Fledgling words of wisdom - release 1

Mike Sandler says in the Huff and Puff Post: " Cognitive scientist George Lakoff notes that people will block out facts that conflict with their existing worldview. In Lakoff's framework, many conservatives have a strict father frame that places humans above nature. On the surface, climate change would seem to reinforce this. We are dominating the earth? Great! But if the climate goes out of control, and begins to threaten our current way of life and civilization itself, then this puts humans in a subjugated, reactive mode, which is unacceptable to the strict father mindset."

This got TWW to wondering if there is a liberal equivalent to George Lakoff's strict father metaphor. (TWW does not know what a metaphor is but will use the word anyway in this post). It is possible the political liberal people are free of using metaphors when they think since they are enlightened but that seems doubtful since Lakoff seems to say everybody thinks with metaphors.

So TWW proposes based on his empirical observations liberal people think using the Ignorant Sinner metaphor . Everyone who is not a liberal then is an ignorant sinner. This is the liberal equivalent to saying everyone who has conservative values frames their world with the strict father metaphor. This metaphor explains how liberals see the world and act. Liberals then have a purpose in life. They need to educate the conservatives who are ignorant with their superior knowledge they have from many years of education (perhaps schooling is a better term). It is called debunking myths.

Let's try a few examples:

• Global warming - Liberals think Igorant Sinners drive SUVs and pollute the world but cannot see reality as seen in the quote at the beginning of the article. Recent climate science (Roy Spencer's new book for example) is questioning the party line of the Anthropogenic Global Warming crowd so we will have to see how the people who think with the Ignorant Sinner metaphor react. Will they deny 'reality' just like the Strict Father people deny the liberal truth of Climate Change? Will their Ignorant Sinner metaphor blind them the same way the Strict Father metaphor blinds the conservatives?

• Trees - In the area where TWW lives there (according to tree hugger myths) were zillions of old growth white pine the Ignorant Sinners cut down and then left the area to rot . The problem was the white pines came during a colder period of time (the Little Ice Age?) in about the 16th century. Virgin white pines were not here forever until the Ignorant Sinners cut them down. Are the liberals capable of knowing there were not always virgin white pines in this area?

• Arizona - Does the Ignorant Sinner metaphor keep the liberals from seeing the difference between legal immigration and illegal immigration?   Listen to them talk. It is just immigration all mixed together.   Part of the Ignorant Sinner view also is to call the ignorant sinners rascist at at every opportunity.  So now white race people with hispanic names (like you see every time some form asks you for your race) are not part of the white race?  How can people be rascist against members of their own race?  It is possible if you view the world through the Ignorant Sinner metaphor. 

• more in a later posting if TWW can get beyond his Strict Father metaphor way of thinking