded me of another Nation article from last year, “A Nation of Victims”, by Renata Brooks. She talks about how Bush uses dependency-creating language, charactistic of the linguistic tricks abusers use to get their ways. The strict father/husband gone horribly wrong, basically.