May I Politely Disagree with George Lakoff?

Email Print posted by yturks 06/20/2008 11:42:52 AM EST

Google Technorati del.icio.us digg reddit

Who saw Cenk's interview with linguist George Lakoff?  In my words, one of his main points was that the new understanding of the brain is that reason is not separate from emotion/passion or frames that are created and physically located in the brain.  He argues that Democrats, who have an 18th Century Cartesian view that reason is separate from feelings, fail to realize that voters don't simply analyze the facts and make their decision; instead they perceive the facts through their pre-existing frames.  He argues that in politics, the Democrats would be more successful if they adopted the new understanding of reason.

I would like to argue that the Cartesian view is correct and Lakoff is wrong.  Reason is separate from feelings, and what the voters are doing is actually using reason and emotion together, not just reason.  I don't disagree necessarily with Lakoff's view of how people contemplate the issues, how they think and how they make the decisions. But while he calls that a demonstration of reason under the new understanding of what reason is, I just call it using reason with a heavy dose of emotion and passion.

Who is with me?

< Barack Obama and Public Money. | Are the Democrats Worse Than the Republicans? >
 Display:
May I Politely Disagree with George Lakoff? | 22 comments (22 topical, 0 hidden)
are we nothing but brutes (none / 0)
Even with all this neuroscience, I'm not quite ready to toss out Descartes.  Effective honest framing - sounds like spin to me.

by rev24 on 06/20/2008 12:57:15 PM EST

well (none / 1)

I really want to read more about the "neural computation" stuff he was talking about, because I don't think it was quite that simple.  It's pretty hard to argue with one of the leading scientists in the field.  This is state-of-the-art interdisciplinary neuroscience, after all. Not easily understood with a cursory explanation.

Just for kicks, check out the wiki page on this.

Computational Neuroscience

What I understood him to be saying is that our neural pathways in the brain develop in tandem with our experience and are reinforced by our emotions to the point where we can't necessarily discern where our emotions influence our decisions or reactions.  The brain is making decisions before we are even conscious of it, which is the basis of the recent discovery that such a process makes it seem like we can actually see a short distance into the future.

My feeling is that you might actually agree with him if you were able to learn enough about the science behind it. When you say things like "reason is separate from feelings," it begs the question--in what way?  In a strictly linguistic way, for the purposes of being able to even talk about this stuff, I think you are right.  What he is saying is that our brains may not actually support this hard and fast distinction, and that better understanding of how the brain processes information may help us "market" our ideas in ways that will be better accepted by Joe Public. 

my brain hurts now.   Anyway, I loved the interview.  What I got from it is that, if dems want to be successful in spreading their message, they need to appeal to the emotions as well as to reason.

by desertpear on 06/20/2008 01:51:21 PM EST

Liberals/Progressive/Democrats (none / 0)
They've all done a horrible job of framing issues, and it's led to many (unnecessary) losses, concessions and capitulations.

They all need to buy and read this book.  In fact, so do I.

by ihavenobias on 06/20/2008 03:25:50 PM EST

Flawed view of "Reason" (none / 0)
I believe that most people hold a flawed view of "Reason".  Basically we feel like if everyone had the exact same facts and used their reason they would all come to the same conclusion.  This is clearly false, especially when the decision is as highly value laden as who to vote for.  In the end I would argue that it is reason combined with values and "emotion" (whatever the hell that is) that lead to decisions. 

by alphasigmookie on 06/20/2008 04:16:05 PM EST

reason vs. emotion (none / 0)

Most people make their decisions based on emotional input and then use their logical mind to rationalize the emotionally gratifying decision. This is easy and basically the way our minds are set up to function. Except, this process is flawed, unscientific and easily manipulated. To refrain from using emotion and use the higher order logical thought process, without considering what feels good, requires discipline. This is the skeptic's way of thinking and is a much more precise way of arriving at the truth. The best way to ensure personal emotion is not contaminating the analysis is to subject it to peer review and debate. Still, there will be disagreement but that's natural and healthy.

I only heard part of the interview with Lakoff and I agreed with what he was saying about framing. Democrats need to wise up and apply his principles of framing their message based on emotional appeal. People are terrible skeptics, I'm pretty cynical about that.

by mr science on 06/20/2008 07:49:04 PM EST

Don't you get it? Descartes was FRENCH! (none / 0)

Just kidding.

George Lakoff mentioned something that made me want to read his book. Namely that people who have lost the capacity for emotion through injury or stroke are unable to reason through problems and make decisions the way that comes natural to most normal people. I think he was arguing for a physiological understanding of reason, which your post skipped over (it seems to me), and that attempting to encourage humans to be more dispassionate like computers is actually impossible. I don't think he was arguing that we should try to appeal to people's emotions rather than reason with them, but rather that we change our understanding of the reasoning mechanism of humans when we communicate with them.

by hazmat on 06/20/2008 11:53:05 PM EST

Critical Thinking (none / 0)

and that attempting to encourage humans to be more dispassionate like computers is actually impossible.

I anticipated this response. No, we're not all supposed to be like Mr. Spock and only live logically. Critical thinking requires a dispassionate view. It doesn't mean living dispassionately, it just means being objective about something. So live, love, laugh and have passion for truth, but also know when you're being manipulated and understand how emotions can cloud reason.

by mr science on 06/21/2008 10:36:15 AM EST

[ Parent ]
I think you're (none / 0)
ascribing to me a view I don't hold. Admittedly the line you took out of context looks like something I wouldn't normally say. I'll leave it at that.

by hazmat on 06/21/2008 12:10:47 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Globetrotters (none / 1)
Cenk-- Republicans? Democrats? Media?  What name so?
In the same show you are so indignant about the "democrats" caving and the "media" not doing their job and then sit down with Lakoff and talk about the stories by which we define our lives.  Here is one for you:
There is a basketball team called the Harlem Globetrotters that go around playing teams called the Generals.  Its really not a fair contest though because it always seems that the Globetrotters win.  Sadly, the anouncer is in on it too.  In short, the audience is being fooled.  It is also strongly possible that pro-wrestling may be fixed as well.  
It would be okay to be indignant that all brands are really working together republicanmediademocratswea lth, a few times.  But after awhile, can you really be all that shocked because the story you are telling yourself about who and what they should be isn't what you see?  How much does it cost to buy a media conglomerate as compared to how much it costs to buy a congressman?  So who has the real power? And are there really any lines between them all?
Lakoff is right about advertising, but I don't buy into his story that there is brand called democrat that is better than a brand called republican.  The Generals are supposed to lose, its the way the scam works. 

by NicoloM on 06/21/2008 10:43:26 AM EST

Hitler (none / 0)

I tend to agree the Professor that indeed we are ruled moreso by emotive-rational responses than pure reason. I always maintained the reason is a aberration of the mind, we are guided by what we feel more than what we think. How do you think Hitler was able to galvanize 60 million Germans? Through Cartesian reason? History shows that no matter how bad the policies maybe, as long as they appeal to our basic human emotive responses and reactions like: 


feeling of belonging

feeling of pride

feeling of optimism 

feeling of exceptionalism

feeling of renewal


Human beings will always tend towards those qualities in politics than the opposite. Why  is Obama doing so well? Because he appeals to the aforementioned emotions, frankly most people do not know what Obama actually stands for, thats because people don't need to know. Why is McCain not doing so well, because he represents none of those things.


Obviously, from a Chomskian perspective a lot of this has to do with propaganda and framing through rhetoric of images. Also, those responses of the emotive mind is reinforced by the media, pride/jingoism=professional sports for instance. Thus its a combination of internal mental processes and external reinforcements.  

Blog: http://perspectivos.blogspo t.com/

by Nick86 on 06/21/2008 12:58:51 PM EST

I want it duly noted... (none / 0)
That it wasn't me or any other non-Obamabot that raised this very accurate comparison of Hitler's rise and the current election. I want it remembered that Nick, our resident Canadian Socialist is who raised this specter, not I, alleged troll and klan member. That being said, Nick, you are absolutely correct. To those who need some semblance of acceptance and hope - they got their beacon, their light. And that's what scares the living Hell out of me everytime I see him and the reaction and comments he generates. (Spencer, you asked for names that would turn the conversation sour - well, there it is, among others) Just remember who said it (not me!!!) :)

by bobo1 on 06/21/2008 04:01:40 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Well... (none / 0)
That could be said about just about every successful politician ever bobo1...I'd say Reagan and Obama are very much alike, thus Hitler-Reagan-Obama? lol...I wouldn't make such HUGE conclusions...its just the nature of politics.

Blog: http://perspectivos.blogspo t.com/

by Nick86 on 06/21/2008 04:42:54 PM EST

[ Parent ]
i agree and disagree... (none / 0)
I agree that successful politicians do share a level of similarities in the areas you described. I believe that appealing to the emotinal rather than to the logical aspects of people makes for more success in politics. Where I'll disagree is the part about Reagan. Yes, he had a certain degree of "spunk" for a man his age and of his political leanings, but by no means could you compare the rabid following that Obama seemingly possesses to Reagans coalitions. That's really apples and oranges to me. Reagan had an established persona long before he became president. Obama has come out of the blue and people are literally having orgasms on the TV when he speaks. Reagan could have only dreamed of that sort of reception. Now I would not go as far as to say that Obama shares any of Hitler's delusions of genocide etc., but I am suspicious of what is really the driving force behind his meteoric rise. People are looking to cling to something that will cure their ills, and Obama thus far is playing them like a fiddle - to what end, I wonder? Thanks :)

by bobo1 on 06/21/2008 05:40:02 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Analysis (none / 0)
"Where I'll disagree is the part about Reagan. Yes, he had a certain degree of "spunk" for a man his age and of his political leanings, but by no means could you compare the rabid following that Obama seemingly possesses to Reagans coalitions."

Have you watched Republican debates lately? Its a Reagan blow-job fest, who can out-Reagan the other guy. You are lacking in perspective, obviously right now the Obama train is chugging along pretty strong, but the Reagan train is already so well entrenched in the American body-politic its not even noticed. I think the Reaganistas are scarier than Obama ever is or will be, they have totally destroyed your country in the blind pursuit of personal gain masquerading as the "free market".

"Reagan had an established persona long before he became president. Obama has come out of the blue and people are literally having orgasms on the TV when he speaks."

Then Reagan actually has more akin with Hitler than Obama...a failed artist like Hitler he was...who commanded a ultra-conservative movement, a reactionary movement against what he and the neoconservative right considered to be "too much democracy", supported by corporate interests, and wanting to bring back the jingoistic nationalism of America after the defeat of Vietnam (WWI for Germany) to mystify the country from what was really happening. So...shall we play this game?

"I am suspicious of what is really the driving force behind his meteoric rise."

Its a two part story, Obama has a charismatic personality; secondly he represents the left in America that is decidedly not Bush! Nothing apart from a fascist dictatorship could be worse than Bush...the democratic people of the world have been played like a fiddle since who knows when, so to bring up that specter means little to nothing.

Blog: http://perspectivos.blogspo t.com/

by Nick86 on 06/21/2008 06:23:56 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Well.. (none / 0)
First of all thank you for your comments...

I was referring to when Reagan was elected way back in 1980. Since you werent even a gleam in your daddys eye yet then, let me inform you - Yes, Reagan had a following and a coalition of the NeoCons and the Christian right, but it did not nearly amass the support or popularity in such a short timespan that Obamas minion have risen in.

The "Blow Job Fests" you refer to in todays Republican debates is merely due to the fact that they (the Conservatives) have nothing else to latch onto to give their live any meaning. Reagan is all they have!!! They try to affix their beliefs into something that is tangible and real, when in fact I think we can agree that their agenda has been one of greed and mass takeover.

Point 2 -  I will throw back onto you by saying - "What then is Senator Obama doing?" Is he not trying to return us to what he considers "Sanity". Is he not yearning for the days of FDR and government control of industry (Like HealthCare and Oil) Is he not trying to reverse capitalism and corporatism in this country with his own brand of neoliberalism and socialism?


I think the problem that a lot of people have with Obama (myself included) is that we dont know what the Hell he plans to do to make this dream of "change and Government we can believe in" possible without radically restructuring our current way of life. Without going over to the other extreme of government control and raising taxes (on multiple levels) how in the Hell does he plan to change anything?

To point #3, if Bush is this short of a facist dictator, then why havent the Majority Dems in Congress removed him? Why hasnt there been open revolution if things are so brutally terrible? Our friend Ken asks this all the time - Why has Bush beat them at every turn?


Cause he's smart? No


Cause he's right? No


Cause hes done what every other wartime president has done, but has done so with the added scrutiny of the Media and the internet age? Yeah

If things are so bad under Bush, and Obama is gonna save us, dont you at least want to know whats coming?

Its kinda like that old story about the cow, the cat and the mouse. Have you heard it? Here it is (my recollection of it anyway):

The freezing little mouse is on the cold floor of the barn. Its waking along and all of the sudden, the cow takes a gigantic shit on it.

Now under the pile of shit, the mouse is warm and snug. Yeah it smells, but hes not freezing.

After a while, here comes the barn cat. He sees the mouses tail coming out from under the pile of Cow Shit. The cat sneaks up and snatches the mouse out of the pile and eats it.

The moral of the story, Nick:

1. Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.

2 Not everyone who pulls you out of shit is your friend

We're the mouse, obviously. Bush is the cow, shitting on us as always - So who is Senator Obama in this story?

Thanks again for your time...

:)



by bobo1 on 06/21/2008 06:50:23 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Re: (none / 0)
"The "Blow Job Fests" you refer to in todays Republican debates is merely due to the fact that they (the Conservatives) have nothing else to latch onto to give their live any meaning. Reagan is all they have!!!"

Its all they ever had, their policies have been prejudicing against so many for so long that they point to the grand-pa of the GOP to pacify the public. Reagan is really such a douche, and the facts point it out. But the fact that majority of Americans have a positive view of him, shows the emotive-rational responses of the human mind. Which is the same of Obama, do I think Obama has substance? Sure he does, but he is being elected on the wave of populism and reactionism against the uber-elitist, proto-fascist administration of Bush.

"Is he not trying to reverse capitalism and corporatism in this country with his own brand of neoliberalism and socialism?"

Huh? Do you really think that Obama is out to destroy capitalism? Secondly, less corporatism is better for democracy and living standards. Thirdly, I wonder if Obama will get rid of neoliberalism or at least begin the process, and I hope he does.

The reality is that if the GOP and McCain are allowed to fester in the White House for 4-8 more years, the country will be gone forever. Obama is offering the US that secular shift back to the left, which usually occurs when trickle-down economics fail (1932-2008) and government inaction becomes totally unsustainable ethically and economically. Does Obama represent special interests? All parties and candidates within a capitalist democratic system do, by default. The real question is, which special interests are worse, I'd wager the Republicans are worse.

"I think the problem that a lot of people have with Obama (myself included) is that we dont know what the Hell he plans to do to make this dream of "change and Government we can believe in" possible without radically restructuring our current way of life."

The more you American's postpone the inevitable changes needed to remain economically viable, the worse the correction will be. So suck it up, and take the medicine. The SUV, "McMansion" lifestyle is unsustainable and is coming to an end...thank god for that!

"To point #3, if Bush is this short of a facist dictator, then why havent the Majority Dems in Congress removed him? Why hasnt there been open revolution if things are so brutally terrible?"

Because the Democrats like the American people have lost the confidence in themselves. They cannot even dare to imagine another world anymore, and they have not been able to deal with the propaganda machine of the GOP. Open revolutions...things have to get A LOT worse for that to happen, and chances are a fascist dictatorship will happen before any actual revolution would take place, as it was planned to occur against FDR in 1933.

"If things are so bad under Bush, and Obama is gonna save us, dont you at least want to know whats coming? "

I have an idea of what is coming, greater governmental oversight, higher taxes for the rich and corporations, using the power of the state to redistribute income to less third world levels, and re-evaluation of America's role in the world...a MAJOR re-evaluation. Basically, a reversal of the worst elements of the Reagan Revolution...as a Canadian I really don't care about what he does about healthcare or other such issues...thats your concern.

"We're the mouse, obviously. Bush is the cow, shitting on us as always - So who is Senator Obama in this story?"

All I can say is...grow a pair and dive in.  

Blog: http://perspectivos.blogspo t.com/

by Nick86 on 06/21/2008 07:29:01 PM EST

[ Parent ]
McCain does represent those things. (none / 0)
As I see it, McCain is doing as well as he is doing because he does represent those same things.

McCain stands for the pride in the USA and its military might.
McCain stands for the optimism of winning the invasion of Iraq and the war on terrorism.
McCain stands for the exceptionalism of the US empire.
McCain stands for belonging to the conservatist club of self-interest.
McCain stands for the renewal of American dominance.

McCain is doing as poorly as he is becasue the majority of people don't buy the product McCain is selling, not that his product doesn't stand for those things. 

If you want to buy the other product that is also sold on the basis of pride, optimism, belonging, renewal, etc, then Obama is the only choice in the market place of the Presidency that has a chance of winning.

Between the two I vote for Obama, becasue McCain is so goofy and dangerous. But I have no illusions that Obama is nothing more than the alternative corporate-military product, not a progressive voice for forcing corporate responsibility and demilitarizing US foreign policy.

by Gregory Wonderwheel on 06/21/2008 06:04:45 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Can Democrats Find an Alternative Frame? (none / 1)
The use of the label "Cartesian" probably means a lot to you, but to me it just means a one-sided lop-sided view of the world that rests on the ignorance of out-moded dualistic thinking models. People can't even agree on what "cogito ergo sum" is supposed to mean.

You said, "In my words, one of his main points was that the new understanding of the brain is that reason is not separate from emotion/passion or frames that are created and physically located in the brain."

First, the idea that reason and emotion are not separated is nothing new. Second, I didn't hear "physically located" but even if he said those words, what he means is that patterned neural activity takes place in locations in the brain, not like something is physically stored in a cupboard.

The frames are the contextual memory complex correlates that are a combination of metaphor and reason and emotion and all three are anchored in relation to how the five senses are processed in the neural pathways.

Carl Jung talked about all this 100 years ago using a different psychological language and the neuro-scientists are just now catching up using their own language. Most neuro-scientists don't even realize that they are rediscovering form their own imperial POV what Jung already discovered from his experiential, phenomenological, and empirical POV.

If you look at the living psyche you have to look at it as a whole. When you look at the physical body, sure you can say the circulatory system is separate from the muscular and skeletal systems. But there is no circulatory system without the heart and the heart is a giant muscle, and all the muscles are fed and breathe by the circulatory system as it disappears and merges into the muscles with the arterial capillaries and reappears again in the veinal capillaries, so only in our analytical imagination can we "separate" the circulatory and muscular systems. In the living body they can't be separated. The same with the living psyche, we can use the imagination of analysis to separate reason and emotion, but in the living psyche there is no way to literally separate reason and emotion.

Now you say, "He argues that Democrats, who have an 18th Century Cartesian view that reason is separate from feelings, fail to realize that voters don't simply analyze the facts and make their decision; instead they perceive the facts through their pre-existing frames."

First, as I listen to the segment Lakoff never mentions the "18th Century" or "Cartesian view." What he says is, "The old view of reason is just false. We really reason in terms of frames and narratives and metaphors and things of that sort." What he means by "the old view" is the old illusion that people have had for thousands of years that reason is separate from emotion and that reason can triumph over emotion. This illusion goes way back before René Descartes at least to the Hellenic Greeks. As a naive view of the psyche it is analogous to the old naive views that the earth is flat and the sun goes around the earth.

You would like to argue that reason is separate from emotion but it is just the naive argument of the person who stands on the earth and points to the sun and says, "See, the sun is moving, not the earth." You admit that "what the voters are doing is actually using reason and emotion together" yet you assert without any logical or observational basis that that very togetherness is an illusion. Sorry, that doesn’t fly. Whether reason comes with a "heavy dose" of emotion and passion or a light dose, it always comes with a dose. Once one recognizes this fact of the psyche, the conclusion inevitably comes to the fore that reason and emotion are not separate.

Okay, so even though Decartes isn’t the source of the naive view that reason is separate from feelings, Lakoff does indeed point out that voters don’t simply analyze the facts and that they (we) perceive the facts through our pre-existing frames. Here’s where Lakoff gets interesting.

Cenk asks, "How come the Republicans get this and the Democrats don’t?"

Lakoff says there are two reasons together. First, he says, "The Republicans come out of a business environment where they use marketing, and for the past 35 years they have been marketing their ideas day after day to the public very effectively." Second he says, "The Democrats have nothing like this. They don’t have this system at all. ... and part of the reason is they still believe in the old view of reason, they still believe that if you just tell people the facts they will reason to the right conclusion. They see framing often as just spin. But spin is the use of framing by a fraud to try to cover up. Effective communication is the use of framing by someone who is honest and knows what he is doing. "

That is excellent framing by George! The important question is this: "Is marketing essentially spin or framing?" This is the point that Lakoff doesn’t make in this interview and I haven’t read his book to know if he addresses it there. The importance of this question is what helps explain the Democrats general aversion to the type of marketing that the Republicans do. In other words, there is something inherently and emotionally distasteful (i.e., negatively emotional) about marketing as it is done by both Republicans and the major corporations of today. So Democrats are right to feel reluctant to adopt Republican techniques for marketing their framing. Why is that?

Because marketing is essentially propaganda and propaganda is essentially marketing. If you read Chapter Six of Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf you will find that after WWI Hitler was reviewing and comparing the ability of getting public support for the war by the Germans as contrasted to the British and the Americans. Hitler specifically acknowledged that it was capitalist marketing and advertising techniques in the war propaganda used by the British and Americans that the Germans leaders lacked any knowledge or use of in their failure to capture the imagination and emotion of the German public.

Here’s where the interplay of reason and emotion come in. Though reason is not separate from emotion and vice versa, the point of healthy living is to have them in a balanced state of disequilibrium and equilibrium, much as our walking depends on a balanced state of becoming unbalanced to lean forward with one step and becoming balanced again by the following step to again become unbalanced to lean forward and become balanced again, etc. Like the two legs working together to lose and regain balance reason and emotion work together to move us forward psychically. In marketing and propaganda both the whole goal is to reduce the influence of reason to the greatest minimum possible and to increase the emotion to greatest maximum possible.

Here are three important quotes from Hitler which are part of the primer of effective marketing:

(1) "The people in their overwhelming majority are so feminine by nature and attitude that sober reasoning determines their thoughts and actions far less than emotion and feeling. And this sentiment is not complicated, but very simple and all of a piece. It does not have multiple shadings; it has a positive and a negative; love or hate, right or wrong, truth or lie never half this way and half that way, never partially, or that kind of thing."

(2) "The function of propaganda is, for example, not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly...."

(3) "The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered. In this way the result is weakened and in the end entirely cancelled out...."

These are the lessons that the Republican propagandists have learned so well. The "tax and spend" and "small government" slogans, for example, are used just as Hitler described how slogans should be used. The power of forgetting that Hitler speaks of is what Gore Vidal calls the United States of Amnesia.

Now what we naively think of as the separation of reason and emotion, is really the "sober reasoning" that Hitler describes. Sober reasoning is not a reasoning divorced from emotion but a reasoning informed by emotion while not being overwhelmed by the emotion. All marketing and propaganda, whether done by a Hitler, Madison Ave., or the Republicans is precisely intended to overwhelm reasoning with the use of emotional imagery.

Since one emotion can counteract another, the Republicans have not allowed the imagery of returning dead bodies at Dover Airbase to be seen by the public to prevent the emotions that would be raised by those images counteracting the emotions of unreasoning "patriotism" that the Republicans are able to stir up by constant use of images of threat to the U.S. such as the repeated references to 9/11, terrorism, etc..

Lakoff says he is trying to educate people about the difference so we "can distinguish spin from honest framing." The problem is that knowing the difference doesn’t mean that we want to adopt spin, or marketing as it is euphemistically called, and do marketing and political propaganda like the Republicans do. The key is that Democrats are half-assed about it. They have an intuitive understanding why the Republican marketing techniques are slimy, but they haven’t embraced the alternative, and so Democrats exist in a limbo where they weakly emulate the Republicans without fully embracing the alternative.

What is the alternative? It is clear in quote number (1) above by Hitler. It is not falling into playing the black and white, positive and negative, love or hate, right or wrong frame game. It is arguing and standing up for multiple shadings. Or as indicated by quote number (2) above it is to uphold and proclaim as the higher good the weighing and pondering of the rights of different people. To make that objective study of the truth even and especially when it favors the so-called enemy. Or as denoted in quote number (3) is it to honestly try to be many-sided.

The alternative frame that the Democrats have failed to appreciate and have been unable to communicate is the one that explains why being many sided is preferable to being one-sided. Why having multiple shadings is better than portraying things in black and white. Why weighing and pondering the rights of different people is superior to calling the different people the enemy.

This alternative frame was the actually frame of mind of our founding fathers in the age of enlightenment. This was the context that led to the belief in reason as the superior function over emotion. Now within the context or frame of the Age of Enlightenment it makes sense because the frame provides the context why, for example, having multiple views is better than being one-sided. Today however, we live in a society totally immersed in advertising and the single most important frame of advertising, that is of marketing propaganda, is that multiple views are wrong. Advertising exists not for the purpose of weighing and pondering the qualities of a product and how the product fits the buyers need, advertising exists to sell the slogan so that the buyer will not weigh and ponder but will instead be receptive to the emotional urge to buy because it is the right thing to do.

It is the marketing model, so clearly described by Hitler, that has been sold to the public through advertising and has become the ubiquitous frame for modern society that has changed why the role of reason made sense in the Age of Enlightenment but no longer does in the Age of Advertising. When people have time to weigh and ponder ideas, are inquisitive and want to investigate the multiple sides of a thing, are tired of the monotony of ideas and are exhilarated by the many shadings of an issue, the place of reason in the decision making process makes a lot of sense. But when you have to "buy now" there isn’t room for reason to have its natural function. It is the primary role of marketing to hamstring the natural function of reason.

Lakoff says that Democrats have a false view of reason that keeps them stuck on interest group politics that assumes people vote rationally on the basis of their self-interests. This is what I call the limbo of Democratic politics. The Republicans sell self-interest effectively and the Democrats don’t know that self-interest can’t be sold as the be-all and end-all if reason is given its due. Lakoff says that by identifying the needs of various interest groups and trying to sell a better answer to those interest groups the Democrats aren’t providing anything that adds up to a movement, that is, a general view of what progressive thought is, and that progressive thought starts with empathy and caring about others, not just about oneself. That’s true.

But here is where Lakoff loses me just a little. He says "the conservatives did something right, they started their think tanks with the idea of conservatism in general and then applied it throughout." Actually they did no such thing. They started with the emotion of conservatism in general and then applied it throughout. There is no general "idea" of conservatism, because as we have seen, conservatism relies on hiding the idea behind emotion. Or to put it another way, the idea of conservatism is the circular reasoning of the self interest of conservatives. If you want to join our club of self-interest then you too can call yourself a conservative.

Lakoff goes on to say when Democrats try to build think tanks they get issue by issue experts who then don’t come together on a general idea. They also don’t have what is called cognitive policy. The Republicans have a set of ideas with a strategy for getting those ideas out in public and they have institutions for doing it. But Lakoff overlooks that their so-called "ideas" are nothing more than slogans. They are one-sided, black and white ideas. Those are ideas overshadowed and overwhelmed by emotion.

The Democrats, he says, don’t have a cognitive strategy for changing people’s minds. He says the Democrats don’t understand that every policy has a moral idea behind it that makes it right and that the public must have the same moral ideas in order to know that the policy is intuitively right. Lakoff doesn’t seem to be giving due importance to the fundamental purpose of marketing as making all moral ideas into black and white ideas. That is, to make all ideas into slogans. The strategy that is missing is the one that would attack and undermine the very foundations behind marketing and the Age of Advertising by destroying the effectiveness of slogans and advertising. Democrats can’t get to that cognitive strategy because they don’t actually believe in it. Democrats actually believe in marketing just like the Republicans do, and that is the underlying and encompassing frame of capitalism that the Democrats will never abandon and which make the Democrats and Republicans merely two-wings of the same party.

In other words, Lakoff is asking Democrats to stop thinking like Democrats. At some point any Democrat who thinks Lakoff is on to something will come to an emotional identity crisis: can they continue to be a Democrat?

Lakoff says "the words that the Republicans use are fitting their frames, and each frame is part of a bigger system, and they have gotten their system out there. Their big ideas about government, about national security, about taxation and the market. Their ideas are out there. They have a system and once the system is there they can have nice little phrases that fit the system." Here Lakoff fails to discern that the so-called "big ideas" of the Republicans and their "nice little phrases" are the same thing: slogans. There is no "big idea" in conservatism that is not just a slogan. Their "system" is nothing more than what Hitler described as "exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for." That is not a system of big ideas it is a system of marketing. The very notion of marketing is anathema to big ideas.

Lakoff says the Democrats don’t have their system out their, but that is not entirely true, because the Democrats actually buy into the Republican system even if they don’t buy into the Republican frames. What is that system? It is marketing itself. Asking Democrats to establish a cognitive strategy of big ideas is only guaranteed to fail because it demands that Democrats have big ideas and having big ideas means you can’t abide by the propaganda techniques of marketing. Asking Democrats to adopt alternative slogans for their marketing campaign can be effective but it will not amount in any alternative big ideas or even a progressive world view. It will only mean that the Democrats gain power in the market place by selling better slogans.

Can the Democrats sell the slogan that multiplicity is better than black and white? That weighing and pondering issues is better than being right or wrong. That loving your enemy and appreciating their differences is better than attacking the enemy to defend yourself? I don’t think that they can and still maintain their identity as Democrats.

by Gregory Wonderwheel on 06/21/2008 05:01:08 PM EST

Okay, an error at the beginning. (none / 0)
I said Lakoff didn't mention the 18th Century in his interview but of course his book's subtitle is why we can't use 18th century thinking.  On that point, I think Lakoff is looking at the Age of Enlightenment with too narrow vision, and so he was wrong to characterize the Age of Enlightenment as one that seperated reason from emotion. The 18th Century was one that questioned tradition and held up reason as the authority to decide questions not the revelation of scripture or popes or the emotion of mobs or demogogues. In that way the problem today is that we have forgotten what was good about the 18th Century, not that we are thinking like the 18th Century.  

by Gregory Wonderwheel on 06/21/2008 05:32:22 PM EST

[ Parent ]
no sah (none / 0)

like most psychological analysis (which this was) a lot of assumptions are made to fill the gaps and make sense of coincidences in nature.  yes, we make connections to real and intangible words and ideas all the time, but it doesn't prove that reason and logic ARE the same thing.  i'm just not buying it.

what if...

emotions for primitive man were reason v1.0.  beta logic for human beings, if you will.  as we started to become proficient with fact-based logic, gut feelings took the back seat as primitive logic became replaced with this newer form of logic.  that would explain why some unevolved forms of homo sapien (conservatives) are not as readily equipped with logic v2.0 appartus that others have (liberals) in the brain.

 could just be evolution, baby.  why not?

by mathcore on 06/22/2008 10:25:11 PM EST

When has American Reasoning been Cartesian? (none / 0)

We overtly contribute our core beliefs to the likes of John Locke in which reason is not looked at in the same dispassionate wayas Descartes or especially Kant would see it.

 Indeed the Anglo-American general political philosophy as well as it's view of human nature has lead to Utilitarianism and John Dewey's Pragmatism.  It can be best described by that revered American Philosopher, Jiminy Cricket, who is quoted to have said, "Always let your conscience be your guide."

It's based on a philosophy that Human Nature is inherently good, where feelings and reason merge into Conscience and Common Sense.  That's not the Spockian philosophy Lakoff eludes too at all.

It's really the Repuclicans who are the Cartesians, actually Neo-Platonists.  They see themselves as the guardians of pure reason.

Their problem is that they think human nature is inherently Evil and the function of Government is to control the rabble.  Reason is the province of an ELITE.

The Rabble are unreasonable, so there is no point in reasoning to them.  They are governed by irrational feelings, which they see Liberals as using to win over the masses! I've seen many a Con post about how Spock-like they are and how Liberals vote on their "FEEE-WINGS!!!" You look at Ayn Rand's Objectivism, something Cons and Libertarians like to throw around at parties and that's about the closest thing to Spockism out there.

It's not their understanding of Reason that have Republicans playing the politics they do.  It's their complete LACK of understanding!  They think that Reason is the province of the Elite.  More irrationally they think the mark of true reason is to THINK LIKE THEM.  Like the great American Sage Ann Coulter says, "If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans."

It's their view of the world consisting of Vulcans and Troglodytes, that makes them speak down to the American people, hide their real agendas and reasoning and use lowest-common denominator gimmicks. To market Conservatism as a life-style choice, rather than a political one.  (That's why they love Red/Blue America.)

That wasn't the way the Conservatives used to be.  Classic Conservatives like Barry Goldwater believed in the Goodness of the People and thought Government interfered with individual freedom.

But Goldwater got his ASS kicked, so over time Cons lost their faith in the American public.  And they stopped reasoning with people. 

by sunsawed on 06/23/2008 10:14:38 AM EST

Lakoff rhymes with.... (none / 0)
A marketable concept should fit on a bumper sticker. Let's see now: "Obama will surrender to al Qaeda." "Obama will raise your taxes." "Obama will choose your doctor."

by KenTX on 06/27/2008 06:52:54 PM EST

May I Politely Disagree with George Lakoff? | 22 comments (22 topical, 0 hidden)
 Display: