9. Social programs

Liberals

• conceptualized metaphorically as investments in presently unproductive citizens (those who do not pay taxes and who use up government funds) to make them into productive citizens (those who do).

• also conceptualize social programs as investments in communities.

• they see certain people and groups of people as "disadvantaged." For historical, social, or health reasons, which are not faults of their own, such people have been prevented from being able to compete fairly in pursuit of their self-interest.

• Nurturant Parent morality, applied to politics, makes social programs moral. And the idea that helping such communities is an excellent form of national service is another plus, which makes it triply moral. That is why it is one of President Clinton's favorite programs.

Conservatives

• social programs – spoiling people. Instead of having to learn to fend for themselves, people can depend on the public dole. This makes them morally weak, removing the need for self-discipline and willpower. If anyone, no matter how poor, can discipline himself to climb the ladder of opportunity, then those that don't do so have only themselves to blame.

• a morally justifiable social program might be something like disaster relief to help self-disciplined and generally self-reliant people get back on their feet after a flood or fire or earthquake.

• the principle of the Morality of Reward and Punishment: if people were not rewarded for being self-disciplined and punished for being slothful, there would be no self-discipline and society would break down.

Taxes

• Conservatives When the rich are taxed more than others for making a lot more money, they are, according to conservatives, being punished for being model citizens, for doing what, according to the American Dream, they are supposed to do.

• Taxation of the rich is, to conservatives, punishment for doing what is right and succeeding at it. It is a violation of the Morality of Reward and Punishment. In the conservative worldview, the rich have earned their money and, according to the Morality of Reward and Punishment, deserve to keep it. Taxation – the forcible taking of their money from them against their will– is seen as unfair and immoral, a kind of theft. That makes the federal government a thief. Hence, a common conservative attitude toward the government: You can't trust it, since, like a thief, it's always trying to find ways to take your money.

• Government should tax less and spend less. Cutting spending to balance the budget should be the priority. Higher income earners should have an incentive to invest (credits). Charity is the responsibility of the people.

• Liberals

• Nation As Family metaphor: citizens who have more have a duty to help out those who have much less. Progressive taxation is a form of meeting this duty. Rich conservatives who are trying to get out of paying taxes are seen as selfish and mean-spirited. The nation has helped provide for them and it is their turn to help provide for others.

• Government should provide more services to the less fortunate (like health care) and increase taxes if necessary. High-income earners should pay a larger percentage of their income as taxes.

•

Military Spending

Conservatives

• By the Nation As Family metaphor, this implies that the major function of the government is, above all else, to protect the nation. That is why conservatives see the funding of the military as moral, while the funding of social programs is seen as immoral.

• There is more than a little irony in this. The military is, on the inside, a huge social program ( против соц прогрмм но за спонсирование армии – парадокс ) with its own health care, schools, housing, pensions, education benefits, PX discounts, officers' clubs, golf courses, and so on– all paid for at public expense. But the military represents the strength of the nation, and strength has the highest priority in the Strict Father model.

• Moreover, the military itself is structured by Strict Father morality. It has a hierarchical authority structure, which is mostly male and sets strict moral bounds. Supporting the military as an institution is supporting the culture of Strict Father morality.

• to conservatives, support for the military is support for conservative values. People who go through the military often enter with Strict Father moral values or acquire them. To spend less money on the military is to weaken Strict Father morality – and political conservatism

Liberals

• see other priorities as more important than the military. They note that the U.S. spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined. Given that we are not in danger of being invaded, and given the end of the Cold War, liberals see no need for much of the military spending. We still maintain 100,000 NATO troops in Europe, which to many liberals is pointless. Much of the money spent on the military could be spent in much better ways, strictly from the point of view of cost-effective government.

• Correspondingly, for liberals, spending less money on the military means freeing up more for social programs. That, for liberals, is a means to a moral end.

10.10. Non-ideological reasons for being a liberal: raising real children.

There are good reasons to choose liberalism. If we were to be asked to list those reasons and the bases for them very briefly here is what that list would be:

Reason 1. The Nurturant Parent model is superior as a method of childrearing.

Reason 2. Strict Father morality requires a view of human thought that is at odds with what we know about the way the mind works.

Reason 3.Strict Father morality often finds morality in harm; Nurturant Parent morality does not.

The conservative family values agenda is, at present, being set primarily by fundamentalist Christians. These groups have been most explicit in devel­oping a Strict Father approach to childrearing and have been extremely active in promoting their approach.

Virtually all of the mainstream experts on childrearing see the Strict Father model as being destructive to children. A nurturant approach is preferred. And most of the child development literature within the field of developmental psychology points in one direction: childrearing according to the Strict Father model harms children; a Nurturant Parent model is far superior.

The claims to legitimacy for the conservative family val­ues enterprise rest with the fundamentalist Christian commu­nity, a community whose conclusions are not based on em­pirical research but on a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible.

Thus, there is no independent or nonideological basis whatever for conservative claims about family values. Let us look closely at what some conservative Christian childrearing manuals have to say about how children should be raised.

These manuals are clear on many points:

1. Children are inherently sinful and defiant.

2. Only punishment and reward will train children away from defiance and pursuing their sinful desires.

3. The only way a child can be raised properly is for a father to demand absolute obedience to his authority. Any questioning of authority requires swift and painful pun­ishment.

4. Obedience can be taught only through painful corporal punishment—by whipping with belts or beating with switches or paddles.

5. Continued disobedience requires greater beating.

6. Punishment for disobedience is a form of love.

7. Parental authority is a proper model for all authority, and children must learn to obey authority so that they can wield it properly in later life.

What is it that leads to disturbed family relationships, to child abuse, to alienated, dysfunctional adults who have little stake in society? There are many lines of research into this question. One of the principal ones is attachment theory. It was first developed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth.

Attachment theory indicates the opposite, that "getting love reliably and consistently makes the child feel worthy of love; and his perception that he can attain what he needs from those around him yields the sense that he is an effective person who can have an impact on his world"

Self-discipline and self-denial are not what makes children self-reliant. Nurturance does not spoil children.

The basic claim of attachment theory, considerably over­simplified, is this: A child will function better in later life if he is "securely attached" to his mother or father or other caregiver from birth. That is, he will be more self-reliant, responsible, socially adept, and confident. Secure attachment arises from regular, loving interaction, especially when the child desires it. Letting a child go it alone and tough it out, denying him loving interaction when he wants it does not create strength, confidence, and self-reliance. It creates "avoidant attachment"—lack of trust, difficulties in relating positively to others, lack of respect for and responsibility toward others, and in many cases antisocial or criminal be­havior and rage. Alternate unsure experiences of attachment and avoidance by parents create a third type of attachment: ambivalent attachment, which results in ambivalent behavior towards others in later life, a dread of abandonment and an inability to see one's own responsibility in relationships, and continuing feelings of anger and hurt toward one's .parents.

These results appear at present to support the values of the Nurturant Parent model over the Strict Father model.

Importantly, it is not just Strict Father family values that harm children. The issue is not one parent or two. The issue is the quality of nurturance.

There is other research that has focused on what happens later or throughout childhood - Socialization Research as a head-to-head comparison between the Strict Father and Nurturant Parent models in the tradition of Diana Baumrind's fourfold scheme. She distinguishes between what she calls "authori­tarian" ("the Strict Father") and "authoritative" ("the Nurturant Parent") childrearing styles.

The "authoritative" parent, or "nurturant" parent, encourages independence, original­ity, and open communication, and listens to the child's point of view as well as expressing his own. The result is not dependence, as the Strict Father model would predict, but independence, just as the Nurturant Parent model does predict.

The Nurturant Parent model predicts that by encouraging independence and engaging the child in dialogue, the child will become "agentic," that is, able to function on his own both mentally and socially. This is the opposite of what the Strict Father model would predict, that only through strict punitive discipline enforcing obedience to an external author­ity can children internalize authority and be able to think and act on their own. The research shows that this prediction of the Strict Father model is false.

The Nurturant Parent model predicts that encouragement, respect, and being listened to seriously should enable chil­dren to be able to exercise self-control, act confidently, and have high self-esteem. The research indicates that such a strategy does work. Again the result is the opposite of what the Strict Father model would predict.

The Nurturant Parent model predicts that if children get to openly discuss reasons for what they are being told to do and how their actions will affect other people, then they will become socially responsible.

In short, the authoritarian (Strict Father) model fails miser­ably at raising children; the authoritative (Nurturant Parent) model works extremely well.