ジョージ・レイコフ（wikipediaの項）
レッシグのブログに招待されたGranny D（簡単な経歴）*1のこのエントリを読んで、「Lakoffの"Don't Think of an Elephant"？ 俺が知ってるレイコフというと著名な認知言語学者ぐらいだけど（でも本当に名前しか知らない）…… かなり政治的に主張のはっきりした本みたいだし、別人かな？」と思って調べると同一人物だった。
学者としての認知意味論の研究成果を使って、政治的言説の分析を行っているようだ。「左」と「右」の噛み合わなさというのは色んなとこのブログを読んでいて嫌でも痛感するが、そういった方面を理解する一助になるのかな。政治関係で一番面白そうな著作、『比喩(メタファー)によるモラルと政治―米国における保守とリベラル』（原題："Moral Politics : How Liberals and Conservatives Think"）は翻訳されているので、本屋で内容を調べてみよう。
追記。上にwikipediaのリンクを追加。またwebで見つけたインタビューも読んだ。以下で言ってることはある意味常識的事柄だが、こうやって整理されるとすばらしく見通しが良くなる。
Well, the progressive worldview is modeled on a nurturant parent family. Briefly, it assumes that the world is basically good and can be made better and that one must work toward that. Children are born good; parents can make them better. Nurturing involves empathy, and the responsibility to take care of oneself and others for whom we are responsible. On a larger scale, specific policies follow, such as governmental protection in form of a social safety net and government regulation, universal education (to ensure competence, fairness), civil liberties and equal treatment (fairness and freedom), accountability (derived from trust), public service (from responsibility), open government (from open communication), and the promotion of an economy that benefits all and functions to promote these values, which are traditional progressive values in American politics.The conservative worldview, the strict father model, assumes that the world is dangerous and difficult and that children are born bad and must be made good. The strict father is the moral authority who supports and defends the family, tells his wife what to do, and teaches his kids right from wrong. The only way to do that is through painful discipline ― physical punishment that by adulthood will become internal discipline. The good people are the disciplined people. Once grown, the self-reliant, disciplined children are on their own. Those children who remain dependent (who were spoiled, overly willful, or recalcitrant) should be forced to undergo further discipline or be cut free with no support to face the discipline of the outside world.
