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THB's comment (thanks for becoming a Patron, BTW) about how self support is so important to sustain independent groups reminded me of what I've been reading in "Whose Freedom" by George Lakoff.
I'm still not entirely confortable with the Strict Father vs Nurturant Parent model, but it does so much to decode the frames the Right Wing has been using and also to unify the myriad interest groups on the Left:
The Nurturant Parent Model
In this model, both parents (if there are two) are equally responsible. There is no gender hierarchy. The job of a parent is to nurture his or her children, and to raise the children to be nurturers of others! Nurturance involves empathy and responsibility (for both oneself and others), as well as everything that responsibility requires: strength, competence, endurance, and so on.
Nurturant parenting is the opposite of permissive parenting since it stresses caring about others, responsibility for oneself, and responsibility for others.
This elaboration of the definition was a revelation to me.
First off, the idea of responsibility. In the Conservative
, Strict Father model, the responsibility of the parent only extends as far as training the children, through discipline and punishment, to adopt strict moral values. If the children fail to succeed in life, it is only because they have failed to adopt the strict moral values, and their failure is entirely their own fault.
Therefore, the Strict Father (and anyone who believes in the Strict Father model) is absolved of any responsibility for social problems that affect their fellow citizens. Poverty? Those people are lazy. Drug addiction? Those people lack discipline. And so on.
This is, to me, the main psychological benefit of Conservatism (and LiberRetardIanism): absolution from feelings of guilt generated by the inborn human instinct for empathy towards others.
Second, the idea that the opposite of the Strict Father is NOT the Permissive Parent. This is how the Right Wing likes to portray those who do not adopt their value system: lazy, drug-addled, incompetent, bleeding-heart hippies.
As Lakoff points out, being responsible for others requires strength and competence. If you don't take care of yourself you can't take care of anyone else.
So, once you've put food on yourself and your family, supporting your community is the Progessive thing to do. And this is not motivated by guilt, it's motivated by a righteous sense of responsibility.
Also, the benefits come back to you as an individual. As THB illustrated with the example of AA, supporting a strong community of which you are a part benefits everyone, including yourself.
Some people think of blogs as online newspapers. I think of them as online communities. Corrente is my community.
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i just finished being a nurturer all week
my niece is adorable and it's easy to do. but as far as the model goes, it reminds me of what i always think of when i'm aunt-ing. women know all about "authority" and organization, especially women with children. you have to or you're in hell. the long running theme of the patriarchy is that women can't be trusted, especially in times of war or crisis, to handle the responibilities of great authority. and yet they are trusted to raised male children to adulthood, often with no male input at all.
it's a fine time to bring back the construction of Nurturer as leader. the cross-reading of this post, as i think some wingnuts do when they hear this sort of argument, is that anyone who cares for others is automatically "weak," and thus not fit for command. we can change that.
CD, this paragraph is for you
From George Lakoff, the very next thing after the quote above:
Nurturant parents are authoritative without being authoritarian. That is, because they are responsible for and to their children, they become competent parents, learning what they need to learn, and earn the respect of their children - in part by respecting the children. They set fair and reasonable limits and rules, and take the trouble to explain and discuss those limits and rules with their children.
The Preznit as Mah Daddy?
I think not. No fuukin' way.
you, 'mommy'; you, too, 'dad'...You're not the boss of me...no fuukin way!
The view of the National Leader as ANY kind of parent should be abhorrent to a free people. Authoritarian? Nurturant? Puh--fucking-Leeze! Mebbe it's the best one can hope for under a monarchy, that the despot be at least kind.
But for a free People to submit to the will of aq Preznit the way children are--finally, no matter the parental posture--expected to submit to the will and authority of the Parent?
Fuck
these tricksy addition problems are testing the top of my skill-set, btw...
Addendum:
Quoting Lakoff (whom I've admired for 30 years): "They set fair and reasonable limits and rules, and take the trouble to explain and discuss those limits and rules with their children."
Here's what I mean:
In a 'family,' the authority of the parent, finally, is disposative. The 'family" discusses the decisions of the parents, but the parents still set 'limits & rules,' whether they're explained and discussed or not.
But a nation's NOT a 'family.' It's a more-or-less accidental association of equals. In a democracy, I thought the idea was that all the folks sorta got together and decided these things through the media of national debate.
The entire psycho-sociological trajectory of the modern age--certainly the telos of the 'mass media' and its progeny--has been to infantilize the People, to reduce 'em to mewling, pewling, incontinent babes, looked after by the 'elites.'
Remember Baby Huey? The gigantic, well-meaning 'baby' of the old comix? Metaphor-time: enormous, and outsized, disproportionate, but--and because--dangerous; needing to be distracted and placated lest he cause "REAL" trouble (to whom?)?
And the kids are "emanations" of the father's will
If you truly do think of the nation as a "family" (i.e., are really a fascist or close to it), then the theory of the unitary executive makes perfect sense. The attorneys, for example, have about as much independence as a cell in Big Daddy's body.
Since we are very close to the rancid heart of the authoritarian movement, here, we can expect (a) that the pushback will be vicious and that (b) weak-minded Beltway Dems will adopt a watered-down version of the same rhetoric.
Does anyone else still remember Jesse Jackson's speech to the Democratic convention back in the '90s? "They work every day." The very opposite of infantilizing.
What we should be doing more of.
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Of course, being a WASP...
... I was exposed to the distant father model. Lakoff is great, but the dichotomy is a tool, with all the strengths and weaknesses that term implies.
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi