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The president wrote of empathy in The Audacity of Hope, “It is at the heart of my moral code and it is how I understand the Golden Rule — not simply as a call to sympathy or charity, but as something more demanding, a call to stand in somebody else’s shoes and see through their eyes.”
In this essay published by Buzzflash Professor George Lakoff explains what Democrats need to do to fight back against an all out attack on progressive ideals.
This is not about a confirmation fight, but about how empathy, President Barack Obama's highest principle sought in a Supreme Court Justice is under assault.
No matter whether the attacks are beyond the pale from Limbaugh, O'Rielly, Gingrich and G. Gordon Liddy or from the velvet-gloved David Brooks the underlying conservative message is the same.
While most conservatives realize they are not going to win this confirmation battle, they hope to reinforce the conservative messaging and reignite fears within the thinking of those who crossed over to vote for Obama.
Therein lies the peril for 2010 and beyond. Lakoff tells us why it is so critical that we do not allow conservatives to reframe empathy as a personal value. This essay is a MUST READ. by26Dems
The introduction is printed here.
Empathy, Sotomayor, and Democracy: The Conservative Stealth Strategy, By George Lakoff
Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 05/31/2009 - 2:05pm.
Guest Contribution
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
By George Lakoff
The Sotomayor nomination has given radical conservatives new life. They have launched an attack that is nominally aimed at Judge Sotomayor. But it is really a coordinated stealth attack — on President Obama’s central vision, on progressive thought itself, and on Republicans who might stray from the conservative hard line.
There are several fronts: Empathy, feelings, racism, activist judges. Each one has a hidden dimension. And if progressives think conservative attacks are just about Sotomayor, they may wind up helping conservatives regroup.
Conservatives believe that Sotomayor will be confirmed, and so their attacks may seem irrational to Democrats, a last gasp, a grasping at straws, a sign that the party is breaking up.
Actually, something sneakier and possibly dangerous is going on.
Let’s start with the attack on empathy. Why empathy? Isn’t empathy a good thing?
Empathy is at the heart of progressive thought. It is the capacity to put oneself in the shoes of others — not just individuals, but whole categories of people: one’s countrymen, those in other countries, other living beings, especially those who are in some way oppressed, threatened, or harmed.
Empathy is the capacity to care, to feel what others feel, to understand what others are facing and what their lives are like.
Empathy extends well beyond feeling to understanding, and it extends beyond individuals to groups, communities, peoples, even species.
Empathy is at the heart of real rationality, because it goes to the heart of our values, which are the basis of our sense of justice.
Read the whole article here
