My book with Jim Coffman is built on many of your ideas. I am also convinced that we go further. The framing our society (Western culture) has incorporated does not stop at politics and elections. It goes much deeper. As a fellow scientist you know that within our community the reductionist/mechanist mindset has total reign. This means that even though we are able to function as scientists we are imprisoned by a paradigm that teaches that we learn about the real world by tearing it up and putting it into boxes for study. That process destroys the connections and processes that are the reality of any complex system. The problem does not stop there. Also it is an inherently linguistic problem as you have so often pointed out. I'll explain more beneath the break.
The parcelling out of knowledge into well packaged morsels is destructive if that is all that happens. Language is indeed a constraint and that makes it hard. Reading the comments to your latest diary here establishes that quite well.
Our entire world view suffers from this and politics is certainly part of that. The listing of issues immediately destroys the identity of the system as a whole in which these issues are systematically embedded. Unless we work hard to make this clear the reduced world is what we continually use to replace the complex real world.
In Western science this is embodied in the machine metaphor and is at the root of so many of our difficulties with systems in general and with living and social systems in particular.
Your work helps to deal with this. The notion of the embodied mind and your discussion of direct vs complex causes fits right in. On the other hand it is not always clear when you write about politics that you have isolated a part of our activity which is entwined in a complex system and is really mostly the result of that system.
The global economy has a life of its own and is tied tightly to technology. The same technology that extracts from science that which is profitable and side lines good ideas that are not. When we list political issues we lose the insight that comes from seeing the world as a whole system.
In particular, the very things we claim to be for as progressives take on a potentially destructive meaning if their context in this system is not clearly spelled out. We need jobs, but not jobs that continue to destroy the planet. We need to feed people but not by using methods designed to maximize profit rather than nurture the soil and water that is behind the food production. I know you understand this but it is not always clear that you do when you spell out your political ideas.
Forgive me if I am merely dense. Jim and I wrote our book to try to weave things together into a world view that is consistent with a sustainable future. I wonder if you have any comments on what we said?