"Strict Father" Or "Nurturant Parent": Our Upbringing Pretty Much Dictates Our Political Orientation

"Strict Father" Or "Nurturant Parent": Our Upbringing Pretty Much Dictates Our Political Orientation

https://www.npr.org/2016/09/13/493615864/when-it-comes-to-our-politics-family-matters

Alan: My longstanding befuddlement over the mutual antagonism between "right" and "left" (and the corresponding self-certainty of both camps) suddenly dissolved when I discovered the work of Cal Berkeley Professor George Lakoff.

Lakoff's research revealed that our political values are typically determined in childhood when "we" are reared, primarily, by a "strict father," or by a "nurturant parent."

In later life, our political leanings correspond to our childhood conditioning and, "as night follows day," we routinely resort to the fundamental parental values implanted during our formative years.

By adhering to "moral strictness" or "nurturant empathy" we are, in effect, turning to ideological "comfort foods" whose appeal is reinforced by a sense of faithfulness to our parents, the people who originally made our survival and comfort possible.

"If it worked for us, surely it will work for everybody."

The following NPR link to Hidden Brain's "Our Politics, Our Parenting" is enlightening. https://www.npr.org/2016/09/13/493615864/when-it-comes-to-our-politics-family-matters (I recommend the audio file over the transcript. I would also change the last word of this piece from "love" to "attachment.")

"The Strict Father" model of parenting - and its political sequelae - is probed in greater depth by Lakoff himself in "The Strict Fater Is At the Core Of Conservative Ideology And Values." https://truthout.org/articles/the-strict-father-is-at-the-core-of-conservative-ideology-and-values/

"Strict Father" And "Nurturant Parent" Revisited 
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/07/strict-father-and-indulgent-parent.html