Moral Politics or Democracy in America

Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think

Author: George Lakoff

In this classic text, the first full-scale application of cognitive science to politics, George Lakoff analyzes the unconscious and rhetorical worldviews of liberals and conservatives, discovering radically different but remarkably consistent conceptions of morality on both the left and right. For this new edition, Lakoff adds a preface and an afterword extending his observations to major ideological conflicts since the book's original publication, from the impeachment of Bill Clinton to the 2000 presidential election and its aftermath.

Table of Contents:

Preface
Acknowledgments
Part I: Introduction
1. The Minds and Politics
2. The Worldview Problem for American Politics
Part II: Moral Conceptual Systems
3. Experiential Morality
4. Keeping the Moral Books
5. Strict Father Morality
6. Nurturant Parent Morality
Part III: From Family-Based Morality to Politics
7. Why We Need a New Understanding of American Politics
8. The Nature of the Model
9. Moral Categories in Politics
Part IV: The Hard Issues
10. Social Programs and Taxes
11. Crime and the Death Penalty
12. Regulation and the Environment
13. The Culture Wars: From Affirmative Action to the Arts
14. Two Models of Christianity
15. Abortion
16. How Can You Love Your Country and Hate Your Government?
Part V: Summing Up
17. Varieties of Liberals and Conservatives
18. Pathologies, Stereotypes, and Distortions
19. Can There Be a Politics without Family Values?
Part VI: Who’s Right? And How Can You Tell?
20. Nonideological Reasons for Being a Liberal
21. Raising Real Children
22. The Human Mind
23. Basic Humanity
Epilogue: Problems for Public Discourse
Afterword
References
Index

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Democracy in America (The Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading Series)

Author: Alexis de Tocquevill

Written nearly 170 years ago, Democracy in America is a masterful display of insight and foresight into all things American. Doubting whether the American experiment in equality could work, Tocqueville conjectured that democracy would erect a society that would succumb to a different type of tyranny than that of a monarchy or aristocracy - that of the majority. Through detailed interviews with "the most informed men" he could meet, he offers an examination of American institutions and the fabric of American life.

About the Author:Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) worked first as a magistrate and then as a government administrator. Because he fell out of political favor due to his perceived Bourbon sympathies during the July Revolution, he was required to fund his nine-month visit to America himself, even though he was ostensibly coming to complete a survey of the American penal system on behalf of the French government. When Tocqueville arrived in America in May of 1831 he was far more interested in his own questions about America's political future, and Democracy in America is the result of extensive personal research on the subject.<%END%>

Booknews

Political philosophers Mansfield (government, Harvard U.) and Winthrop (constitutional government, Harvard U.) present a new translation -- only the third since the original two-volume work was published in 1835 and 1840 -- aiming to restore the nuances of Tocqueville's language. Tocqueville himself was not satisfied with the 19th-century translation; the other, prepared in the late 1960s (Harper & Row), is cited in This translation is based on a recent critical French edition (Editions Gallimard, 1992). Mansfield and Winthrop provide a substantial introduction placing the work and its author in historical and philosophical context, as well as annotations elucidating references that are no longer familiar to readers. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

New York Times Book Review - Caleb Crain

Thanks to [Tocqueville's] prescience, a new edition of ''Democracy in America'' is always timely.