If he is really changing minds then we can really expect change in this country. Just what does it mean to change someone's mind in this way? The reason this is an important question goes back to George Lakoff's book The Political Mind : Why You Can't Understand 21st Century American politics with an 18th Century Brain. In a previous diary I introduced some of the ideas from this book. The comments and questions that diary generated make it clear to me that Lakoff is not easily understood. As I promised I will try to present his ideas in a more careful way in order that these important insights might become tools we can use to help attain our goal of turning our Nation around and electing a government that serves its people in the important roles of empowering its people as well as protecting them. That protection, as Lakoff points out:
is more than just the army, police, and fire department. It means social security, disease control,and public health, safe food, disaster relief, health care, consumer and worker protection, environmental protection.
Look beyond the break for the whole story.
This notion of government's role in protecting its people from harm is very different from the politics of fear that has destroyed the Ameica our constituion guarantees. The way we can hope for the government to empower the people is also being destroyed by the swindle that this administration pulled off.
Empowerment by the government is everywhere: highways and bridges, so you can get where you want to go and ship products; the Internet and satellite communications, to keep you in contact with the world; public education, to open the world up to you and to provide skilled workers to business; the banking system, to allow bank loans, whether you're buying a house or your company is buying another company; the SEC, to allow the stock market to function; the court system, to enforce contracts and protect patents. No body makes a dime in this country without being empowered by our government. There are no self-made men or women. It is a myth!
It is a myth that is part of a much larger myth. And that myth is there in people's brains so that they have voted in far too large numbers against the kind of government America was once the world's example in pioneering. How is it possible? Lakoff tells us that:
Progressive government is, or should rightly be through protection and empowerment, the guarantor of of liberty. That is what a life-afirming government is all about.
Part of the genius of America came in the form of taxes, which used to be paid to the King of England before the Revolution. They were not abollished, but were instead directed toward protection and empowerment of the citizens of this country.
What went wrong? How did we loose these ideals and become the nation of sheep we are now? Lakoff has an explanation. It is revolutionary in its nature and therefore is difficult to understand. Yet, to me, it answers the nagging question that keeps disturbing me. "How could we have ended up where we are now? How could our democracy produce this administration?" If you have an answer you are far ahead of anything I have been able to find as an explanation. Here's how he sees it:
Progressive thought today begins with empathy and responsibility, with government having the twin moral missions of protection and empowerment. What I will call 'neoliberal thought" has the same moral basis, but overlays another mode of thought upon it. Neoliberal thought embraces the Old Enlightenment view of reason: it is conscious, it is logical, literal, universal, unemotional, disembodied, with the function of serving interests, one's own or those of others.
Are we looking in a mirror here? Do we see ourselves in that description? I think all of us are there to a greater or lesser extent. But if emotion is irrational, ineffectual and weak, and reason is the only effective way to be strong and eventually win the struggle, why has the use of reason not prevailed? There's the question! Here's what Lakoff says about the neoliberal mind:
Neoliberalism has certain elitist tendencies that it cannot recognize as elitist. If you believe that reason is literal, logical, and universal and that your policies are based on reason, then those policies could not concievably be elitist because every rational being would have to be in favor of the same policies because they would reason the same way. But if reason is neither literal, logical, nor universal, then imposing policies from the top down, from policy think tanks to Congress and the courts, does smack of elitism.
The nature of the trap here is very interesting for it is an almost certain closure of a system of thought. It is only by doing something very radical that one breaks out. here's the real tradgedy of this kind of thinking:
Most dangerous of all, Old Enlightenment reason, being literal and universal, cannot recognize conservative framing as framing. Instead it tends to take conservative language and concepts at their face value. if conservatives say there is a "war on terror," those following the neoliberal mode of thought will repeat "war on terror" and argue within the conservative frame.....The political effect is that neoliberals tend to surrender in advance to conservatives , simply by accepting their frames.
What are some of these frames? "Tax relief" is a good one. It reeks of Lakoff's famous example "don't think of an elephant." Once you have a discussion where that frame has been tossed out, it is almost impossible to go back to neutral ground. It says that taxes are an assault on workers that they need relief from. It has been used over and over again until there is no need for elaboration. everyone knows what is meant by it. Why would anyone vote for scoundrels who impose a burden on hard working people? Why would anyone fail to vote for the white knight who will "relieve" them of this burden?
I started this diary with the progressive frame for the role of government: empowerment and protection. I struggled to make clear how that was far more than the limited contained notion that the politics of fear would use to frame the role of government.
Can we erase the frames the conservatives have developed so successfully over the past 40 or so years? Here is where cognitive linguistics and modern neuroscience come into play. The answer is a very firm "no!" Oh, oh. Then what do we do about the situation we are in? here is Lakoff's answer:
Suppose the twenty-first century understanding of the brain and the mind were widely known and fully appreciated. What might change? here's where the changes in consciousness would begin:
We would understand that our brains evolved for empathy and cooperation, for connection to each other and to the earth. We cannot exist alone.
We would embrace the fact that empathy is at the heart of American democracy. It is a positive force for human society at large.It is why we care about fundamental human rights. It is why we care about protecting our people in all ways, from criminals, fire, disease, impure food, dangerous working conditions, consumer fraud, and povert in old age.It is why we care about empowerment of both individuals and businesses...Without such care, there would be no America.
And of course we would care about our connection with the earth we are so much a part of. The existence of two very distinct world views, not right and left for that frame connotes a "middle" which does not really exist. Rather there is one based on empathy, empowerment and real protection, and another based on authority, discipline, and obedience. Imagine if journalists were conscious of the framing they were seduced into using and would explain it as they spoke to the people! It would not erase the frames the conservatives so cleverly created. It would contrast the world that viewpoint offers with another world. The people could then choose. I think once the whole scenario were made clear, change would be so desireable that no one could hope to prevent it. We seem to be as close to a threshhold for this as we have ever been. Lakoff has a simple recommondation. Sieze the time! Do it with a conscious understanding of how minds operate in these circumstances. Then there is no chance that we could fail.
I still have left the real meat of Lakoff's story in the background, more or less inviting criticism. That's ok for I am not done. I will be backwith more and, in particular, what compexity theory has to add and reenforce in this narrative. Conitive linguistics, modern neuroscience, and complexity theory are creating an understanding that is both refreshing and challenging. Are we up to the challenge?