George Lakoff, professor of Linguistics at University of California-Berkeley delivered a lecture entitled "Ethics Freedom, and the Death of Rationalism: What Cognitive Science Tells Us About the Culture Wars" April 13 at Princeton University. Here’s a brief summary of what I heard.

    There is an obsolete notion still hanging around from the Enlightenment, it is that Reason exists independently of us, in a conscious, logical, universal and literal way, which leads many to imagine ideas to be invisible entities flying around in the air. This conception, the folk theory of rationality, has largely been proven false by cognitive science. Ideas exist embodied in our heads. They form in neuron clusters, synapses linked in nets across different parts of the brain. The diffuse nature of these clusters is why people don’t usually lose their concepts to brain-damage in any one particular area. When a concept is ingrained, as through repetition, the neuron cluster gets stronger, effecting the physical structure of the brain, which makes deep-seated concepts especially hard to get rid of.
    Not all neurons are the same. For example, with mirror neurons, clusters fire when you perform an action or see that action performed by someone else. It is believed that they allows us to feel empathy, the ability to identify with others. There are also certain neurons that fire when you perform an action or see something you can perform the action on. It is through complex systems of different neuron clusters firing with each new thought and feeling that we understand the world around us.
    We frame many of our concepts in language as metaphors. The metaphors that prevail in most people’s brains is what we call common sense. One such metaphor is that of the nation as a family (patria, the fatherland, Mother India, Mother Russia). For most, the family metaphor among the most deeply ingrained, since it has its roots in childhood. However, depending on the household one grew up in, this metaphor can have different implications, especially when applied on a large scale.
    The essential split seems to be between the strict father (or parent) and the nurturing mother models, with the father identified with conservatism and Republicans and the mother with liberalism and Democrats. In the strict father model the basic premise is that the parent needs to be strict because the world is evil and rife with competition. Besides, kids are born ignorant and bad, and need discipline and punishment to develop physical and mental strength to survive in the world. So, from this viewpoint, social programs are seen as undesirable, because they create freeloading dependents, who do not learn how to survive on their own the hard way. Government allows for big business to do whatever, because competition is healthy for everybody. Meanwhile, lesser nations are treated as children, and just as a parent does not ask the children how he is supposed to raise them, neither does a government compromise its sovereignty, but tells them what to do and when. The parent know what is best for the children is also how the government can approach defend spying on its citizens.
    The nurturing mother model is centered around empathy and compassion. The idea is that by being nurtured, children grow up to be nurturers of others. Freedom is key for nurture, so discipline is limited in favor of positive reinforcement. Fairness is seen as necessary for prosperity, so big business is kept small. There is also a stronger concern for peace. Lackoff expands on this theory in his book "Don’t Think of an Elephant, Know Your Values and Frame the Debate."

GeorgeLackoff.com
"Don’t Think of an Elephant"
"Metaphors We Live By"
"Moral Politics"