Is Conservatism a Radial Category?

I'm still not finished discussing the Berkeley study. One possible excuse for it is that conservatism might be a radial category. There is a minor problem that, in order for a radial category to work, there must be a core for it to radiate out from. Let's look at Eric Raymond's description of a radial category:

… I need to introduce the concept linguist George Lakoff calls “radial category”, one that is not defined by any one logical predicate, but by a central prototype and a set of permissible or customary variations. As a simple example, in English the category “fruit” does not correspond to any uniformity of structure that a botanist could recognize. Rather, the category has a prototype “apple”, and things are recognized as fruits to the extent that they are either (a) like an apple, or (b) like something that has already been sorted into the “like an apple” category.

Radial categories have central members (“apple”, “pear”, “orange”) whose membership is certain, and peripheral members (“coconut”, “avocado”) whose membership is tenuous. Membership is graded by the distance from the central prototype — roughly, the number of traits that have to mutate to get one from being like the prototype to like the instance in question. Some traits are important and tend to be conserved across the entire radial category (strong flavor including sweetness) while some are only weakly bound (color).

In most radial categories, it is possible to point out members that are counterexamples to any single intensional (“logical”) definition, but traits that are common to the core prototypes nevertheless tend to be strongly bound. Thus, “coconut” is a counterexample to the strongly-bound trait that fruits have soft skins, but it is sorted as “fruit” because (like the prototype members) it has an easily-chewable interior with a sweet flavor.

The category “fruit” has a core. If the category “conservatism” has a core, it consists of Catholic members of the KKK who are fervent anti-semites and support Israel. I doubt if there are any such people. What's more important, those few who are closer to the core are not only disowned by the commonest examples of conservatism but they, in turn, disown common conservatives.

Now let's turn to Lakoff's article:

At this point, it is crucial to raise the issue of the Oklahoma City bombing, in which more than a hundred adults and scores of children were killed by a radical conservative who saw himself as striking at the “meddling” of the federal government in the lives of citizens. Do conservatives and conservative ideologues bear any responsibility for that bombing? Here is the answer of Gary L Bauer, president of the Family Research Council, an arm of the religious right (Family Research Council Newsletter, May 22, 1995):

How could any of us have imagined the horror of the bombing on Oklahoma City?… What do the the hundreds of thousands of parents who educate their children at home, or the millions of Americans who oppose high taxes, have to do with the thugs who bombed the federal building?

Gary Bauer is in denial, as are others on the right. The Family Research Council promotes Strict Father morality. It is the Strict Father model of the family that, under the ubiquitous Nation-as-Family metaphor, gives rise to the resentment of government “meddling” and the conservative hatred of government, and it is the application of discipline and denial in child rearing that produces conservative rage. When tens of millions of people are daily told that Strict Father morality is the only morality and that their rage is justified, the result is bound to be not just right-wing militias with automatic weapons and bomb-making capacity, but eventually action upon that rage. The lesson of Oklahoma City is that Strict Father morality does bear major responsibility for that unconscionable act. The Gary Bauers of this country, who promote Strict Father morality, have a heavy moral burden to bear. And so do most liberals, who have left the fields of morality and the family to the conservatives.

Back in 1995, it made some sense to assume that strictness produces rage. After all, that was before the application of strict crime-control measures brought crime rates down and before leniency in foreign policy let Osama bin Laden think he could get away with terrorism. It was also possible to assume that core conservatives were upset at liberal meddlers and a Republican victory would put core conservatives and common conservatives back together. In today's world, the small number of core conservatives are marching along with the far left.

One last note: If the nation is a family, then illegal aliens would be unwanted children…