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TechnoratiA Good Week For Science — and Insight into Politics
Over the past couple of weeks, the NY Times has been reporting on results from the cognitive and brain sciences that confirm past research in those fields partly by me and partly by my community of colleagues. What makes this of general, not personal, interest is that the scientific results are especially important for understanding what has been going wrong for the Obama administration and for liberals generally, and what has been going right for conservatives. I'm going to start out with some science, and get on to the politics after brief discussions of three important NY Times articles and what they mean scientifically.
It's always satisfying for a scientist to see his or her predictions proved right experimentally (which happens often) and actually discussed in the press (which happens rarely). As a cognitive scientist and linguist, it's been a good couple of weeks for me and my colleagues, especially in the NY Times. Experiments are hard to do and I celebrate all the experimenters cited. Experiments are also hard to report on, and I praise the journalists at the Times for a fine job.
Metaphor and Embodiment
Back in 1980, Mark Johnson and I, in Metaphors We Live By, demonstrated the existence of metaphorical thought and argued that metaphor and other aspects of mind were embodied. That book, and our 1987 books, my Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things and Mark's The Body in the Mind, helped to start a cottage industry in the study of embodied cognition.
The experimental results confirming
our theories of embodied cognition have been coming in regularly, especially
in the area of metaphorical thought. Natalie Angier, on February
1, < www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/
- A University of Amsterdam study showed that subjects thinking about the future leaned forward, while those thinking about the past leaned backward. This was predicted by the 1980 analysis of common European metaphors in which The Future is Ahead and The Past is Behind. This is not just a matter of language, but of thought, as Johnson and I showed.
- At Yale, researchers found that subjects holding warm coffee in advance were more likely to evaluate an imaginary individual as warm and friendly than those holding cold coffee. This is predicted by the conceptual metaphor that Affection is Warmth, as in She gave me a warm greeting.
- At Toronto, subjects were asked to remember a time when they were either socially accepted or socially snubbed. Those with warm memories of acceptance judged the room to be 5 degrees warmer on the average than those who remembered being coldly snubbed.
- Subjects asked to think about a moral transgression like adultery or cheating on a test were more likely to request an antiseptic cloth after the experiment than those who had thought about good deeds. The well-known conceptual metaphor Morality is Purity predicts this behavior.
- Students told that that a particular book was important judged it to be physically heavier than a book that they were told was unimportant. The conceptual metaphor is Important is Heavy.
- In a parallel study with heavy versus light clipboards, those with the heavy clipboards were more likely like to judge currency to be more valuable and their opinions and their leaders more important.
- And in doing arithmetic, students who used their hands to group numbers together had an easier time doing problems that required conceptual grouping. This is predicted by the analysis of mathematics in Where Mathematics Comes From by myself and Rafael Núñez where we show how mathematics from the simple to the advanced is based on embodied metaphorical cognition.
These results don't happen by magic. How can these results be explained?
Johnson's and my 1999 book, Philosophy in the Flesh, incorporated a neural theory of how embodied metaphorical thought works. What a child is regularly held affectionately by its parents, two distinct brain areas are activated simultaneously - one for temperature and one for affection. The synapses in both areas are strengthened and activation spreads along existing pathways until the shortest pathway between the areas is found and a circuit is formed. That circuit is the neural realization of what is called a "primary metaphor" that is embodied. Hundreds of such cases are formed unconsciously and automatically in childhood.
My Berkeley colleague, Srini Narayanan has shown what computational properties such circuits must have. In still unpublished work, he has shown that the relative timing of first spikes across a synapse predicts the directionality of elementary metaphors in all known cases. The very idea that such low-level phenomena at the level of neurons can result in the vast range our metaphorical thought is truly remarkable.
A crucial part of the story of embodied cognition comes from the neuroscience of the 1990's, which showed that the same brain regions used in actually moving and perceiving are used in imagining and remembering moving and perceiving. These results led Jerome Feldman to the crucial idea that meaningful thought expressible in language is mental simulation that uses the neural structures of the sensory-motor system to imagine what is embodied, usually below the level of consciousness.
These are experimental findings and theories based on considerable evidence. Taken together they explain the results of the experiments: Primary metaphorical thought arises when a neural circuit is formed linking two brain areas activated when experiences occur together repeatedly. Typically, one of the experiences is physical. In each experiment, each subject has the physical experience activating one of the brain regions and another experience (e.g., emotional or temporal) activating the other brain region for the given metaphor. The activation of both regions activates the metaphorical link. Thus, if the metaphor is Future Is Ahead and Past Is Behind, thinking about the future will activate the brain region for moving forward. If the metaphor is Affection is Warmth, holding warm coffee will activate the brain region for experiencing affection.
Angier did not seek out the theoretical studies that allow these explanations - and led to the performance of the experiments in the first place. That's too much to ask of a NY Times article. But it was nice to see some of the relevant experiments reported on in the NY Times, even if the explanations were left out.
These cases don't have any direct political implications in themselves, but they are indirectly important, as we shall see.
Words and Polls
The past week in the NY Times was also pretty good for me with respect to predictions.
There was a CBS/NYTimes poll that showed support for ending "Don't Ask Don't Tell" varied considerably depending on whether "homosexuals" or "gay men and lesbians" was used in the question. "Gay men and lesbians" gat a lot more support - in the ball park of 15% more, which is a HUGE difference on a poll.
Those of you who've read my Don't Think of an Elephant! and The Political Mind will be familiar with the basic results of frame semantics, developed by my Berkeley colleague Charles Fillmore and others within the cognitive and brain sciences.
The first basic result: The meaning of every word is characterized in terms of a brain circuit called a "frame." Frames are often characterized in terms of the usual apparatus of mental life: metaphors, images, cultural narratives - and neural links to the emotion centers of the brain. The narrow, literal meaning of a word is only one aspect of its frame-semantic meaning.
The second basic result is that this is mostly unconscious, like 98% of human thought.
On the inherent link between semantic and emotion, see my discussion in the Political Mind (Chapter 1) and the excellent books by Antonio Damasio (Descartes' Error) and Drew Westen (The Political Brain).
"Homosexual" is simply defined via a different frame than "gay men and lesbians." Professor Geoffrey Stone of the U. of Chicago, writing in the Huffington Post on February 13, describes the difference:
"Homosexual" conjures up dark visions of filthy bodily acts that arouse deeply-rooted feelings of disgust and ancient fears of Sodom and Gomorrah and hell and damnation. "Gay men and lesbians," on the other hand, increasingly reminds us of people we know -- sons and daughters, cousins and classmates, nieces and nephews, coworkers and neighbors.
In short, there is a big difference in meaning - the framing difference between the thought of gay sex and the idea of the civil rights of people in your community. The consequences are political, as Professor Stone observes:
When we hear religious leaders or politicians referring to "homosexuals in the military," "homosexual marriage," or "special rights for homosexuals," we must recognize what they are doing. Especially for the 15% of Americans who react so viscerally to the term "homosexual," they are trying to chew their way into the worst parts of our psyches in order to manipulate our beliefs and values and make us worse people than we really are.
I've been writing for years about how effective the right wing has been at framing, and how progressives often use right-wing language, even in polls. I have had numerous discussions with well-known pollsters who did not get the point and could not distinguish commonplace language from commonplace language that activated right-wing frames.
The cognitive science matters here. The CBS/NYTimes poll results were to be expected given our current understanding of how words get their meaning by being neurally linked to frame-circuits.
Blinks, Worms, and Spankers
Nick Kristof, in his February 14 column, discusses three experiments distinguishing conservatives from liberals.
- In one experiment, the strength of blink reflexes to unexpected noises was measured and correlated with degrees of reactions to external threats. Conservatives reacted considerably more strongly than liberals.
- Another experiment was based on the fact that disgust reactions create glandular secretions that change skin conductance. Subjects were shown disgusting images (like some eating a handful of worms). Liberals reacted mildly, but conservative reactions went off the charts.
- A third study showed a strong correlation between attitudes toward spanking and voting patterns: spanking states tend to go Republican. The experimenters correlated spanking preferences with what they called "cognitive styles." As Kristof reports it, "Spankers tend to see the world in stark, black-and-white terms, perceive the social order as vulnerable and under attack, tend to make strong distinctions between "us" and "them," and emphasize order and muscular responses to threats. Parents favoring timeouts feel more comfortable with ambiguities, sense less threat, embrace minority groups - and are less prone to disgust when they see a man eating worms."
All three results follow from a cognitive science study called Moral Politics, which I published in 1996 and was reprinted in 2002. There I observed that conservatives and liberals had opposite moral worldviews structured by metaphor around two profoundly different models of the ideal family, a strict father family for conservatives and a nurturant parent family for liberals. In the ideal strict father family, the world is seen as a dangerous place and the father functions as protector from "others" and the parent who teaches children absolute right from wrong by punishing them physically (painful spanking or worse) when they do wrong. The father is the ultimate authority, children are to obey, and immoral practices are seen as disgusting.
Ideal liberal families are based on nurturance, which breaks down into empathy, responsibility - for both oneself and others, and excellence: doing as well as one can to make oneself better and one's family and community better. Parents are to practice these things and children are to learn them by example.
Because our first experience with being governed in is our families, we all learn a basic metaphor: A Governing Institution Is A Family, where the governing institution can be a church, a school, a team, or a nation. The Nation-as-Family version gives us the idea of founding fathers, Mother India and Mother Russia, the Fatherland, homeland security, etc.
Apply these monolithically to our politics and you get extreme conservative and progressive moral systems, defining what is right and wrong to each side.
There is no moral system of the moderate or the middle. Because of a neural phenomenon called "mutual inhibition," two opposing moral systems can live in brain circuits that inhibit each other and are active in different contexts. For a nonpolitical example, consider Saturday night and Sunday morning moral systems, which coexist in the brains of many Americans. The same is true of "moderates," who are conservative on some issues and progressive on others, though there may be variations from person to person.
Kristof doesn't mention Moral Politics, though he got a copy at a Democratic Senate retreat in 2003, at which we both spoke. If Moral Politics is still on his bookshelf, I suggest he take a look. I also recommend it to anyone who wants to understand the difference between conservative and progressive moral systems.
Conservative Populism and Tea Partyers
After the Goldwater defeat of 1964, conservatism was a dirty word and most Americans wanted to be liberals, especially working people who were highly unionized. Lee Atwater and colleagues, working for the 1968 Nixon campaign, had a problem: How to get a significant number of working people to become conservative enough to vote for Nixon.
They intuited what I have since called "biconceptualism" (see The Political Mind) - the fact that many Americans have both conservative and progressive views, but in different contexts and on different issues. Mutual inhibition in brain circuitry means the strengthening of one weakens the other. They found a way to both strengthen conservative views and weaken liberal views, creating a conservative populism. Here's how they did it.
They realized that by the late 60's many working people were disturbed by the anti-war demonstrations; so Nixon ran on anti-communism. They noticed that many working men were upset by radical feminists. So they pushed traditional family values. And they realized that, after the civil rights legislation, many working men, especially in the South, were threatened by blacks. So they ran Nixon on law and order. At the same time, they created the concept of "the liberal elite" - the tax and spend liberals, the liberal media, the Hollywood liberals, the limosine liberals, and so on. They created language for all these ideas and have been repeating it ever since.
Even though liberals have worked tirelessly for the material benefit of working people, the repetition of conservative populist frames over more than 40 years has had an effect. Conservative ideas have spread in the brains of conservative populists. The current Tea Party movement is an attempt to spread conservative populism further.
Sarah Palin may not know history or economics, but she does know strict father morality and conservative populist frames. Frank Rich, in his February 14 NY Times column, denied David Broder's description of Palin as "perfect pitch populism" and called it "deceptive faux populism" and a "populist masquerade." What Rich is missing is that Palin has a perfect pitch for conservative populism - which is very different from liberal populism. What she can do is strengthen the conservative side of bi-conceptual undecided populists, helping to move them to conservative populists. She is dangerous that way.
Frank Rich, long one of my heroes, is a perfect pitch liberal. He assumes that nurturant values (empathy, social and personal responsibility, making yourself and the world better) are the only objective values. I think they are right values, values that define democracy, but unfortunately far from the only values. Starting with those values, Rich correctly points out that Palin's views contradict liberal populism and that her conservative positions won't materially help the poor and middle class. All true, but ... that does not contradict conservative populism or conservatism in general.
This is a grand liberal mistake. The highest value in the conservative moral system (see Moral Politics, Chapter 9) is the perpetuation and strengthening of the conservative moral system itself!! This is not liberal materialism. Liberals decry it as "ideology," and it is. But it is real, it has the structure of moral system, and it is physically part of the brains of both Washington conservatives and conservative populists. The conservative surge is not merely electoral. It is an idea surge. It is an attempt to spread conservatism via the spread of conservative populism. That is what the Tea Party movement is doing.
False Reason and Real Reason: The Obama Mistake
It was entirely predictable a year ago that the conservatives would hold firm against Obama's attempts at "bipartisanship" - finding occasional conservatives who were biconceptual, that is, shared some views acceptable to Obama on some issues, while keeping an overall liberal agenda.
The conservatives are not fools. Because their highest value is protecting and extending the conservative moral system itself, giving Obama any victory at all would strengthen Obama and weaken the hold of their moral system. Of course they were going to vote against every proposal and delay and filibuster as often as possible. Protecting and extending their worldview demands it.
Obama has not understood this.
We saw this when Obama attended the Republican caucus. He kept pointing out that they voted against proposals that Republicans had made and that he had incorporated, acting as if this were a contradiction. But that was to be expected, since a particular proposal that strengthens Obama and hence weakens their moral view violates their highest moral principle.
Such conservative logic explains why conservatives in Congress first proposed a bipartisan committee to study the deficit, and then voted against it.
That is why I don't expect much from the President's summit with Republicans on February 25. Why should they do anything to strengthen Obama's hand, when it would violate their highest moral principle, as well as weakening themselves electorally. If Obama thinks he can shame them in front of their voters, he is mistaken again. Conservative voters think the same way they do.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama used framing perfectly and articulated the progressive moral system (empathy, individual and social responsibility, making oneself and the world better) as well as it has ever been done.
But he changed after the election. Obama moved from real reason, how people really think, to false reason, a traditional view coming out of the Enlightenment and favored by all too many liberals.
We now (finally!) come to the point of going through all those experiments in the cognitive and brain sciences. Here are the basic differences between real and false reason, and the ways in which all too many liberals, including Obama during the past year, are wed to false reason.
Real reason is embodied in two ways. It is physical, in our brain circuitry. And it is based on our bodies as the function in the everyday world, using thought that arises from embodied metaphors. And it is mostly unconscious. False reason sees reason as fully conscious, as literal, disembodied, yet somehow fitting the world directly, and working not via frame-based, metaphorical, narrative and emotional logic, but via the logic of logicians alone.
Empathy is physical, arising from mirror neurons systems tied to emotional circuitry. Self-interest is real as well, and both play their roles in real reason. False reason is supposed to serve material self-interest alone. It's supposed to answer the question, "What's in it for me?,"which President Obama assumed that all populists were asking. While Frank Luntz told conservatives to frame health care in terms of the moral concepts of freedom (a "government takeover") and life ("death panels"), Obama was talking about policy minutia that could not be understood by most people.
Real reason is inexplicably tied up with emotion; you cannot be rational without being emotional. False reason thinks that emotion is the enemy of reason, that it is unscrupulous to call on emotion. Yet people with brain damage who cannot feel emotion cannot make rational decisions because they do not know what to want, since like and not like mean nothing. "Rational" decisions are based on a long history of emotional responses by oneself and others. Real reason requires emotion.
Obama assumed that Republicans would act "rationally" where "rationality" was defined by false reason - on the logic of material self-interest. But conservatives understood that their electoral chances matched their highest moral principle, strengthening their moral system itself without compromise.
It is a basic principle of false reason that every human being has the same reason governed by logic - and that if you just tell people the truth, they will reason to the right conclusion. The President kept saying, throughout Tea Party summer, that he would just keep telling the truth about policy details that most people could not make moral sense of. And so he did, to the detriment of all of us.
All politics is moral. Political leaders all make proposals they say are "right." No one proposes a policy that they say is wrong. But there are two opposing moral systems at work in America. What moral system you are using governs how you will see the world and reason about politics. That is the lesson of the cognitive science behind Moral Politics and all the experiments since then. It is the lesson of all the research on embodied metaphor. Metaphorical thought is central to politics.
Finally, there is the lesson of how language works in the brain. Every word is neurally connected to a neural circuit characterizing a frame, which in turn is part of a system of frames linked to a moral system. In political discourse, words activate frames, which in turn activate moral systems. This mechanism is not conscious. It is automatic, and it is acquired through repetition. As the language of conservative morality is repeated, frames are activated repeatedly that in turn activate and strengthen the conservative system of thought - unconsciously and automatically. Thus conservative talk radio and the national conservative messaging system are powerful unconscious forces. They work via principles of real reason.
But many liberals, assuming a false view of reason, think that such a messaging system for ideas they believe in would be illegitimate - doing the things that the conservatives do that they consider underhanded. Appealing honestly to the way people really think is seen as emotional and hence irrational and immoral. Liberals, clinging to false reason, simply resist paying attention to real reason.
Take Paul Krugman, one of my heroes, whose economic sense I find impeccable. Here is a quote from a recent column:
Republicans who hate Medicare, tried to slash Medicare in the past, and still aim to dismantle the program over time, have been scoring political points by denouncing proposals for modest cost savings - savings that are substantially smaller than the spending cuts buried in their own proposals.
He is following traditional liberal logic, and pointing out a literal contradiction: they denounce "cuts in Medicare" while wanting to eliminate Medicare and have proposed bigger cuts themselves.
But, from the perspective of real reason as conservatives use it, there is no contradiction. The highest conservative value is preserving and empowering their moral system itself. Medicare is anathema to their moral system - a fundamental insult. It violates free market principles and gives people things they haven't all earned. It is a system where some people are paying -God forbid! - for the medical care of others. For them, Medicare itself is immoral on a grand scale, a fundamental moral issue far more important than any minor proposal for "modest cost savings." I'm sorry to report it, but that is how conservatives are making use of real reason, and exploiting the fact that so many liberals think it's contradictory.
Indeed, one of the major findings of real reason is that negating a frame activates that frame in the brain and reinforces it - like Nixon saying that he was not a crook. Dan Pfeiffer, writing on the White House blog, posted an article called "Still not a ‘Government Takeover'," which activates the conservative idea of a government takeover and hence reinforces the idea. Every time a liberal goes over a conservative proposal giving evidence negating conservative ideas one by one, he or she is activating the conservative ideas in the brains of his audience. The proper response is to start with your own ideas, framed to fit what you really believe. Facts matter. But they have to be framed properly and their moral significance must be made manifest. That is what we learn from real reason.
The NY Times is home to a lot of traditional reason, often based on false principles of how people think. That is why the reporting of those experiments brightened my day. Perhaps the best way to the NY Times mind is through the science of mind.
Kudos once more to the Times' science reporting on those experiments.
109 Comments so far
Show AllThis is a long but vitally important article. SO much about our existence is contained in just a few sentences here.
>>Primary metaphorical thought arises when a neural circuit is formed linking two brain areas activated when experiences occur together repeatedly.<<
And:
>>The meaning of every word is characterized in terms of a brain circuit called a "frame." Frames are often characterized in terms of the usual apparatus of mental life: metaphors, images, cultural narratives - and neural links to the emotion centers of the brain. The narrow, literal meaning of a word is only one aspect of its frame-semantic meaning.
The second basic result is that this is mostly unconscious, like 98% of human thought.<<
The implications of these are staggering and the article in particular pointed out some important (and timely) consequences. It will take a while to get this into my wee brain.
I canna wait to read the comments forthcoming.
Gary
"Keyboard not found. Press < F1 > to RESUME."
-~ actual computer BIOS error message
>>Real reason is inexplicably tied up with emotion; you cannot be rational without being emotional. False reason thinks that emotion is the enemy of reason...<<
So being emotional is not always "unreasonable" but simply biological. A clue to the value placed on the thought.
I think of Mister Spock and, not Captain Kirk, but Captain Picard as embodying these two mindsets. One is the ultimate of false reasoning, the other of metaphoric empathy and real reasoning. But that's just me I guess.
Gary
"There are lies, damned lies and statistics."
-~ Mark Twain
Interesting stuff.
But exactly how do we progressives apply this research to current political debates?
The biggest point for us, I believe, is HOW we frame our arguments -- they must take into account Real Reasoning (RR). We must learn to push those buttons correctly, instead of activating what amounts to defense mechanisms. But this is going to be (even more) schzoid in what we argue among ourselves and what we want to say to those with some (partially) conservative morality. We need to distinguish when we are using RR and when we are indulging in false, artificial, logic and reasoning.
Some of us will be better at framing RR and others will be better at false reasoning arguments. (I wish the author had found other terms than real and false reasoning BTW.) But the real reasoning arguments are vital to organizing.
Gary
"Facts matter. But they have to be framed properly and their moral significance must be made manifest. That is what we learn from real reason."
-- George Lakoff
I found it well worth the time to read through this outline of a very helpful conceptual framework. One minor quibble and one larger point:
The term "false reason" strikes me as somewhat misleading. Something like "pure reason" or "logical reason" might help readers more clearly see the distinction between reason influenced by emotions and morals ("real reason"), versus reason on a pure, idealized Platonic level ("false reason").
More importantly, Dr. Lakoff's findings are in alignment with the tenets of clinical hypnosis. In order to effectively influence someone to change behaviors, therapists make suggestions in the form of positives rather than negatives, emphasizing what is sought or desired, not what is to be avoided or outgrown (ie, Erickson, Rossi, NLP, EMDR, etc.). Therapists are taught to choose the optimum metaphor (or what Dr. L. would call a frame) to evoke positive and healing emotions like hope and empathy, rather than fear-oriented images that facilitate obedience rather than change.
It looks like the mass media and the public relations industry have mastered the theory and practice of hypnosis, with the billions of dollars that are spent in advertising designed to dumb down Americans, to shift our basic cognitive style from analytic thinking to metaphorical, limbic/emotional "reasoning". Breaking free from the ever-present trance of fear and opening to a more life-enhancing frame is the challenge of our times. Hopefully Barack can get his groove back before it's too late.
Drop the idea that Mr. Obama is well meaning toward the general population, and you may see the situation differently.
Mr. Obama was and is a tool of the financial ruling elite of the world. He has not lost his grove.
Like most politicians he treats the people like mushrooms: He feeds us shit, and keeps us in the dark.
Turn on the light, man. Please, excuse me, but attitudes promoting Mr. Obama's good will, drives me nuts.
Formal abstract reasoning-- the Aristotelian syllogism does exist. What doesn't happen is a politician's ability to frame and follow the consequences of a syllogism. This happens on both sides of the aisle. Obama is as dismissive of legitimate Single Payer claims as Republicans are of his. So the question really is which cognitive model, (conservative or liberal) is more capable of explaining and dealing with reality. I don't think that either the Republicans or Democrats have a grasp on that. But reality will crash through--with enough pain and suffering. Our politics will convulse. "We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country." The ride has just begun.
"...the Aristotelian syllogism does exist." Nevertheless, cognition is never free from emotion (which is why, I think, syllogisms are so difficult for so many people). Put another way, as Deanne Juhan summarized the work of the neuroscientist Jason W. Brown, "objectivity is a cognitively useful emotion." Objectivity? An emotion? You betcha! Breathe. Relax. Observe your thoughts. Each has an emotional component.
Now consider the apparent reality that most Americans have been so "dumbed down" by poor education and media manipulation that they are no longer capable of marshalling objectivity, and are therefore cognitively crippled. Put another way--a very politically incorrect way--Tea Party conservatives are mentally retarded. They can no longer think; they can only react. En masse, on cue.
Yes, reality is about to crash through, not just in the U.S., but globally, and we will see just how much more harm can be caused by the mentally retarded American conservatives.
We inhabit our bodies, we are not our bodies.
Prove it.
Gary
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-~ Pablo Picasso
Disprove it!
In fact, we "are" our bodies. You should read Francis Crick's last book, The Astonishing Hypothesis, in which he makes the case for the "self" being no more than interactions between neurons in the brain.
There is no disembodied mind.
There are those who would disagree with you, ie. those who have experienced near death experiences.
There was a National Geographic special on about two years ago in which they investigated a story told by a woman who had undergone brain surgery to repair a cerebral anureism. Her heart was stopped and her body drained of blood then cooled to around 68 degrees farenheit. She showed no signs of electrical activity in her brain, yet she stated that she felt as though she was watching the entire surgery as a bystander. When she was resusitated, she related conversations between the doctors and nurses during the surgery thatwere to the word correct. Discovery Health recently had a show with several similar cases in which doctors could offer no explanation as to their ability to recall events while the subjects were clinically dead.
I don't know if there is a biological explanation for these events or not. It does however seem to cast a doubt on the interaction between neurons as being the entire explanation behind the concept of "self."
Sioux Rose
AUSSI: There are many such events. This is why the "going to the light" terminology functions as its own vernacular to many. I suppose it's like a UFO encounter. Only those who have experienced such things fully understand them. Much exists that science has not yet the wit nor tools to decipher. It was the artists who split the planes of matter (cubism and so forth) way in advance of the physicists. Many technological "inventions" are copies of things done routinely by animals and insects. Nature worked out the logistics, and then human engineers take all the credit. Until a human "discovers" something, it's presumed not to exist. And just as only 10% of our brains are used, the same ratio is seen in that portion of an iceberg that extends above the ocean surface. Who can imagine what worlds of perception exist inside that unspoken for 90%?
I remember a documentary wherein the conclusions of Ivy League brain researchers seemed ridiculous, to the point of funny. They were attempting to "prove" that the prevalence of this "go to the light" experience felt at near-death interims belongs to something IN the brain. They deduced this hypothesis on the basis of stimulating a portion of the brain, wherein the experience was recreated. People had all the sensations of going to the Light. Now to a mystic, the larger question might run more along the lines of why was that particular "sensation" there in the first place? Could it not represent some form of soul memory being triggered when the scientists activated that portion of a lobe?
To the scientist grounded in materialism, everything owning a physical cause and effect relationship, it might seem that such an experience is "just there in that part of the brain." The key question is why! To me the fact that such a sensation can be tweaked suggests evidence of the universality of the experience itself. That "going to the light" or being "out of body" is a transition recorded in our brains because due to the life to life interim, we pass through this "zone" over the course of our incarnations. Mystics believe in soul memory, too. There are rich, esoteric answers the so-called scientific mind is not yet prepared to entertain. This hardly means they lack viability.
They work for me.
Souixrose, I have been fascinated by NDE's since my introduction to them. I have to say, at first, I was skeptical of the reports of such phenomina, but after seeing so many different cases that had such striking similarities, and actually knowing some who have experienced the same near death experience, I believe it is a real experience. Scientists and physicians have tried to explain some of the experience, but they always come up short of a true rational explnation.
Another comment made a comparison between NDE's, the supernatural, and God. I don't believe that is necessary. However, I do believe that there is a huge world of knowledge that the human race has yet to understand. At one point in time, it was thought, by science, that the Earth was the center of the universe. Now we know that to be bunk. What happens after death is a true unknown, as of now. The fact that there are so many NDE's that have very similar characteristics that are as of now unexplainable tells me that there is something we don't know but obviously exists. The bottom line remains...science simply cannot answer everything that we wish to know the answers to...at least right now.
Science can explain most things while religion and astrology cannot verify what it says. Science isn't perfect in giving all rational explanations but religion and astrology cause the mind to think irrationally and they're scams used to control others. Men use religion and women use astrology to dominate. Science is open to improvements and correction while religion and astrology are scams.
Sioux Rose
SHAWN: You belong in a mind-fart convention. Your thought process makes me ill. Go bother someone else. You're like the gum on my shoe.
See what happens when too much astrology is in your brain? You didn't even notice that I was replying to Aussidawg. Too irrational to read a thread? Thanks for proving my point. Go seek some mental counseling, astro motherf**ker.
Sioux Rose
If you discredit the field to which I have devoted 30 years of research (while retaining an educated clientele); and while you in turn have nothing of substance to offer, and have not published a thing in your life... you deserve to be put in your place, that is, like gum on the bottom of a shoe. Until such time as you show respect to those who have greater knowledge than you do, you will be treated as thus.
I don't pretend to know more than my mechanic, and I don't attack the views of those in this forum who are better-informed than I am on any given subject. You have no education, your life experience is a sham, and yet you pose as if you are in a position to offer an informed opinion on anything, up to and including a continuous stream of insults for my work. A field you know NOTHING about. To me that makes you a zero... so you and your buddies can cowardly hide behind the use a number of names to say the same stupid things over and over again. I want new people in this forum to know exactly what you are. When you attack me, I will tell the truth. That is something you are incapable of. Instead of showing readers the limits of your intelligence which you do so boldly and so often, why don't you go back to school and learn something. The waters here are too deep for one such as yourself who can only appreciate the shallow end. (OS, sorry if I borrowed you analogy.)
I don't have to write bs books or act like hysterical zombie male-hating queen like you to be a kool dude. I love my life and this country while you hate your own and this country. Astrology and religion are scams and you're a fool to argue otherwise. I've met a few astrologers. Dumb as they are, I've never met a she-devil in the batch. I can build and repair buildings and appliances. Instead of wasting your time on this forum, why not educate your neighbors. Go join those groups dedicated to your progressive causes. How many right wingers have you successfully converted? I've succeeded more than you and I didn't need an education in astrology to keep it plain and simple. Go ahead and tell the whole world who you and your worshipping idiots think I am. You just proved me right again. You're so irrational you still think I have a team and you couldn't even see that I was replying to aussidawg instead of you. I beat you at your own game, loser. IN YOUR FACE IN YOUR FACE !! HAHAHAHAHAHA ! If I could repair your brain, I'd be a f--king millionaire but I'd lose your entertainment so I'll leave it that way. Thanks for the entertainment. Here's 10 bucks for you. Go knock yourself out with another latte. Everytime you think you're beating me up, you're beating yourself up and that goes double for anyone who defends you. Keep it simple or keep it losing. It isn't rocket science. Your books would be kool for the fireplace.
Sioux Rose
Fascination, like wonder, or retaining what Christ termed "the child mind" keeps the brain open to new learning. Too many are too identified with the ego-process that tends to be proud of what it logically "knows." Then anything that contrasts with that is tossed aside. I am always open to learning new things, and will not have my wings clipped by those afraid to fly over the earth plane to gain a wider panoramic view of this mystery we term life. Welcome to the upper atmospheres!
Near death experiences are all anecdotal, and so the reports of the patients must be taken on faith, as well as the explanations. Anyone who wants to use near death experiences to "prove" reincarnation is free to go for it! It's a variant on the "proof" of god from "personal experience." I don't have time for it. When someone demonstrates a "mind" working independently of a brain, that will get my serious attention!
I don't pretend that science will ever fully explain the mind or consciousness. As one Zen author I admire once wrote (and I paraphrase): "The mind trying to fully understand itself is like an ear trying to hear itself hear." At present, however, the last few decades in neuroscience have turned our concepts of consciousness inside out. Fascinating stuff! And still no need for the supernatural. But, hey! Everyone is free to disagree about it! Whatever! Nature's getting ready to give our species a real shake-down, so the disagreements won't matter much in the years to come.
Yup - straight from the Buddha himself!
Well well, finally I got cut. For two words, none of them profane. Very curious. They didn't even leave a "deleted" message. I was wiped out completely -- so read this one fast.
Gary
"The habit of religion is oppressive, an easy way out of thought."
-- Peter Ustinov
If you have the time to read and contemplate one article this year, make it this one.
A very long article yet it got better as it progressed. It should be homework for all progressives - "homework" in that it requires some mental work to absorb - the mental work of expanding your understanding.
Try combining this understanding with the drive (and success) of the wealthy for ever increasing wealth as a desperate craving to CONTROL, rather than ACCEPT, the world around them .... including ultimately the inevitability of their own death.
Put it all together and you've got a reasonably accurate view of what's going on.
Then I wonder ... is it all just the same problem that has become more and more evident through history ... the human ego?
Is Mr. Lakoff a nice person? Is he polite, kind, generous, honest, loving?
What cannot be measured doesn't exist?
I studied some cognitive science when I was a grad student in AI in computer science back in the 1980s and so some of the research mentioned I find familiar and fascinating. However, from the more fundamental research about neural circuits, and theories about how affection gets tied to warmth, Lakoff then makes a giant leap to apply such research to the political arena and mentions silly pseudo-science studies about conservatives and liberals and makes suggestions about what Obama must do.
There is no sound science that is directly applicable to politics and political matters, as there are innumerable different conclusions one could reach with regard to political matters on the basis of the research.
The preposterous conservative mind vs. liberal mind set-up could be more easily and directly described as a contrast between those "below the median in feeling secure" vs. "above the median in feeling secure." The conservatives Lakoff describes generally in some way feel insecure because they are below the median in income, education, or sophistication or because they live without a social safety net. The liberals are generally those who are above the median or live with a social safety net and feel more secure and that helps explain their attitudes. Those conservatives, often gullible, because of the lack of sophistication, and also resentful of "know-it-all liberals," are then easily manipulated by elite corporatists and the ultra-wealthy to vote for politicians representing the interests of corporatists and the wealthy even though it works against the economic interests of these voters (most of the corporatists' politicians, being secure, do not share the same social issue concerns with their tools and so do nothing along these lines except pay lip service). And as they elect more conservative politicians who implement more conservative policies, their safety net erodes even further and they feel even more insecure, providing the basis for a positive feedback loop.
Also, Obama and his criminal gang members know how they could please the masses, but they have no interest in doing that. They not only depend on the campaign contributions of the elites and the approval of the pro-elite corporate media, but they have their eyes on board seats in predatory corporations after leaving "public service" and they have little interest in risking losing those.
False reason vs. real reason... hypothetical constructs to suit a point of view.
Anyway, how does Lakoff explain why a so-called expert in Constitutional Law, who just happens to be president, is so willing to help conservatives trash the Constitution. What legal theory has his mind invented? Lakoff makes no judgements about anyone's behavior and this is very convenient for him. But those who have the brains to frame their words conscioiusly so as to influence others for personal gain, there's something else going on here. It's not just about everyone being consistent with their own moral values. There is such a thing as moral cowardice. And there is such a things as honor and courage. And when the top 1% of the population owns and/or controls the bulk of the country's financial assets, this is not about false reason or real reason or frames or anything like that... although you can make a case for just about anything if you're smart enough. I agree that most of human behavior is unconscious. Lakoff needs to explain why humans can't get beyond their fear and whether or not there is such a thing as wisdom in pursuit of real peace, brotherhood, and/or happiness. Human behavior is more complicated than Lakoff's world view of it even if he comes by his beliefs by way of "science." I'm not saying his theory is not a useful way to think about things, but it doesn't explain a whole lot of things not said.
Sioux Rose
MARK A: Well-said. Any worldview that only takes into account polarity (here depicted as liberal or conservative options only) without any appreciation for nuance, is self-limiting and therefore inaccurate.
GIOVANNA: You sure pegged this guy. I think he's a cognitive victim of his own framing; that he got lost inside his own self-constructed paradigm. Admittedly he offers some valid insights, but in his efforts to link everything to his "sample," he takes liberties that diminish the value of what he does reveal. This was not Lakoff's finest piece!
>>Even though liberals have worked tirelessly for the material benefit of working people, the repetition of conservative populist frames over more than 40 years has had an effect.
My BS meter just exploded. That said, I continued to slog through the entirety of this article and actually feel dumber for having done so.
I do not like progressives using mental tricks to influence me anymore than I like conservatives doing it. Are you suggesting progressives should use the same tactics? Just because something works doesn't mean its the right thing to do.
Exactly how emotional must one be in order to know "real reason?" I will never trust emotional responses over logical ones. I get way more squeamish by someone doing something or crying over something illogical than I do by someone eating worms. I plan to use what you call "false reason" until the day I die. I don't care if conservatives can't understand it.
You state what I think is a typical viewpoint from progressives. On sites like this, where we speak to the choir, logic is all any of us really wants, but try to convince a conservative without some emotional button-pushing, and you're likely wasting your breath. Personally, I hope some progressives do "care if conservatives can't understand it." Otherwise I think we're going nowhere in a hurry.
"Exactly how emotional must one be in order to know 'real reason?' I will never trust emotional responses over logical ones."
Let's see how your response measures up if we put in the concept that Lakoff was actually discussing in his article: values oriented.
"Exactly how values oriented must one be in order to know 'real reason?' I will never trust values oriented responses over logical ones."
Well, I'll never trust logical responses that ignore values ones.
Lakoff is pointing out that a logical argument that doesn't consider values is empty as far as convincing people of anything. I realized this decades ago and called it the "rubber band syndrome." Perhaps a logical argument would convince someone of something during the argument, but their values pull them right back to their previous position. It's like having a rubber band on your wrist, you can pull it out as far as you want, but as soon as you let go it snaps back.
The real issue we must discuss is about values.
"But he changed after the election. Obama moved from real reason, how people really think, to false reason, a traditional view coming out of the Enlightenment and favored by all too many liberals."
As brilliant as you are in analysis of "frames" and other intellectual phenomenon, you don't understand one concept over all others-cui bono. Who benefits?
Mr. Obama has done one and only one thing well-promote the interests of the financial/ruling elite.
He will frame, lie, cheat and steal to further the objectives of the rulers-which is full dominance of the political, economic, social and cultural environment.
Mr. Obama was a shill of the financial elite before the election. He grew up as a servant of the ruling elite. He was raised by white, affluent people from Chicago.
This is not hard to understand; but if you don't you will remain an apologist of your class.
Just viewing this from logic circuit of my brain.
Since Medicare is a warm ,nurturing word . I do not understand why any human in this society would turn away from its promise.
Conservatives have indeed worked hard at diminishing the warm and nurturing part of governmental institution while preserving and substantially boosting the Polluting and Destructive parts of governmental institutions. So are conservatives really for small governments? They are it seems to have sided to protect themselves from external threats ("Them") rather than internal threats ("Us").
Frames created by Conservative and Liberal is based on political moves. Political thought come out of societal pressures. Hence, to boost the liberal stand on how government should spend from the treasury , the new government (circa 2009) should have allowed full consequence of conservative economic moves to play out. Higher un-employment, failing banks, etc. . This would have diminished the conservative frames which it has created in our brain.
Until then, scope of our discriminatory laws expanded to include Conservative Brain. A Liberal initiative.
"Every time a liberal goes over a conservative proposal giving evidence negating conservative ideas one by one, he or she is activating the conservative ideas in the brains of his audience."
Which FOX 'News' has turned into a trademark, which is why 'the left' should boycott em flat. The only reason they 'invite' guests like, say, Arianna Huffington, or Paul Krugman on various 'news shows' is to push all the 'I hate liberals' buttons of their R-nut base, not one of whom hears a single word any damn lyin liberal says...
Also, there's an interesting point overlooked in this otherwise fine piece: those who question theirs, and all, frame systems - AKA, artists.
There are very few conservative filmmakers, rock stars, painters, etc - because self-examination is not one of their strong points, and questioning their own frame systems is forbidden, as mentioned above.
And that's another example of the "perspective of real reason as conservatives use it." They rail against evil liberal Hollywood but see every flick in between 8hrs/day of TV, vid games, gossip rags, etc while creating virtually zero content of their own... and, of course, since lots of art asks one to question themselves and their frames, that triggers anger at the evil Hollywood liberals... rinse, repeat...
Dr. Lakoff's article touches on the reason progressive ideas have all but disappeared from the American discourse. Thom Hartmann touched on the same topic in his book "Cracking the Code." Progressives can rant and posture that they won't use the same tactics as those evil conservatives, or they don't buy the theory (used scientifically), or they think it is nonsense, or they have a better theory (used colloquially), or yadda, yadda, yadda. Very predictable behavior, based on the article. What it all boils down to in the end is, do progressives want to make a difference, or are they comfortable with the status quo? Do progressives want to reshape political discourse in this country, or do they want to sit back smugly and say "I told you so" when the next conservative "hero" trashes the country and the planet. This incessant chatter over whether Mr. Obama is simply a corporate shill or just doesn't get it is merely a distraction. We can use the tactics of framing to get the message to the intended recipients, or we can continue to be elitist snobs and not care that our intetellectual arguments are not influencing people in a positive way. Put another way, it is time for progressives to exercise a bit of pragmatism.
Well said.
Thank you. Framing the framing so to speak. Progressives need to get their feet and hands dirty. Need to create a compelling narrative that competes with the conservative version. We need to use what God gave us to work with, a mixture of conservative and progressive and more (the author over-simplifies this) in the public. So we need to tailor the message for the market, not try to force the market to conform to us!
Gary
"China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese."
-~ Charles De Gaulle
Well stated.
Except for the last sentence, I agree. When you say pragmatic, one would assume the typical centrist Democrat and that doesn't help progressives. We use the tactics of framing to move the country to the left and leave pragmatism out.
Let's see: Child rearing habits are greatly influenced by one's moral frame. A patriarchal, punitive, controlling style of bringing up children plays itself out in forming the child's subsequent political and social world view--a conservative one. Isn't it possible that this "style" is inherited? That conservative and liberal styles are passed along with our genes? If so, liberals haven't been at fault for ignoring "framing issues." Rather, they have simply been outnumbered. You aren't going to change many people's outlook on the world by simply changing the frames used in describing conflicts; they've already been socialized into those outlooks in their childhoods.
The United States population is fundamentally conservative because of the kinds of people that decided to migrate here. They tended to be religious and moral purists, scorning intellectual achievement--remember how Kerry or Al Gore were scorned as being "wonkish"? And how businessmen with their "go get'em" attitudes have always been admired? It has to do with genetics, not the success of the right-wing noise machine. I say, let the left gather together in places where they can put their moral frame into action, into small states and communities--and forget about influencing what goes on in Washington. Maybe differential fertility will favor the left in the long run, but not in the immediate future. Don't hold your breath waiting for the conversion of millions from right-wing framing to left-wing framing.
I disagree in the sense that it wasn't always the way we are now. A distinct minority (reich-wing, 'moral majority') has gained considerable influence, just like they did in Nazi germany so many years ago - and now look at germany.
No, I think what we have now in government and society is not different from what went before. Of course, Zinn backs me up on that one. This country's history is a long narrative of a strongly Christian, nativist, anti-intellectual, and anti-government thinking and action. The present time is noteworthy because modern media make it so easily to manipulate the masses. However, fundamental values have not changed.
I agree with the history, I just disagree with your recommendation:
"...forget about influencing what goes on in Washington."
I think more people pulling away from Washington makes it easier for authoritarians to take and maintain control. I'm saying to vote, and continue to press the federal gov't for changes through movements.
That was a worthy read, imo. But, I found even more interesting the ideas in this book I recently read (free, online) "The Authoritarians"
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
I think it ties in with this article in some ways, but focuses on the authoritarian mindset which seems to be the real driver.
John Dean has also given interesting insight into authoritarian-seekers.
John Dean's thoughts on the conservative mindset came from this guy that wrote (arrrgh, I can't remember his name off hand) "The Authoritarians." This is an excellent online book by the way!
Lakoff is an extraordinary progressive which even I find complicated to understand at times. I will understand his basic framing but sometimes, just when I think I got it, he goes deeper. This article, however, I do not find complicated. Since I work at a telephone company, I understand this article clearly and see how one can use logic to explain things.
I have read articles by this author on this site and I understand that most commenters feel that he is a typical Obama apologist. I am ready to vote for progressive independent parties but I do not believe that Lakoff is an Obama apologist. The lessons to learn from the fall of the progressive Democratic Party are what Lakoff is trying to explain using science and thinking. Lakoff may be at fault because of where he allows empathy to be fixed at compared to others who go beyond relying on the Democratic Party to share his empathy. Still, before anyone calls Lakoff a party shill, please read his books first if you haven't done so already. I have read customer reviews on his works and he has been unfairly attacked by the right and the left. Whether the future of the progressive movement lies in the Democratic, Green, or whatever party, we need to unite on empathy. Nurture yourself and each other as he would say.
Reframe the brainstem NYT!
This article is a dangerous pile of silly BS. It's the equivalent of a "scientist" in ancient Greece who begins with the false assumption that the universe is composed of 4 basic elements (fire, air, earth & water), then proceeds to write a learned-sounding tome based on this assumption, to argue for the assumption's plausibility.
Lakoff's basic assumption is that all humans are naturally & fundamentally divided into 2 groups: liberals and conservatives. He then cites all sorts of groovy-sounding pseudo-scientific baloney about "neural circuits", "mirror neuron systems," & so forth, to gussy up what is basically no more than his own personal acceptance of this supposedly correct division of mankind into these 2 "elements." Underneath mammoth gobs of pretentious fake science, Lakoff has simply assumed that that while "Liberals" are all that's kind, generous & decent on Planet Earth, "Conservatives" represent nothing less than the limitlessly malevolent Forces of the Devil.
Thus we see liberal (pardon the pun!) use of knee-slapping howlers like:
- "Even though liberals have worked tirelessly for the material benefit of working people..."
- "The NY Times is home to a lot of traditional reason..."
- Frank Rich & Paul Krugman both described as "heroes"
- "...It was entirely predictable a year ago that the conservatives would hold firm against Obama's attempts at "bipartisanship" - finding occasional conservatives who were biconceptual, that is, shared some views acceptable to Obama on some issues, while keeping an overall liberal agenda...." [This convoluted passage asserts that there's a real difference between what's "acceptable to Obama" and the preferred positions of most conservatives. In fact, however, Obama accepts virtually anything & everything demanded by the Right. And he does not have "an overall liberal agenda" any more than Bush, McCain, Lloyd Blankenfein, or Mitch McConnell.]
- "....During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama used framing perfectly and articulated the progressive moral system (empathy, individual and social responsibility, making oneself and the world better)..." {Aww, isn't Obama an absolute angel?}
- "...Medicare is anathema to their (ie, conservatives') moral system - a fundamental insult..." [Actually, Obama just appointed a "bipartisan" commission this week that will undoubtedly wind up recommending huge slashes in Medicare. So blaming Medicare cuts on "conservatives" is utter hooey.]
In fact, human society is NOT fundamentally divided into "liberals and conservatives" (each with measurably different "strength of blink reflexes to unexpected noises", no less!!) This phony division is every bit as false as dividing the physical world into fire, air, earth & water. Human society is far more accurately conceived as being divided into social classes: most fundamentally, the ruling class, and everyone else. Because Lakoff has premised his entire discussion on false assumptions, he's in a "Garbage-in, Garbage-out" situation, & can't be rescued no matter how high he piles the pseudo-scientific jargon.
-----------
PS - Note that both "liberals" & "conservatives" accept capitalism without so much as a question. The word "capitalism" doesn't even appear once in the article, since it's simply assumed that all societies must be so structured. Thus Lakoff avoids so much as the merest mention of social class, let alone the political consequences of society's class divisions -- which flow inevitably from capitalism.
In fact, a more detailed analysis of liberalism & conservatism would show that both are mere adjuncts to the prevailing system of class domination. "Liberalism" is essentially no more than capitalism with a smiley face.
You disappoint me, Rich. The purity of your far-leftism won't allow much for pragmatism. It suits your logic. It does little to improve things.
I don't think he means it that way but it is easy to misunderstand Lakoff as framing isn't an easy sport. You should read the reviews of his books. He gets a lot of flack from both sides.
The standard approach of Dem Party apologists is trying to demonize the "far left" for its alleged "purism," while refusing to grapple with its substantive points. In the eyes of a DP apologist, "pragmatism" just means "compromising" with Republicans, which quickly produces disgusting messes like the Obama admin, which is Republican in everything but name.
I think you're right on Lakoff still being too easy on the Democratic Party and I am ready to leave the Democratic Party but I am not ready to write off Lakoff like that. I think he wants to reach out to conservatives in a different way by suggesting that we reframe differently so that people who are otherwise conservatives might actually be liberal without our knowledge. Staunch conservatives cannot be converted but conservatives who share some liberal values might have a chance.
Greg and Stanley, George Lakoff is not looking at progressive or liberal sources which would include the Green Party, Code Pink, advocate groups for single payer, anti-war groups who have not slept even after Obama was sworn in, Cindy Sheehan, Ralph Nader, Howard Zinn and other independent groups and people who have stood their ground and fought empathetically despite the odds against them. Lakoff is citing the wrong sources which appear liberal on the surface but are neoliberal and neoconservative outlets when you study them up close. In short, Lakoff is framing himself as pro status-quo.
Thanks for the pointer. I didn't get picky on the sources. I just went by the overall content of the article. Some of those sources you mentioned I know and some I don't. Unlike Randy Shaw, I don't believe that Lakoff is directly an Obama apologist but that he might have some complicated ways of seeing things that are hindering his ability to see what Obama is really all about. I guess I am not caught up either. I am not a hard skeptic but I think I am getting there the more I read these articles and comments. It is a good thing we have the Internet to ask and answer anyone anywhere.
In Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe, Private Willis, the sentry in front of Parliament, opens Act II with a solo in which we find
So let's rejoice with loud fa la's...
That every boy and every girl that's born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal, or else a little Conservative...
There is also agreement with Freud, who held that the unconscious does not perceive positive or negative, only what is being talked about, as recognized by Lakoff's title Don't Think of an Elephant. It would appear that one major utility of our highly publicized 'Homeland Security' efforts is to suggest that terrorism is a real threat, which makes it self-perpetuating.
Thanks, RichM!
Lakoff, like Paul Krugman, has great cachet among progressives and liberal-lites. Like Krugman, there's less to Lakoff than meets the eye; presumably Lakoff expertly "frames" himself to seem wise, insightful, and authoritative to the credulous, vulnerable, and needy.
I agree with your view that Lakoff's approach is to create dubious and idiosyncratic core concepts, then coat them with a thick layer of pseudo-scientific mystification.
No need to duplicate your trenchant analysis, but I stubbed my toe over "overall liberal agenda" too-- let's see, oh yeah: the Lily Ledbetter revolution and less persecution of legal medicinal marijuana sellers on the federal level. And Justice Sotomayor, though the jury is still out on that one.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Since he chooses to ignore economic factors, Lakoff is reduced to "explaining" the dancing shadows on the walls of the cave by other means.
Great reference to Plato's Cave metaphor, Brian. Have you read The Cave by Jose Saramago?
Interesting. But I think Professor Lakoff's choice of categorical terminology ("real reason" versus "false reason") damages more than it assists his own case.
every thinking and conscientious person knows that capitalism in economics is nothing but a FAITH BASED religion, devoid of the substance of truth according to its FAKE claims of benefits to society.
but if one has to have SCIENCE and THINKING applied to "economics"......
heck -- why go farther than ALBERT EINSTEIN:
"Capitalism has a NATURAL TENDENCY to accumulate wealth and power unto a FEW private hands...from the COMMON wealth created by Society in which the capitalists exist...everywhere you look, you see Workers deprived of the proper value of their labor...and in capitalism this is done, not necessarily by physical force, but by unconsciously or subconsciously making the People COMPLY with giving up what they have created collectively as wealth through Laws and Rules designed to serve Capitalism....
"I AM Convinced that the ROOT of THE EVIL is Capitalism.
"the only solution is SOCIALISM".
ALBERT EINSTEIN.
Possibly. But you're certainly gonna need some different "framing" if you hope to sell that solution in Amerika.
Thank you for the Albert Einstein quote --
and, basically, unregulated capitalism is merely organized crime.
.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
This is like reading Stephen Hawking about how the universe and time works, hard to wrap the brain around it but so fascinating! But this subject is so much more important. This is ultimately about how to get along with each other, and we don't have much time to figure out how to do a better job of that. We have the power to do so much better, and we have the power to do so much worse. Who has the power? We do. What is "we"? We is a motley crew of contradictions that makes it hard to figure "us" out. But we are figuring ourself out. It's complicated to make atoms split apart and it's complicated to make enough people understand that we should not split mommies and daddies and babies atoms apart. This article is nuts & bolts how the goo between our ears works. These are communication tools. Please use the tools responsibly. Please have something good to say. Please say it. Please have the best of ourselves save us from the worst of oursevles.
(1) George Lakoff is patting himself on the back; an unseemly move for any profession, let alone one pretending to the scientific status: Begins Lakoff, ". . . the NY Times has been reporting on results from the cognitive and brain sciences that confirm past research in those fields partly by me and partly by my community of colleagues."
(2) Lakoff's "science" is demonstrably bogus. His "science" concerns "brain circuitry"; and he claims that his "science" explains recent political develoments. Says he, in the sentence immediately following the one quoted in (1) above:
"What makes this of general, not personal, interest is that the scientific results are especially important for understanding what has been going wrong for the Obama administration and for liberals generally, and what has been going right for conservatives."
--Alas, the problem with appealing to organic--here, "brain circuitry"--factors to explain political developments is that the former precedes the latter; such that, if Lakoff's theory were true, the developments he pretends to "explain" would have already happened. If our "circuitry" explained our politics, any political changes would have to assert either a change of the circuitry or a change of the theory of same; please note that Lakoff claims neither condition. He simply trumpets that he has been right all along, and that the front page of a recent NY Times confirms him.
(3) Further evidence of the bogus character of Lakoff's "science" is revealed by his statement, "It was entirely predictable a year ago that the conservatives would hold firm against Obama's attempts at 'bipartisanship' . . . ." --Sorry, Professor, that is not how science works. You're not allowed to wait until X happens, then trumpet that your theory 'could have' predicted X. Science makes theoretical predictions that must face subsequent empirical tests, which falsify or confirm the theory in point.
(4) One sentence uttered by the Professor is sufficient to reduce to absurdity his alleged distinction between "real" and "false reason": "But, from the perspective of real reason as conservatives use it, there is no contradiction [between current GOP opposition to Medicare cuts and longstanding GOP support for Medicare cuts]." --Sorry, Professor, you just failed Logic 101. GOP "talking points" (what Lakoff calls "real reason") are demonstrably contrary to fact and reason because the GOP agenda--which is the agenda of the corporate capitalist/imperialist elite whom they serve--cannot bear rational scrutiny. You must lie and abuse logic if you wish to defend the indefensible.
(5) One more reductio ad absurdum: According to Lakoff, Obama was doing dandy during his campaign, when he appealed to "real reason." Says Lakoff: "But he [Obama] changed after the election. Obama moved from real reason, how people really think, to false reason, a traditional view coming out of the Enlightenment and favored by all too many liberals." --Please note that the Professor did not claim that Obama's "brain circuitry" changed suddenly after his election; which claim would be expected to follow from Lakoff's theory.
(6) Lakoff's vaunted "framing" doctrine is but a pretentious plagiarism of what real scholars have said and said better on the topic for centuries--George Orwell, for example, in "Politics and the English Language"; or Aristotle in his "Rhetoric."
The greatest truth of Lakoff's article is entirely ironic, as the popularity of his crackpot musings speaks volumes for the degeneracy of political discourse in contemporary America.
I wouldn't begin to assume that all of Mr. Lakoff's extrapolations are correct, but to merely blow off these interesting experiments and ideas as "pretentious plagiarism" would seem to be the thinking of a mind most fixed in the understanding of its own elite perfection. Have another latte.
In between all the repeated 'plugs' for his various books, this essay reads like a narcissistic paen to Lakoff by Lakoff, who appears absolutely giddy that his 'work' has somehow been judged acceptable by the New York Times--a propaganda rag I wouldn't use to line my bird cage-- hence bestowing some sort of (desperately needed) credibility to what should more accurately be described as junk-science. It's all utter drivel, both the essay and the psuedo-science Lakoff is trying to pass off as important.
How pathetic.
All of this delineating and reinforcing of his argument for "real reason" and he wills himself NOT to see how Obama (and the majority of democrats) have been deliberately complicit in the republiican agenda.
This notion that Obama has been using "false reason" is possibly the most staggeringly ridiculous excuse-making I've ever read.
Mr. Lakoff says Obama "changed after the election."
You were fooled Mr. Lakoff, and the sooner you realize that, the better. Obama was corrupt before the election and he is corrupt today.
The argument made in the article only PROVES how the majority of democrats want exactly the same things as do the republicans. That is why they worked so hard to reinforce the republican framing of issues.
False reason?
Ridiculous and pathetic.
... and the beat goes on!
Lakoff appears to twist himself into some sort of pretzel as he tries to explain the political world, particularly statements made and other propaganda issued by politicians, without taking into account dishonesty, which play a significant role in 99 percent of what is said and done.
Obama carried out his lying populism just like Clinton and Bush. This article is full of outdated information and incorrect sources that appear liberal on the surface. Lakoff has framed himself and needs to reframe himself out of his delusions.
Just as predicted, you did not get it. Keep on doing the same old things, and you will keep on getting the same old results. Wake up, sheeple!
As Einstein pointed out, one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Why do so-called liberals consistently rely on logical arguments? Is it because they are stupid? Or is it because they have all really sold out to the corporations and merely want to go through the motions and look like they are trying to their (equally metaphorically challenged) base? A true progressive would use contemporary psychological tools to carry out their program. Obama is not stupid or insane; he knows what he is doing; he has sold out. He saw how Clinton selling out yielded him 100 million dollars in less than eight years. Obama is no fool.
Sioux Rose
JKL: Excellent analyses. This thread really brought out the thinkers!
This article makes me think of building "super-colliders" to explain why quarks spin in different directions. Completely useless information explaining why things happened, that's intersting to a lot of people who like to think about why things happened.
I just finished re-reading "The Grapes of Wrath". Other than technology, not a damned thing has changed in this country in 70 plus years.
It's still all about greed and manipulation. And until people realize that "they" always win, whether it's conservative or liberal, because they keep all of us playing their game.
We have to do what they didn't do in the book. Stop looking for "something better". Find a way to live that is its own reward.
Quit playing their game by their rules.
Stop looking for "something better"? Wow! I thought I was cynical.
I do agree, however, that we've got to stop letting the opposition set the rules of the game and being so proud of our "high minded" adherence to those rules.
Liberal,Conservative,politician all have hearts and minds and Souls and the only real life is the Soul and it inhabits the body.As we muddle through on this planet making choices that may impact others;do we make choices with others in mind or do we make choices for "the me first"?Where is the conscience,the empathy for others?He writes alot of words to bring up conscience or no conscience.To finish I would say the liberal is for "live and let live" and the conservative has to be at the apex of the pyramid where there is the "me".Tony
It's the liberals and conservatives who have opposing moral systems not independents. Consider libertarian Republicans who support immense defense spending, nation-building and curtailing of civil liberties. And consider progressive Democrats who support bailouts to the wealthiest, most crooked executives in the country. Independent thinkers like libertarians who oppose war and military spending or progressives who want to audit the Fed are the ones with a consistent moral system.
Did you even read the article all the way through?
A Heady Eight; Finite Minus One empirePie February 21st, 2010
Frame me up for some real reason
I reason well and adjust for smell
though my coffee is cold
and my ticker can’t do the bold
My ‘shit detector’ is fine tuned for metaphor
as my head transcribes a figure 8
for infinite stupidity is running late
stand by false reason .... it’s your fate
Nothing is mentioned by the author or the reponders of how money and what its affect has on the thought process of either the liberal or the conservative mind. In the case of all of the current business of Congress it appears that money speaks louder than reason or rationality. It obviously influences both liberal and conservative thinking in many ways and has become the collective agreement of both entities, probably the only thing agreeable to both types of thought process. Money talks, influences reason and in the end, sadly for us, is the determining factor in decision making.
Yup, money is THE reason. The "framing" applies to the processes whereby the general public is persuaded to believe otherwise and to support theft from their own pockets.
hi hi
Cognitive dissonance is not exactly a new concept, neither is the understanding of how Authoritarianism suppresses those feelings of dissonance by applying them to a scapegoat. Relationships in the brain are often misattributed, but it is a leap to conclude that they are caused by misattribution.
It is not a mistake to think logically, the mistake that is so commonly made is in assuming that; because the methods of fascists are not valid, their concerns are not valid either. The concerns of every human being are valid.
You can form an effective argument with anyone as long as you use premises that they firmly believe to be true, but to do that you must take the time to learn what it is they truly believe.
Lakoff is right to point out how Authoritarianism is deeply rooted in people's mental upbringing, and that it needs to be subverted in order to make any impact on that portion of the national discourse, but that still must not be the end goal. A free, well informed, critical thinking population is still necessary for the long term survival of a democratic society, even a representative one such as ours.
When you say that authoritarianism is deeply rooted in people's mental upbringing, I am reminded of what George Lakoff would call Strict Father Liberals. It's easy to call oneself nice but then plunge into authoritarian thinking for that temporary feel good thing. A critical thinking population can only exist when more people are brought to sites like these unless the public schools can be reformed to teach critical thinking at large. The modern SATs in high school have changed a lot from antonyms and analogies to critical reading and writing. Quick strategies in guessing are easy to invent but there is no defined exam strategy for critical reading and thinking.
"WHAT BUSINESS does Science and Capitalism got, making these inventions before Society has produced a Generation educated enough to know how to use them?"
HENRIK IBSEN
Lakoff has stated in the past that science is used by conservatives where it suits them and that conservatives love capitalism. Therefore, capitalism and science could be a dangerous mix from T Boone Pickens on wind energy to inventing new ways to drill for oil otherwise impossible to drill. Coal to gas also comes to mind. The Fischer Tropsch process of turning coal into gasoline is one scientific method that can be used for profits when oil prices are sky high.
"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world."
Arthur Schopenhauer [Studies in Pessimism]
... and that's a good part of the trouble. It's all about personal/spiritual evolvement. A-ha! There are no limits.
/cm
Here is a link from the NYT article that describes the study linking thinking about time and body movements forward and backward. It is a good bit of evidence supporting the field of cognitive linguistics.
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/01/08/0956797609359333.full
I've read many of the books published by George Lakoff and also Mark Johnson, and have been in their classes on linguistics. I also attended a national cognitive linguistics conference back in the 1990s.
I'm convinced the field of study that Lakoff and Johnson helped to found—cognitive linguistics—is a well-developed body of knowledge. The book Metaphors We Live By by Mark Johnson is a good beginning. So is The Way We Think by Mark Turner, which explores the processes known as conceptual blending.
Those here who dismiss and disparage the field of cognitive linguistics without having engaged in much study of this growing and helpful field of science are not doing their credibility much good in my eyes.
But what about people who dismiss crass political opportunism, power politics and the Big Lie?
i'm all for deep analysis and breadth of understanding, but i'm also for calling a spade a spade.
There are a lot of unmerited assumptions, in Lakoff's analysis, about "liberal" politicians and "liberal" media. It seems WAY more likely, Occam's razor and all, that these people are not the least bit stupid about their framing, but are crass political opportunists, looking out not for the public good and "progressive" ideals, but for their own (and their necessary allies') power and wealth.
That said, i believe framing is important, and holding onto a recognition of the humanity of each person is important. But at the level that the Bushes, Clintons and Obamas play at, it's not about their humanity. It's about their power.
Lakoff would hold my esteem much more if he would incorporate raw power into his algorithms of social framing.
hi hi
Twenty people taking part in a confirmation study doesn't prove a causal relationship. The correlation is clearly there, but it will be more convincing if and when a group of skeptical researchers fail to find contradictory evidence.
Misattribution (Dutton and Aron 1974) explains this phenomenon just as well, which is to say, in a non-causal way.
Pure hooey. I agree with previous comments pointing out that the truisms Lakoff covers here have been "framed" more intelligently by others without the introduction of pseudo-scientific jargon, that the author seems bent on crediting himself for something he never explains, that he fails to mention money, the elephant in the room, which must be what he's thinking about, etc.
Anyone who tells you how the brain works without reference to neurons and synapses is full of crap. There is a long history in psychology of Lakoff's type of explanation using high-level semantic concepts, which is why psychologists have to keep re-branding themselves as cognitive scientists and such. Neuroscience (or neurobiology or brain science or whatever you want to call it) depends critically on chemistry and cell biology and evolution and mathematics. Many people are too lazy to study these basics and instead prefer to tell a good story by appealing to lay constructs such as "frames" or the false dichotomy between reason and emotion.
While I'm at it, don't believe anyone who tells you how the brain works based on a few EEG electrodes. There are 100,000,000,000 neurons and about 10,000 times that many synapses. Even MRI studies cannot approach the level analysis necessary to explain how the brain processes information. An MRI can give you an idea where in the brain processing occurs, e.g. the visual area, but every MRI voxel (3 dimensional pixel) contains millions of cells and synapses. Where and how are very different.
Similarly, any theory that posits a single chemical as a monolithic causal agent, e.g. dopamine is for reward, should not be taken seriously. All these theories just recast conventional wisdom with jargon added to make the theorist sound intelligent.
Although numerically big in some ways, I do not mean to imply that the brain is particularly complicated or beyond explanation. That attitude is for humans who somehow want to be better than or different from the rest of the universe. It's just that the explanation of the brain starts on a level over which I doubt this author has any mastery.
I very much agree. It is a long distance from examining the nature and processes of neural networks to creating hypotheses about "frames" and liberal or conservative minds. Lakoff extrapolates wildly from the basic research to tie into topics of great interest, hoping his audience is too bamboozled and excited to critically examine his assumptions and find their flaws.
This comment, and especially that by "knowyourbrain" immediately above, are extremely misleading.
Lakoff is attacked for using neuroscience constructs when his actual theory isn't even neuroscientific - it's a psychological model, social-developmental in most areas. I think this is called a "straw-man" argument. And where did Lakoff say anything about a single transmitter?
Even if Lakoff were proposing a neurobiological basis for constructs such as "frames", there is nothing in itself wrong with working simultaneously at different levels of analysis ((general psychological such as frames) and more specific level (morality related neural circuits)). Most scientists and philosophers understand that both levels are necessary.
These two commentors (especially "knowyourbrain") seem oblivious to research (primarily from cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology) that has been able to relate large sets of neurons to specific cognitive, emotional, and social processes. This research does not focus on "single cells", but rather on large sets of cells constituting "circuits" or "networks". The same applies to neurotransmitter "systems", a though to a lesser degree. In short, these comments are misleading because they ignore the tremendous amount to progress that has been made.
The statement about psychology continuously trying to redefine itself as "neuroscience", "cognitive neuroscience", etc. is again highly misleading. Sciences evolved in such as way that they become more and more specific (e.g., cognitive psychology, physiological psychology, social psychology, etc), which then tend to merge with conceptually related subfields from other disciplines to form multidisciplinary fields (cognitive linguistics, cognitive anthropology, cognive neuroscience, etc.
It is insinuated that Lakoff is making a "false dichotomy" between cognition and emotion, when in reality the idea of an embodied mind is very much the opposite. Again, these commenters don't even understand Lakoff's most basic position.
Obviously, the brain/mind is incredibly complicated and we have a long way to go. But tremendous progress has been made in the last 20 years, and this progress will only accelerate in the future. To deny that this progress has been made, and in the case of these kinds of comments that it even can be made, smacks of the one of the worst kinds of anti-intellectualism.
You erred in grouping my comment with that of knowyourbrain in that the comments were far from equivalent and you should have dealt with them separately. I agree with much of what knowyourbrain wrote, including the conclusion that Lakoff's article did not appear to have much value, but there were differences, including the implication in my comment that I accepted the value of the fundamental research regarding neural circuits (in an earlier comment in the thread I had made this more clear). I almost entered a Ph.D. program 30 years ago focused on just such research, and I did minor in cognitive science when I was a Ph.D. student in Computer Science back in the early 80s.
My problem with Lakoff, which I believe overlaps with knowyourbrain's problem with him, is that Lakoff appears to insinuate that one could apply the fundamental research regarding neural circuits to the use of frames, or at the very least that progress with regard to understanding neural circuits in some ways adds substance to his hypotheses about frames. Lakoff makes this insinuation, or implication, while being unable to demonstrate the correspondence. But without establishing that neurological basis, his version of cognitive science has little chance of showing progress as the complex behaviors in question flow from a great many variables, making it virtually impossible to design rigorous scientific experiments that isolate all the significant independent variables and determine their contributions. So Lakoff is engaging more in a literary pursuit than in a scientific one, as he is just arguing about the best way to talk about certain phenomena without establishing any deeper understanding of the phenomena, such deeper understanding necessary for greater predictability with regard to the phenomena, which is the ultimate goal of scientific pursuits.
Lakoff then goes on to further injure his credibility by mentioning a silly pseudo-science study regarding the difference between conservative and liberal minds. There is nothing scientific about such a simplistic and seemingly arbitrary grouping of behaviors as there are virtually an infinite number of different groupings one can imagine and there is no method for determining one grouping to be superior to any other. The groupings were apparently chosen for the study with the goal of creating popular political literature, making the entire exercise one more of hack literature than hack science.
As for psychology redefining itself and the dichotomy between cognition and emotion, I did not address those issues in my comment.
Hi DougD:
I'm sorry I did not log in again sooner but will try to address your concerns if only for posterity's sake.
DD: "Lakoff is attacked for using neuroscience constructs when his actual theory isn't even neuroscientific..."
Please read (for example) the first sentence of the article. In other places he talks about synapses, etc. I agree that the article has nothing to do with neuroscience but unfortunately Lakoff masquerades as something he is not.
DD: "...it's a psychological model, social-developmental in most areas."
What? Are you a psych major by any chance?
DD: "And where did Lakoff say anything about a single transmitter?"
I'm sorry I was not more clear. The parts of my comment regarding EEG's, MRI's, and transmitters were addressing common problems in the reporting of neuroscience research and were not specifically directed toward Lakoff.
DD: "Even if Lakoff were proposing a neurobiological basis for constructs such as "frames", there is nothing in itself wrong with working simultaneously at different levels of analysis ((general psychological such as frames) and more specific level (morality related neural circuits)). Most scientists and philosophers understand that both levels are necessary."
Nothing wrong if they get it right or even have a clue about the lower (not "more specific") levels of analysis. So is he proposing a neural basis for something or not? It seems to me that he is claiming to propose a neural basis for something but never gets around to it. Where does he relate morality to neural circuits?
DD: "These two commentors (especially "knowyourbrain") seem oblivious to research (primarily from cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology) that has been able to relate large sets of neurons to specific cognitive, emotional, and social processes. This research does not focus on "single cells", but rather on large sets of cells constituting "circuits" or "networks". The same applies to neurotransmitter "systems", a though to a lesser degree. In short, these comments are misleading because they ignore the tremendous amount to progress that has been made."
I enjoy reading about the relationship between neural circuits and behavior. What I do not ever want to read again is an MRI study showing that this part of the cortex relates to that behavior. Again, the where is not as interesting at least to me as the how. The how can indeed be understood but not by reference to high-level, largely semantic concepts.
DD: "The statement about psychology continuously trying to redefine itself as "neuroscience", "cognitive neuroscience", etc. is again highly misleading. Sciences evolved in such as way that they become more and more specific (e.g., cognitive psychology, physiological psychology, social psychology, etc), which then tend to merge with conceptually related subfields from other disciplines to form multidisciplinary fields (cognitive linguistics, cognitive anthropology, cognive neuroscience, etc."
Admit it, you are a psych major, no? Science in general and brain science in particular moves both from the lower level to the higher level and back. Proteins and other large molecules work together to form neurons; neurons talk to other neurons through synapses forming circuits; synapses get stronger and weaker forming memories; remembering changes gene transcription, which changes the amounts of proteins and so on.
DD: "It is insinuated that Lakoff is making a "false dichotomy" between cognition and emotion, when in reality the idea of an embodied mind is very much the opposite."
Well, I said "reason and emotion" is a false dichotomy because it turns out that emotions are quite reasonable and logical. I will address this further if anyone is interested. Your comments and Lakoff's article share a certain penchant for using big words in no particular order. All thoughts are embodied inasmuch as they occur in the brain. What opposite?
DD: "Again, these commenters don't even understand Lakoff's most basic position."
Sorry, please explain it to me again with smaller words.
DD: "Obviously, the brain/mind is incredibly complicated and we have a long way to go. But tremendous progress has been made in the last 20 years, and this progress will only accelerate in the future. To deny that this progress has been made, and in the case of these kinds of comments that it even can be made, smacks of the one of the worst kinds of anti-intellectualism."
I guess you mean "...these kinds of comments that DENY it even can be made..."
Quite the contrary, I agree that we have made progress on understanding the brain in leaps and bounds. In fact I'd go much further and say we understand it almost as well as we ever will considering godel's incompleteness theorems. Now we just need to replicate it on a computer, which we will in the next couple of decades.
Of course Lakoff's theories do not explain everything about politics; and yes, he is guily of publicly patting himself on the back, and yes, he is talking about crudely manipulating public opinion, and yes the role of money is vitally important. But his theories are very important and seem to be validated by life. Progressives ignore them at their peril.
For instance, when the health care reform debate began polls consistently showed that 2/3 of Americans favored some form of single payer. Again, the only professional assessment of Iran's nuclear intentions is the still valid 2007 NIE saying that there was no evidence of a weapons program. In both cases, the known facts were simply ignored and the discussion was reframed; in the former case into subsidizing insurance company profits with taxpayer money to "prevent a government takeover of health care", and the latter into "how do we stop this (nonexistent) weapons program?" In both cases, as in most, corporate America wins and the people are convinced to turn against truth, reality, and their own interest.
Has anyone tried talking about single payer with a blue collar conservative? The kind who carries a sign reading "keep the government out of my medicare!" They know single payer is bad, but they don't know why, and they do like medicare, but refuse to see any connection. They don't want a government bureaucrat between them and their doctor, but can't explain why it is good to have an insurance company bureaucrat there. Nor can they explain why having 1/3 of all health care premiums going to insurance company profits is a good thing; its just free enterprise in action. The public is being manipulated right now and will continue to be. Its time to stop saying that we are too good, or pure, or whatever to engage in that ourselves on behalf of progressive causes. Or just shut up and accept continually losing.
I'm glad I came here to view comments. I thought this essay was so lame that I couldn't believe it was written by George Lakoff. So I wanted to see what others thought. I agree the self aggrandizing and promotion was odd. Thought it a rather improper use of my time. As I read it I found the ideas and findings hardly enlightening and almost laughable. People smile when they are happy. Do we need a study for that? Too bad Mr. Lakoff hasn't embodied humility. His theory about liberals is worthy of discussion but would much prefer a discussion of how people could guard themselves against constant manipulation. I felt as if he was elevating the art of deception as valid. But the final obscenity was his defining of real reason and false reason. Plato would have Lakoff banded from The Academy with this sophistry. To reduce reason to necessarily having to be embodied is the height of arrogance and extremely dangerous. It is Palin like thinking. It changes reason from the rational to feeling. This sort of liberal thinking is really what destroys any chance of ever entering a world based on reason rather than fear. I don't have to embody truth or justice, I just need to know what it is and fight for it. And to call logic false reasoning is also a new low for any so called educator.
Good comments. I likewise was shocked at his definition of reason as unreason, and emotional nonsense as "real reason".
Or - as Winston Churchill might have opined: bullshit wrapped in sophistry wrapped in legerdemain.
Thanks for the feedback. It's strange but I am finally starting to realize that the age of reason is fading and we are moving into an age which would be very scary for an old fart like myself. I'm just concerned for the future of humanity. Without reason as the gold standard truly anything goes. I think we are already seeing this when America tortures and participates in illegal wars with out even the cover of covert methods. Not justifying covert actions, just can't believe that it is in your face criminality and boldness to tell you as Dick Cheney has "So?" Not to mention Wall St. and our representatives in general. How any of these people and I use that word very loosely can claim to be good citizens or even human let alone protectors of the Constitution boggles my thinking.
i'm surprised no one has commented on Lakoff in action: at the student protests at UC Berkeley (i think) he folded his "progressive" flag faster than superman on laundry day and sided w/the administration against the students.
but what do you expect from someone who NEVER mentions the words "money, class, power, etc."?
(basing my comments on an article on the UC protests in counterpunch from a few weeks back. too busy/lazy to hunt it down right now....)
the link is here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/maher11242009.html
there are several other articles on lakoff that can be found at counterpunch using its search engine.
Interesting info --
the problem arises when it is used to manipulate people.
And, yes, the right wing is authoritarian --
And more fearful and judgmental --
And more likely to connect Capitalism with Christianity!
We have been taught that Capitalism and democracy are
synonymous -- just the opposite is true.
And, certainly, Capitalism is just the reverse of anything
that Jesus taught!
Again -- it is the use of information to manipulate the
public which we should be more concerned about.
And, be clear that it has been used for political gain as Nixon's
White House began the study of Nazi propaganda -- and the right wing
has continued it's "peace/dream" propaganda while waging wars and on
to "Welfare Queens" and "Quotas."
And human information/observation has also been used for torture if you
recall the psychiatrists used by interrogators to "soften up" suspects in
Guantanamo, etal.
We have our own political prisoners -- those who have fought for Puerto
Rican rights -- kept in conditions which defy humane treatment and resemble
torture. And who knows how many others?
This is a crossing over of the line where observation is informative to where
observation becomes abusive. Those are the lines we must watch.
Information is knowledge -- except when it is used to create ill-gotten gain
over others.
.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
Let's leave Lakoff's grandstanding and questionable progressive credentials aside for the moment.
Let's recognize that there is another very big fish in this particular pond. The vagueness of political language here does effect the science, but much of the science itself is rather good, and we had best recognize the perspective that it does give on the politics.
Our politicians' motives, including their blends of intent and rationalization, are not likely more simple than our own. The metaphorical thinking that Lakoff manages to partly describe is endemic,nearly constant, and a favorite reliable target both of high art and basely motivated advertising.
Lakoff talks about how the Repugs savvy this and the Demned don't, but that appears to be just a projection from his personal affiliations. 0bama and his campaign elves manipulated such things more effectively than McCain and Palin in 08, and so corporatism entered the White House in'08 as a Trojan horse turncoat Dem instead of a straightforwardly catastrophic Republican.
I take exception to the implication that progressives can or should usefully copycat Republicrat or Demoplican jingoism. But I do think it is useful for all of us to recognize that we signal all kinds of things when we write or speak, and that we regularly further the ends of viciousness when we accept vicious rhetoric as a basis for discussion.
Rightist, Corporatist, thugwords to drop:
- TEA PARTY : Sorry, wrong century, wrong demographic, wrong ideology, wrong affiliation.
- CENTRIST: No one called centrist in living memory is near the center of either US or world opinion. There is nothing CENTRIST about the largest military budget of history, the murders that it supports, IMF or Bechtel or Halliburton or any of the lot.
- MODERATE: see CENTRIST.
- PROGRESSIVE: this should be used only for people who support something that can in some way be linked to progress. So, for instance, Obama is not "progressive," nor is anyone with a corporatist agenda progressive, all the less so by being Democrat as opposed to Republican.
- RIGHT-T0-LIFER: This is obvious once you think about it, no?
- TERRORIST. The discussion's been done, but I still see the word blown about.
- HEALTH INSURANCE: Neither word fits any bill that the White House or the Democratic majority have supported, still less the bloodletting that so-called insurance companies remain allowed to engage in.
- DRONES. It sounds so sterile, no? Why accept this when science fiction and video games, where violence sells and sells soap, have given us so much more accurate terms? These are the search-and-destroy killers, reapers, murderous robots, droids and so forth.
- DEPLETED URANIUM should at least be considered partially depleted uranium. The fact that it is not a nuclear explosive should not hide its nature as a nuclear weapon, a radioactive weapon. Many people currently support the use of "DU" ammo who would not support use of "WMD" in the same circumstances.
- ANY OF THE EUPHEMISMS SURROUNDING TORTURE. Deliberately inflicting pain and damage upon captured persons or animals is torture. Hiring torture is torture.
- MILITARY CONTRACTORS are mercenaries.
- RENDITION is kidnapping.
- All the forms of unjustifiable homicide now claimed as legitimate by the US government are murder. All those incidents in which such things are planned and carried out as planned are first degree murder.
- DOMESTIC ESPIONAGE is spying, the act for which the Rosenbergs were executed.
- BILATERALISM - The sides to most issues are not to be reached by collusion between Democratic and Republican parties, much less by collusions between Congrefs and Finance or PHRMA
- HOPE, CHANGE, PROGRESS: Uuf.
All these terms and many, many, many more are part of the extensive reframing and control of reframing that most if not all of us undergo from our earliest educations. Very often the literate are more enwrapped in all this than the the semiliterate.
Our words, our phrases, our symbols and signs of all sorts are not only the results of thought but its cause as well. We had best watch them, maybe even be grateful for Lakoff's pointing out their efficacy while he flounders along with us in their grasp.
Reason, in the Stoic sense, is not the power of "reasoning," i.e. of arguing on the basis of experience and with the tools of ordinary or mathematical logic. Reason for the Stoics is the Logos, the meaningful structure of reality as a whole and of the human mind in particular. They knew that anxiety can be overcome only through the power of universal reason which prevails in the wise man over desires and fears. Stoic courage presupposes the surrender of the personal center to the Logos of being; it is participation in the divine power of reason, transcending the realm of passions and anxieties. The courage to be is the courage to affirm our own rational nature, in spite of everything in us that conflicts with its union with the rational nature of being-itself. The Courage to Be by Paul Tillich