From the point of view of a cognitive scientist, who looks at modes of thought, there are six basic types of progressives, each with a distinct mode of thought. They share all the progressive values but are distinguished by some differences.

1. Socioeconomic progressives think that everything is a matter of money and class and that all solutions are ultimately economic and social class solutions.

2. Identity politics progressives say it is time for their oppressed group to get its share now.

3. Environmentalists think in terms of sustainability of the earth, the sacredness of the earth, and the protection of native peoples.

4. Civil liberties progressives want to maintain freedoms against threats to freedom.

5. Spiritual progressives have a nurturant form of religion or spirituality, their spiritual experience has to do with their connection to other people and the world, and their spiritual practice has to do with service to other people and to their community. Spiritual progressives span the full range from Catholics and Protestants to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Goddess worshippers, and pagan mem-
bers of Wicca.

6. Antiauthoritarians say there are all sorts of illegitimate forms of authority out there and we have to fight them, whether they are big corporations or anyone else.

All six types are examples of nurturant parent morality. The problem is that many of the people who have one of these modes of thought do not recognize that theirs is just one special case of something more general, and do not see the unity in all the of progressives. They often think that theirs is the only way to be a true progressive. That is sad. It keeps people who share progressive values from coming together. We have to get past that harmful idea. The other side did.

Back in the 1950s conservatives hated each other. The financial conservatives hated the social conservatives. The libertarians did not get along with the social conservatives or the religious conservatives. And many social conservatives were not religious. A group of conservative leaders got together around William F. Buckley Jr. and others and started asking what the different groups of conservatives had in common and whether they could agree to disagree in order to promote a general conservative cause. They started magazines and think tanks, and invested billions of dollars. The first thing they did, their first victory, was getting Barry Goldwater
nominated in 1964. He lost, but when he lost they went back to the drawing board and put more money into organization.

During the Vietnam War, they noticed that most of the bright young people in the country were not becoming conservative. Conservative was a dirty word. Therefore in 1970 Lewis Powell just two months before he became a Supreme Court justise appointed by Nixon (at the time he was the chief counsel to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce), wrote a memo -- the Powell memo (http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/powell_memo_lewis.html). It was a fateful document. He said that the conservatives had to keep the country's best and brightest young people from becoming antibusiness. What we need to do, Powell said, is set up institutes within the universities and outside the universities. We have to do research, we have to write books, we have to endow professorships to teach these people the right way to think. (pp.14-15)

.... One of the most frequent uses of the nation as a person metaphor comes in the almost daily attempts to justify the war metaphorically as a "just war." The basic idea of a just war uses the nation as a person metaphor, plus two narratives that have the structure of classical fairy tales: the self-defense story and the rescue story.

In each story there is a hero, a crime, a victim, and a villain. In the self-defense story the hero and the victim are the same. In both stories the villain is inherently evil and irrational: The hero can't reason with the villain; he has to fight him and defeat or kill him. In both, the victim must be innocent and beyond reproach. In both, there is an initial crime by the villain, and the hero balances the moral books by defeating him. If all the parties are nation-persons, then self-defense and rescue stories become forms of a just war for the hero-nation.

In the Gulf War, George H. W. Bush tried out a self-defense story: Saddam was "threatening our oil lifeline." The American people didn't buy it. Then he found a winning story, a rescue story: the "rape" of Kuwait. It sold well, and is still the most popular account of that war.

In the Iraq War, George W. Bush is pushing different versions of the same two story types, and this explains a great deal of what is going on in the American press and in speeches by Bush and Powell. If they can show that Saddam Hussein equals Al-Qaeda that he is helping or harboring Al-Qaeda -- then they can make a case for the self-defense scenario, and hence for a just war. Or if weapons of mass destruction ready to be deployed are found, the self-defense scenario can be justified in another way. Indeed, despite the lack of any positive evidence and the fact that the secular Saddam and the fundamentalist bin Laden despise each other, the Bush administration has managed to convince 40 percent of the American public of the link just by asserting it. The administration has told its soldiers the same thing, and so our military personnel see themselves as going to Iraq in defense of their country. In the rescue scenario the victims are (1) the Iraqi people and (2) Saddam's neighbors, whom he has not attacked but is seen as threatening. That is why Bush and Powell keep on listing Saddam's crimes against the Iraqi people and the weapons he could use to harm his neighbors. Again, most of the American people have accepted the idea that the Iraq War is a rescue of the Iraqi people and a safeguarding of neighboring countries. Actual the war threatens the safety and well-being of the Iraqi people.

And why such enmity toward France and Germany? Via the nation as a person metaphor, they are supposed to be our "friends," and friends are supposed to be supportive and jump in and help us when we need help. Friends are supposed to be loyal. That makes France and Germany fair-weather friends! Not there when you need them.

This is how the war is being framed for the American people by the administration and the media. Millions of people around the world can see that the metaphors and fairy tales don't fit the current situation, that the Iraq War does not qualify as a just war --a "legal" war. But if you accept all these metaphors, as American: have been led to do by the administration, the press, and the lack of an effective Democratic opposition, then the Iraq War would indeed seem like a just war.

But surely most Americans have been exposed to the facts -- the lack of a credible link between Saddam and Al-Qaeda, no WMDs found, and the idea that large numbers of innocent Iraqi civilians will be killed or maimed by our bombs. Why don't they reach the rational conclusion?

One of the fundamental findings of cognitive science is that people think in terms of frames and metaphors -- conceptual structures like those we have been describing. The frames are in the synapses of our brains, physically present in the form of neural circuitry. When the facts don't fit the frames, the frames are kept and -he facts ignored.

It is a common folk theory of progressives that "the facts will set you free." If only you can get all the facts out there in the public eye , then every rational person will reach the right conclusion. It is a vain hope. Human brains just don't work that way. Framing matters. Frames once entrenched are hard to dispel.

In the Gulf War, Colin Powell began the testimony before Congress. He explained the rational actor model to Congress and gave a brief exposition of the views on war of Clausewitz, the Prussian general: War is business and politics are carried out by other means. Nations naturally seek their self-interest, and when necessary they use military force in the service of their self-interest. This is both natural and legitimate.

To the Bush administration, this war furthers our self-interest in controlling the flow of oil from the world's second-largest known reserve, and in being in the position to control the flow of oil from central Asia. This would guarantee energy domination over a significant part of the world. The United States could control oil sales around the world. And in the absence of alternative fuel development, whoever controls the worldwide distribution of oil controls politics and economics.

My 1990 paper did not stop the Gulf War. This paper will not stop the Iraq War. So why bother?

I think it is crucially important to understand the cognitive dimensions of politics---especially when most of our conceptual framing is unconscious and we may not be aware of our own metaphorical thought..... (pp.71-73) Top

.... Or [the Republican strategic initiative of] tort reform, which means putting limits on awards in lawsuits. Tort reform is a top priority for conservatives. Why do conservatives care so much about this? Well, as soon as you see the effects, you can see why they care. Because in one stroke you prohibit all of the potential lawsuits that will be the basis of future environmental legislation and regulation. That is, it is not just regulation of the chemical industry or the coal industry or the nuclear power industry or other things that are at stake. It is the regulation of everything. If parties who are harmed cannot sue immoral or negligent corporations or professionals for significant sums, the companies are free to harm the public in unlimited ways in the course of making money. And lawyers, who take risks and make significant investments in such cases, will no longer make enough money to support the risk. And corporations will be free to ignore the public good. That is what "tort reform" is about.

In addition, if you look at where Democrats get much of their money in the individual states, it is significantly from the lawyers who win tort cases. Many tort lawyers are important Democratic donors. Tort "reform"- - as conservatives call it -- cuts off this source of money. All of a sudden three-quarters of the money going to the Texas Democratic Party is not there. In addition, companies who poison the environment want to be able to cap possible awards. That way they can calculate in advance the cost of paying victims and build it into the cost of doing business. Irresponsible corporations win big from tort reform. The Republican Party wins big from tort reform. And these real purposes are hidden. The issue appears to be eliminating "frivolous lawsuits"--people getting thirty million dollars for having hot coffee spilled on them.

However, what the conservatives are really trying to achieve is not in the proposal. What they are trying to achieve follows from enacting the proposal. They don't care primarily about the lawsuits themselves. They care about getting rid of environmental, consumer, and worker protections in general. And they care about defunding the Democratic Party. That is what a strategic initiative is."

Robert Scheer (LA Times 2/22/05) is even more emphatic in his analysis of "tort reform" and the Republican use of language:

"Watching the 109th Congress, one would be forgiven for thinking our Constitution was the blueprint for a government of Big Business, by Big Business and for Big Business. Forget the people — this is Robin Hood in reverse. Here's the agenda, as laid out by the president and the Republicans who control Congress: First, limit people's power to right wrongs done to them by corporations. Next, force people to repay usurious loans to credit card companies that make gazillions off the fine print. Then, for the coup de grace, hand over history's most successful public safety net to Wall Street. Of course, the GOP and the White House use slightly different language for this corporate-lobbyist trifecta: "Tort reform," "eliminating abuse of bankruptcy" and "keeping Social Security solvent" are the preferred Beltway phrasings for messing with the little guy."

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Now, James Dobson [in Dare to Discipline] is very clear about the connection between the strict father worldview and free market capitalism. The link is the morality of self-interest, which is a version of Adam Smith's view of capitalism. Adam Smith said that if everyone pursues their own profit, then the Profit of all will be maximized by the invisible hand -- that is, by nature -- just naturally. Go about pursuing your own profit, and you are helping everyone.

This is linked to a general metaphor that views well,being as wealth. For example, if I do you a favor, you say, "I owe you one" or "I'm in your debt." Doing something good for someone is metaphorically like giving him money. He "owes" you something. And he says, "How can I ever repay you?"

Applying this metaphor to Adam Smith's "law of nature, " if everyone pursues her own self-interest, then by the invisible hand, by nature, the self-interest of all will be maximized. That is, it is moral to pursue your self-interest, and there is a name for those people who do not do it. The name is do-gooder. A do-gooder is someone who is trying to help someone else rather than herself and is getting in the way of those who are pursuing their self-interest. Do-gooders screw up the system.

In this model there is also a definition of what it means to become a good person. A good person -- moral person-is someone who is disciplined enough to be obedient, to learn what is right, do what is rot and not do what is wrong, and to pursue her self-interest to prosper and become self-reliant. A good child grows up to be like that. A bad child is one who does not learn discipline, does not function morally, does not do what is right, and therefore is not disciplined enough to become prosperous. She cannot take care of herself and thus becomes dependent.

When the good children are mature, they either have learned discipline and can prosper, or have failed to learn it. From this point on the strict father is not to meddle in their lives. This translates politically into no government meddling.

Consider what all this means for social programs. It is immoral to give people things they have not earned, because then they will not develop discipline and will become both dependent and immoral This theory says that social programs are immoral because they make people dependent. Promoting social programs is immoral. And what does this say about budgets? Well, if there are a lot of progressives in Congress who think that there should be social programs, and if you believe that social programs are immoral how do you stop these immoral people?

It is quite simple. What you have to do is reward the good people -- the ones whose prosperity reveals their discipline and hence their capacity for morality -- with a tax cut, and make it big enough so that there is not enough money left for social programs. By this logic, the deficit is a good thing. As Grover Norquist says, it "starves the beast."

Where liberals and fiscal conservatives take Bush's huge deficit bad, right-wing radicals following strict father morality see it as good In the State of the Union address in January 2004, the president said that he thinks they can cut the deficit in half by cutting out "wasteful spending"-that is, spending for "bad" social programs. Are conservatives against all government? No. They are not against the military, they are not against homeland defense, they are not against the current Department of Justice, nor against the courts, nor the Departments of Treasury and Commerce. There are many aspects of government that they like very much. They are not against government subsidies for industry. Subsidies for corporations, which reward the good people -- the investors in those corporations --are great. No problem there.

But they are against nurturance and care. They are against social programs that take care of people. That is what they see as wrong. That is what they are trying to eliminate on moral grounds. That is why they are not merely a bunch of crazies or mean and greedy -- or stupid -- people, as many liberals believe. What is even scarier is that conservatives believe it. They believe it is moral.... [pp.8-9]