The All New Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate

by George Lakoff

The private depends on the public. Public resources make private life possible. It doesn’t take much to see this. The evidence is all around us every day. There used to be signs on public projects: “Your tax money at work!” But such signs appear no more and the most basic truth of our democracy goes largely unspoken. Why? Progressives take it for granted, as part of their moral and practical assumptions, like breathing or noting that the sky is blue. This is an important fact about how brains work. Some ideas and some knowledge are so deep that they rarely if ever even come to consciousness. Nobody goes around saying things like, “People breathe,” or “You have a nose.” But for conservatives, the very idea that the private depends on the public is anathema—immoral. Conservatives have a different view of responsibility. Whereas progressives believe centrally in empathy (caring about their fellow citizens), both personal and social responsibility, and a commitment toward doing their best toward those ends, conservatives believe only in personal responsibility.