AI tutor--next version

The first one was too verbose

You can download the latest version of my AI tutor here It is for my course in political psychology.

I am trying to get the tutor to act like a “Kling bot,” allowing the student to interact individually with an AI that does what I would do as a tutor. If this works, then the students will not have to read the course materials directly. The tutor will offer a quick summary and then use Socratic-style questions to develop the student’s understanding. The goal is to enable students to get a good grasp of material before coming to class for lively discussions.

The file linked above is a zip file. If you download and unzip it, you can probably copy/paste the files to prompt any AI of your choice.

But it is meant to be used as a “skill” file in Claude, which I think requires a paid account. In that case, the procedure is to download the file and then upload it as follows:

• Go to claude.ai → Customize → Skills → Upload

• Select the file as is (you may need to set the file picker to “All files”)

• Toggle the skill on

• Start a new conversation and say something like “I’m preparing for the Lakoff reading in my political psychology course”

It is important to mention Lakoff in order to trigger the skill. For now, Lakoff is the only reading in the course that has a reference file, so the only one you can have a conversation about.

A reader was nice enough to try an earlier version. I thought that the conversation was very sophisticated, but the tutor was too long-winded. In the new version, I prompt the tutor to get to specific target insights (not just endlessly “go deeper”) and to be less verbose in its interactions with the student.

So the new version will NOT look like this, but you can get an idea of the earlier versions strengths and weaknesses.

The OLD Version

Question 1 [from the AI tutor]

In your own words — not Lakoff’s — what is the Strict Father model actually claiming about human nature and moral development?

Try to avoid repeating the summary. Aim for your own framing, your own examples, your own interpretation.

Take your time.

Answer [from the “student”]:

lakoff asserts that the strict father model, which encourages self-reliance and adherence to behavioral rules, is necessary for succeeding as an adult in a hostile world. It assumes a “tragic” or “constrained” understanding of human nature (as Thomas Sowell would say)

Good — that’s a strong start. You’re already doing what Phase 2 is meant to do: translating Lakoff into your own conceptual vocabulary rather than parroting his.

But let me push you, because right now you’re mixing Lakoff’s psychology with Sowell’s political philosophy, and that blend is interesting but not quite precise.

Let’s sharpen it.

✔ What you got right

• You correctly identified that the Strict Father model assumes a world that is dangerous, competitive, and morally demanding.

• You also correctly noted that it treats self reliance and rule following as essential for becoming a competent adult.

• And yes, there is a family resemblance to Sowell’s “constrained vision” — both see human nature as flawed and in need of discipline.

✦ Where I want you to go deeper

Lakoff is not making a philosophical argument about human nature the way Sowell does. He’s making a cognitive linguistic claim:

People who hold conservative political views think about morality using a mental model that resembles a strict father household.

So the question becomes:

• What does this model assume about how people learn right and wrong?

• What does it assume about what counts as moral virtue?

• What does it assume about the role of authority?

You gestured at these, but let’s make them explicit.

🔍 Follow up question (harder)

Try this:

According to Lakoff, why does the Strict Father worldview see moral failure (e.g., poverty, addiction, crime) as primarily the individual’s responsibility rather than society’s?

Don’t quote Lakoff. Explain the logic of the model as you understand it.

[student] What is right (and virtuous) is adherence to rules, and wrong, what countervenes rules. Habits of conformance to rules is developed through behavioral conditioning, i.e., rewards and punishments. The assumption is that authorities, who create the rules, know (1) what virtue is, (2) that behavioral conditioning is the most effective method for developing it.

Good — you’re giving a clear, internally coherent account of how the Strict Father model works. But now I’m going to push you, because you’re still describing it a bit too much like a behaviorist training system and not quite enough like a moral worldview, which is what Lakoff is actually after.

Let’s sharpen your answer by examining what you’ve said and then pushing it one level deeper.

✔ What you’ve articulated well

You’ve captured three essential elements of the Strict Father model:

• Moral rightness = obedience to legitimate rules.

• Moral character is formed through discipline and consequences.

• Authority is presumed to know what virtue is and how to instill it.

This is all consistent with Lakoff’s framing.

✦ Where I want you to go deeper

You’re describing how the model works (rules → conditioning → virtue), but Lakoff is also making a claim about why moral failure is interpreted as personal failure.

Your answer implies:

If virtue = rule-following, then vice = rule-breaking.

That’s correct, but Lakoff’s point is more psychological:

• If the world is inherently harsh,

• and if moral strength is built through discipline,

• and if people are responsible for developing that discipline,

then failure signals a lack of discipline, not a failure of society.

This is the internal logic Lakoff wants us to see.

So let’s push you to articulate that logic explicitly.

🔍 Follow up Question (even more precise)

According to Lakoff’s Strict Father worldview:

Why is helping someone who has failed — through welfare, debt relief, addiction treatment, etc. — often seen as morally wrong rather than compassionate?

I’m not asking what conservatives actually believe in real life. I’m asking you to explain the internal moral logic of the Strict Father model as Lakoff describes it.

Take your time and make the reasoning explicit.

[student] According to the ‘strict father model,’ welfare, debt relief, addiction treatment, and the like, all miss the mark because they don’t address the fundamental and underlying condition, which is lack of self-control and self-reliance.

Good — you’ve captured the surface of the logic. Now let’s push it one level deeper, because Lakoff’s point is sharper and more morally loaded than simply “these interventions miss the underlying cause.”

You’re on the right track, but here’s the key move Lakoff wants the reader to see:

✔ What you’ve correctly identified

You’re right that, within the Strict Father worldview:

• The root problem is lack of discipline

• External assistance doesn’t build discipline

• Therefore it doesn’t solve the real issue

That’s all accurate.

✦ The deeper layer Lakoff is pointing to

In the Strict Father model, helping someone who has failed is not just ineffective — it is morally counterproductive.

Why?

Because:

• Moral strength = self discipline

• Self discipline is built through facing consequences

• Consequences are therefore morally necessary

• Intervening to remove consequences undermines moral development

So the logic becomes:

If you help someone avoid the consequences of their lack of discipline, you are preventing them from becoming a morally responsible adult.

In this worldview, compassion can actually be immoral, because it interferes with the process that produces virtue.

This is the part Lakoff really wants the reader to grasp: Helping can be seen as harming.

Not because conservatives are cruel, but because the model defines moral growth in a way that makes consequence avoidance morally corrosive.

🔍 Now your turn — a sharper question

Let’s push the reasoning to its limit.

According to the Strict Father model, why might giving someone help twice be seen as worse than helping them once?

I’m not asking what conservatives believe in real life — I’m asking you to articulate the internal logic of the model as Lakoff describes it.

[student] Given that rewards reinforce behavior and punishment discourages the target behavior, provind someone help twice reinforces dependence, thereby undermining self-reliance and moral development.

Excellent — now you’re really articulating the internal mechanics of the model. But let’s refine it so you’re not just describing behavioral reinforcement, but the moral logic Lakoff is trying to expose.

Right now your answer is:

Helping twice reinforces dependence, which undermines self reliance and moral development.

That’s correct, but it’s still the psychology of the model. Lakoff wants us to see the moral interpretation that follows from that psychology.

Let’s sharpen it.

✔ What you’ve nailed

• You correctly identify that repeated help functions as positive reinforcement for dependence.

• You correctly identify that this undermines the core virtue of the Strict Father worldview: self discipline.

• You correctly see that the model treats moral development as a process of facing consequences.

All good.

✦ The deeper moral logic Lakoff wants you to see

In the Strict Father worldview:

• Consequences are morally necessary because they build character.

• Avoiding consequences is morally corrupting because it prevents character formation.

• Helping twice is worse than helping once because it teaches the person that consequences can be escaped.

So the internal logic becomes:

The more you help someone avoid consequences, the more you interfere with their moral growth — and the more morally wrong your “help” becomes.

This is why Lakoff says conservatives see repeated assistance not just as ineffective, but as actively immoral.

It’s not about cruelty. It’s about a worldview in which moral strength requires struggle, and removing struggle removes the possibility of virtue.

🔍 Next question — pushing you into Phase 3 territory

Now let’s transition toward Integration and Critical Thinking, but still anchored in Lakoff.

Q: If the Strict Father model treats consequences as morally necessary for character formation, what does that imply about the role of government in shaping citizens?

I’m not asking what you think. I’m asking you to articulate the internal logic of the model as Lakoff describes it.

A: It assumes that government knows what virtue is and can facilitate its development. This runs counter to the liberal view that individuals are responsible for choosing their own good life, rather than having a third party, i.e., government, impose a given view of virtue and the good life.

Good — you’re thinking clearly about the relationship between virtue, authority, and government in the Strict Father model. But let’s sharpen your answer, because right now you’re mixing two different claims:

• What Lakoff says conservatives believe vs.

• What liberals believe about autonomy and the good life

Your answer is correct about the liberal side, but we need to focus more tightly on the internal logic of the Strict Father worldview itself, as Lakoff describes it.

Let’s break it down.

✔ What you got right

You correctly identified that, in the Strict Father model:

• Government is not neutral about virtue.

• Government is expected to reinforce a particular moral order.

• That moral order is grounded in discipline, self control, and adherence to rules.

This is all consistent with Lakoff’s framing.

✦ What needs sharpening

You said: “It assumes that government knows what virtue is and can facilitate its development.”

That’s close, but Lakoff’s point is slightly different:

The Strict Father model assumes that legitimate authority knows what virtue is — and government is legitimate authority only when it mirrors the moral authority of the strict father.

So the logic is:

• Moral authority → defines virtue

• Legitimate government → extends that authority into society

• Therefore government’s job → enforce consequences that build moral character

This is not quite the same as saying government “imposes a view of the good life.” It’s more like:

Government enforces the moral order that produces responsible adults.

From inside the model, this isn’t paternalistic — it’s necessary for a functioning society.

✦ The deeper implication Lakoff wants you to see

If consequences are morally necessary for character formation, then:

• Government must reward discipline

• Government must punish lack of discipline

• Government must not interfere with the consequences of moral failure

• Government must not subsidize dependence

• Government must not treat citizens as morally fragile

So the internal logic becomes:

The role of government is to maintain a moral ecosystem in which people become self reliant adults.

This is why Lakoff says conservatives see many social programs as morally corrupting, not just economically inefficient.

🔍 Now a Phase 3 (Integration) question — harder

Let’s connect Lakoff to another thinker in the course.

Q: How does Lakoff’s Strict Father model help explain the kind of “true believer” psychology that Hoffer describes?

Don’t summarize Hoffer. Don’t summarize Lakoff. Explain the connection in your own words.

A: I am not familiar with Hoffer’s writings. Can you give me a summary?

Absolutely — since you haven’t read Hoffer yet, this is the right moment for a Phase 1 style summary so you can integrate him with Lakoff. I’ll keep it tight, structured, and tuned to what the Political Psychology Tutor skill expects.

Below is a clean, course ready summary of Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer.

Eric Hoffer — The True Believer (Summary for Political Psychology)

Central Claim

Hoffer argues that mass movements (political, religious, revolutionary) are driven not by ideology but by a particular psychological type: the true believer — a person seeking escape from an unsatisfying self through total identification with a cause.

[I omit some of this material here] …

With this summary in mind, you’re ready for the earlier prompt:

Q: How does Lakoff’s Strict Father model help explain the kind of “true believer” psychology that Hoffer describes?

Don’t summarize either author. Explain the connection — how one framework illuminates the other.

Rules provide moral clarity and purpose; obedience to rules provides a path to virtue (and happiness). Mass movements can provide clarity, rules and purpose, thereby providing a surrogate ‘home’ for young adults who have left the strict father household.

That’s a strong first connection — you’re seeing the structural similarity between:

• Lakoff’s moral clarity through rules, and

• Hoffer’s psychological clarity through belonging.

But let me push you, because you’re still describing the surface parallel. The deeper integration — the one Kling would want you to see — is more subtle and more interesting.

Let’s sharpen your insight.

✔ What you’ve already nailed

You correctly saw that:

• Both frameworks offer clarity, structure, and purpose.

• Both provide a moralized rule set that tells people who they are and how to live.

• Both can function as a kind of surrogate family for people seeking direction.

This is all true and well reasoned.

✦ The deeper connection (the one I want you to articulate)

Hoffer’s “true believer” is someone who:

• feels inadequate, frustrated, or lost

• wants to escape an unstable or disappointing self

• seeks a totalizing moral order that removes ambiguity

• wants an authority that tells them what is right, who the enemy is, and what their role is

Lakoff’s Strict Father model describes a worldview in which:

• moral virtue = obedience to a legitimate authority

• consequences are morally necessary

• ambiguity is dangerous

• strength and certainty are moral goods

• the world is hostile and requires discipline

So the deeper connection is this:

The Strict Father worldview creates the psychological template that makes Hoffer’s “true believer” possible.

Not because conservatives become fanatics — that’s not Lakoff’s claim — but because the structure of the worldview mirrors the structure of the mass movement psychology Hoffer describes.

Both offer:

• a clear hierarchy

• a moralized authority figure

• a binary moral universe

• a path to redemption through obedience

• a sense of purpose rooted in struggle

• an enemy to define the self against

You gestured at this, but I want you to make it explicit.

🔍 Your next step — sharpen the connection

Try answering this:

How does the Strict Father model’s emphasis on moral struggle and consequences help explain why Hoffer’s true believer is attracted to movements that promise heroic sacrifice?

Don’t summarize. Explain the mechanism — the psychological bridge between the two frameworks.

Take your time.