George Lakoff Puns

I first heard cognitive & linguistic scientist George Lakoff interviewed on NPR in 2015. I forget what exactly he said, but it caught my attention so I picked up his Don't Think of an Elephant!, and my mind was blown. I haven't looked at politics, religion, and people the same since, and seeing certain topics come up here again and again, I wonder how many others have read him.

In his aforementioned title, Lakoff overviews the state of politics now, how we got to this point, and what is needed to turn the tide in a liberal/progressive direction. His background is the study of our brains, how we think metaphorically at the most basic level, how brains change language, and vice versa -- how language literally changes brains. Not in a Chris Traegger "This is literally the best word ever" way -- Lakoff explains how language literally rewires our neurons, changes our minds, and thus the country. Conservatives figured this out in the 60s-70s, but we've missed the boat -- some of us are catching on, but very recent issues continue to prove that way too many of us are behind the times and behind the science.

It's relatively short and accessible -- Don't Think of an Elephant! is not one of Lakoff's peer-reviewed papers -- it's just a few bucks, and it's riveting. Anyone else read Lakoff?

https://georgelakoff.com

More on Dr. George Lakoff

"We think with our brains. How is this possible? How can meaningful ideas arise from neurons, even billions of them?"

"The Neuroscience of Language and Thought, Dr. George Lakoff Professor of Linguistics

Mirror neurons. Empathy is physical. Another unpopular opinion: science talks embodied consciousness because they/we cannot 'think' without a body. I argue this proves the self is but a process created to manage our functions in the sense of the Lankavatara mind-only proposition. We think, but what we perceive is not the same experienced by the 'mind'. Our mind is the project manager for the body, but an algorithm not an individual. Serving the same function as an existent self, but only 'same as'/"upacāra"(discussed later).

Our relationship with this process, or construct, is what we wish to manage - and the result is a beneficial relationship - not negation or delusion.

The Thirty Verses on Conscious Life by Vasubandhu opens with this word. ātmadharmopacāro.

Atma: a form of atta - related to atman in Sanskrit. This form meaning 'your own self' (there are two selves in Yogacara - but they are the not-self of oneself and the not-self of nature/dharma *thus we must define your self from others since they are identical - we just label them as our own/different).

Dharmo: Dharma - objects, things, the universe as we see it. I liken the use of Dharma to the use of Brahman in Vedanta: it is everything - all items - even the space between is infused with Brahman nature/Dharma thus the two fold meanings present of the teachings, the path, and the conventional.

pacāro- Upacara -VERSE 1 Of Vasubandhu's 30 verses states: "self" & "nature" to be both "upacāra". Upacāra (उपचार).—(l) taking a secondary sense; implication; lit. moving for a sense which is near about; the same as लक्षणा (lakṣaṇā). The word आचार (ācāra) is explained as उपचार (upacāra), employment or current usage, by Patañjali. upacāra : (m.) neighbourhood; preparative or preliminary action.

Source: Sutta: The Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionary.

The self is a construct(temporary and acting as independent) created(moment to moment) to manage our aggregates and inputs - make sense of not just the endless stream of data from the dharma about, but the cacophony within.

This book posits that progressives need to control "frames" (i.e language) to advance progressive goals.

Plenty of people here must remember George W. Bush's "tax relief," "clean skies initiative," and other Orwellian BS that meant the opposite of what it actually was. Progressive lost those fights because they employed conservative frames rather than their own; who doesn't want tax relief? Who doesn't want clean skies?

These days, some progress has been made on this front—what with referring to the Republican Tax Cuts as a Tax Scam, for instance. Yet throughout the last presidential campaign Trump was completely in control of the language used by all candidates; Hillary and Bernie were both talking about the wall and a Muslim ban rather than what they themselves actually wanted.

So I'm running for a state position in a swing state, and I want to win over moderates to progressive ideas. Yet I have no interest in adopting moderate positions; this seems to do nothing to attract moderate or progressive voters (to say the least). Rather, I'm interested in using conservative language to describe progressive policy.

For example, conservatives in my state appear to be obsessed with welfare reform. Fine. My idea is to say that I'm interested in welfare reform—and that by raising the minimum wage, we can get people off of welfare.

We can create jobs by switching the state entirely to green energy by 2020.

We can fight abuse of taxpayer dollars by taxing luxury homes and the leisure class.

We can improve child safety by banning the AR-15 and raising the minimum legal age to purchase a firearm to 21.

I'm worried that using this conservative language won't convince moderates and that it will actually repel progressives. The bullet points on the palm card I'm working on largely resemble the last few examples I wrote above this paragraph.

What do you think?

This is a reworked version of a question asked on this sub about a few months ago (not by me):

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskSocialScience/comments/5lu0hg/what_do_political_theorists_and_psychologists/

I'm wondering if Lakoff is considered a valid authority on which to base conclusions about political psychology and behavior. I'm naturally suspicious of experts commenting on matters outside their field (Lakoff is a linguist). I also understand that the overall paradigm Lakoff supports within psychology, embodied cognition, is not universally accepted within that field:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_cognition#Criticisms

Which is a long way of saying that not everybody in all fields thinks that Lakoff is right, and therefore I am not willing to base my assessment of his conclusions re:politics on glowing reviews in the non-technical press.

So: do a majority of social scientists believe that Lakoff's word about social science is to be trusted? What, if any, compelling criticisms of his work in this field are there? I'm aware that Pinker criticized "Whose Freedom?," but I'm wondering if anyone else has stepped forward to point out perceived flaws in Lakoff's social science work.

Sure makes sense to use this "sandwich" technique, so there is always a warning before and after the trump lied.

To state the lie without first correcting it is to let people first have the chance to believe the lie, and then tune the rest of the words out.

Any thoughts?

Yesterday (8/22), George Lakoff appeared on the progressive State of Belief podcast to talk about political framing. His thoughts on Bernie Sanders start at around the 27-minute mark:

> "Bernie, from the point of view of progressives, is like a one-trick pony. It's all about income inequality, period. And he's very good on that. And he says, 'Yes, you know, there is income inequality. It's unfair. It's not right. We need to change the following things. Everybody should be able to go to college. There should be a higher minimum wage. People should be paid for the work they do. Men and women should get wage equality,' et cetera. And he's talking always about economics and particular individual policies, one-by-one, with no idea how to pay for any of them, and no idea what connects them, and no idea really about environmentalism, about foreign policy, about global economy, about anything at all beyond that. But there is something else. He is honest. He's straightforward. He is very clear who he is. He says what he believes, and that's important. He's not trying to be "political" in the sense of pulling the wool over people's eyes, et cetera, and that gets a certain amount of progressive support because those are part of progressive values. However, the real part of progressive values, namely the totality of it, isn't there with Bernie."

I have so much I could say about this. Anyone who follows my posts knows how much I respect George Lakoff and recommend his work (particularly the book Don't Think of an Elephant). He is a genius in cognitive linguistics and essentially the father of post-9/11 progressive political framing.

That said, he is in this respect a quintessential Baby Boomer (although he is actually right on the cusp of the Silent and Boomer generations) and is stuck in that mindset - even more unfortunately, he is unaware of the fact that he is trapped in that particular frame. Neil Howe, one of the founders of the Strauss-Howe Generational Theory that I am also very fond of, falls into this same trap occasionally, although he of all people should be aware of it! I guess you can't expect people to be anything other than what they are.

To condense my point of view greatly