Ask Rockridge: American Values

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We were recently asked, "What should I say when I am told that I am pushing my values onto others?"

Hidden in this question are two strategic conservative frames: that responsibility is individual only and that progressive concepts are fundamentally un-American. Notice that you are never told that you are pushing American values onto others.

The response is straightforward: Progressive values are American values.

We want a system of laws and government that reflects what we value, and we want the ordering of that system to reflect empathy and caring for other human beings, as put forward in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

We value freedom. To ensure freedom from want and freedom of opportunity, we believe it is necessary for the government to regulate the market -- people should be free from want -- and of the need to work 80 hours a week at $5.85 an hour.

We value equality. Everyone should have equal opportunity and be treated equally under the law. Government empowerment -- building a road, upholding a banking system, supporting courts -- is not just empowerment for business but equally for individuals.

Where there are people who are born with less opportunity, the government has a moral obligation to make sure they wind up with equal opportunity -- in education, in health, and without discrimination. As President Lyndon B. Johnson said in 1965 at the Howard University commencement, "It is not enough to open the gates of opportunity; all our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates."

We also value security. Knowing that "crime is lower when poverty is lower" we believe that "broad prosperity is crucial to security." Integrity, responsibility, and fairness are also very important to us.

However, the meanings of these ideas are contested. They mean different things to different people depending on how they view the world. Many common issues and ideas contain contested concepts. It is important to understand that a contested concept enables conservatives to use an idea such as freedom to represent a different concept and thus undermine the progressive American concept of freedom.

Conservatives and progressives have different values but often use the same words to talk about them. Take the phrase "alternative energy." For progressives, this means solar energy, wind power, or even bio-diesel. For conservatives, "alternative energy" often means nuclear power, hydrogen fuel cells, and "clean" coal power plants.

Conservatives know this and use words such as "freedom" when they are talking about market liberalization and consumer choices rather than civil liberties. Indeed, conservatives have been endeavoring to shift the meanings of these words to reflect the values of a radical minority.

The conservative goal of imposing their policies on America is wholly dependent on their ability to control the terms of the debate and shift the meanings of these words to reflect their values. Therefore it is necessary to reject the frame of this question and assert that we as progressives are defending American values from the onslaught of a corrupt and radical minority.

Indeed for the last seven years, conservatives have been imposing policies that defy and trample upon American values. The deregulation of industry, reduction of taxes for the rich, privileging the profit motive in our health care system, elimination of funding for social programs such as public education or Medicare, and the unconstitutional and unsupervised spying on American citizens are disastrous and alienating policies that rely on the idea that each of us is left to succeed or fail on our own without any support from our communities.

Chapter 6 of our book, Thinking Points, discusses these and other values from the perspective of progressives and conservatives to illustrate just how deeply their meanings are contested.

Again, it is important to understand that the reason why this question makes sense the way it has been posed is that conservatives and progressives have different values but often use the same words to talk about them.

Progressive values and the policies that follow are our best efforts to uphold and strengthen, respect and honor the core elements of American values and identity, that which is integral to all of us, that which has made us who we are as Americans. Again, progressive values are American values. They are the very best values of the American people. We want to make the world a better place, we want equal opportunity for all, we want a government that promotes and defends justice and civil liberties and that cooperates with the international community. We want policies that reflect the true meanings of these values.

When we advocate for our values, we are doing our best to authentically communicate our best wishes for the country. We are not imposing anything foreign; we are being true to ourselves, to our beliefs, to America, and to the values Americans have always held.

Dashielle Vawter
Joe Brewer
The Rockridge Institute

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Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision -- A Progressive Handbook (Paperback) by George Lakoff and the Rockridge Institute.

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