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k_b00kish's review against another edition
4.0
Short yet powerful book about the power of language and framing from cognitive theory. I will need to listen to this again, as it contains loaded lessons!
ezribex's review against another edition
3.0
Liked: this book uses science, it also gives practical advice
Wanted more of: cognitive science, economic theory
Think it would be good to put the practical advice in the final chapter into practice--sometime soon hopefully!
Wanted more of: cognitive science, economic theory
Think it would be good to put the practical advice in the final chapter into practice--sometime soon hopefully!
everthorpe's review against another edition
2.0
If you’re not well versed in politics, political psychology, or political ideologies, you will probably get quite a bit from this book. Some of it will be flawed and incorrect knowledge though, as there are many aspects of this work I thought flat out wrong, limited, or detrimentally simplified.
What is important to remember is that the writer is a cognitive scientist and not a political scientist, so he’s strong on the former, weaker on the latter.
Also i think the structure of the book is flawed. I would read parts 1 and 2, then the final chapter, and then the part about the issues. It would work better in that order.
What is important to remember is that the writer is a cognitive scientist and not a political scientist, so he’s strong on the former, weaker on the latter.
Also i think the structure of the book is flawed. I would read parts 1 and 2, then the final chapter, and then the part about the issues. It would work better in that order.
tesshuelskamp's review against another edition
4.0
Cognitive scientist George Lakoff explains the linguistic framing behind conservative talking points and arguments in a short and clear handbook. He argues that the most effective way to debate is to couch the issues you care about in your values (Equality, Freedom, Security, Responsibility).
I didn't do any digging, but the science seems sound. The framing gymnastics he encourages seems slightly Orwellian but not too manipulative. His dissection of conservative talking points alone is worth the read.
I'll probably read this book again right before Thanksgiving :)
I didn't do any digging, but the science seems sound. The framing gymnastics he encourages seems slightly Orwellian but not too manipulative. His dissection of conservative talking points alone is worth the read.
I'll probably read this book again right before Thanksgiving :)
jaytaves's review against another edition
3.0
I liked the first chapter about the importance of framing and the way that frames, much more than facts, shape our opinions and beliefs. The rest of the book felt like really repetitive, unsourced, liberal propaganda. The strict father vs. nurturing parent frameworks seemed somewhat helpful in terms of frameworks but again they were introduced in the first chapter. At least it was a short read
greeniezona's review against another edition
4.0
I was interested in this book as I was reading it, but looking back, having already read [b:Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think|19134|Moral Politics How Liberals and Conservatives Think|George Lakoff|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386924793s/19134.jpg|20431], I wonder if I got much new out of it. I suppose I would recommend this to progressives new to Lakoff's theories, who just want a concentrated primer on why framing matters so much. As for me, I would be more interested in seeing the results of the new think tank to get concrete examples of ho to reframe current political issues.
fallonc's review against another edition
3.0
The point of the book is to teach progressives how to use the same tactics that have lead conservatives to success over the years. Lakoff uses examples and creates lists to show progressives how conservatives make arguments so compelling to voters on the margin. He uses the term “framing” to demonstrate his point. However, Lakoff fails in that his statements are over broad and are often vast generalizations. Frankly, this usage of “facts” to fit his narrative null and voids the lessons in this book—if he can over generalize about one topic, whose to say that Lakoff does not for others? He’s tactic of pinning one side against the other by demonizing positions his disagrees with, in my opinion, create no less problem than what already exists.
jmanchester0's review against another edition
5.0
The title of this book should ignite the frames of anyone familiar with positive thinking literature. When you want to succeed, you tell yourself "I'm a success" not "I'm a failure". When you walk into a room and you don't want to be awkward, you tell yourself, "I am calm, relaxed, and comfortable." Why? Because if you say "don't be awkward; don't be awkward; don't be awkward" you're just presenting you're self with the idea of being awkward, and what's more likely to happen? So, don't use conservative frames and language when sharing your views - it only reinforces their frames and their prejudices.
Reframing, as we discuss it in this book, is about honesty and integrity. It is the opposite of spin and manipulation. It is about bringing to consciousness the deepest of our beliefs and our modes of understanding. It is about learning to express what we really believe in a way that will allow those who share our beliefs to understand what they most deeply believe and to act on those beliefs.
What Is Rationality? The brain and cognitive sciences have radically changed our understanding of what reason is and what it means to be rational. Unfortunately, all too many progressives have been taught a false and outdated theory of reason itself, one in which framing, metaphorical thought, and emotion play no role in rationality. This has led many progressives to the view that the facts‰ЫУalone‰ЫУwill set you free. Progressives are constantly giving lists of facts.
Part I: Framing 101
We all use the family as a metaphor for our nation. But conservatives use a strict father model, and progressives use
The strict father model begins with a set of assumptions: The world is a dangerous place, and it always will be, because there is evil out there in the world. The world is also difficult because it is competitive. There will always be winners and losers. There is an absolute right and an absolute wrong. Children are born bad, in the sense that they just want to do what feels good, not what is right. Therefore, they have to be made good‰Ы_Given opportunity, individual responsibility, and discipline, pursuing your self-interest should enable you to prosper.
You simply reward the good people (who have proven their goodness through their prosperity). In this view, the rich are more moral. And God has ordered it this way. Strict authoritarian worldview also teaches that everything is ok if you don't get caught.
I think the biggest problem with this is (to make it work) you have to assume that everyone has the same opportunity. And that's where many of our conflicts come in - race and affirmative action and race and poverty to mention a couple.
Progressives use the nurturant parent model:
Both parents are equally responsible for raising the children. The assumption is that children are born good and can be made better. The world can be made a better place, and our job is to work on that. The parents‰ЫЄ job is to nurture their children and to raise their children to be nurturers of others.
Interesting Myths:
People listen to facts. (Hint: they don‰ЫЄt)
People do things in their self-interest (Hint: they don‰ЫЄt)
These are reasons that progressives aren‰ЫЄt expressing their ideas very well. We tell people facts, and we tell people why our policies will help them - but this doesn‰ЫЄt convince anyone.
Part II: Framing 102
With framing, you have to look at the long game. This section has more great info on framing.
‰Ы_just telling someone something usually does not make it a neural circuit that they use every day or even a neural circuit that fits easily into their pre-existing brain circuitry‰ЫУthe neural circuits that define their previous understandings and forms of discourse. It is difficult to say things that you are not sure the public is ready to hear, to say things that have not been said hundreds of times before.
One of our issues is systemic causation - it‰ЫЄs difficult to track and see the impacts of global warming, privatization of education, fracking, etc.
Our political divisions come down to moral divisions, characterized in our brains by very different brain circuitry.
This is difficult to overcome!!
This is fascinating. One of the ways that conservatives reinforce the framing is by creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of government impotence:
Once in office, conservatives can not only say that government cannot work and has to be minimized and privatized, but by being in the government, they can also stop it from working, thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. How? By cutting taxes, by cutting funding, by passing laws, and, in the Supreme Court, by reinterpreting laws.
So many people don‰ЫЄt understand the importance of funding public agencies: Public resources make private life possible.
It is a fact that the private depends on the public‰ЫУperhaps the most central fact of American democracy‰ЫУand yet strict conservatives either can‰ЫЄt see it or see it as a form of immorality so fundamental that it must be defeated at all costs.
Um. Wow. Mind. Blown.
Taxes for the wealthy have been cut by conservatives, who have defended huge tax loopholes, and have even drastically cut funding for the IRS so that there are not enough IRS workers or modern computers for the IRS to monitor tax evasion‰ЫУmostly by the wealthy. Since the 1970s, the concept of taxation has shifted from the source of needed, and often revered, public resources to the idea that taxation is a burden‰ЫУan affliction in need of ‰ЫПtax relief.‰Ыќ
What we need people to understand :
Public resources allow for freedom in case after case, opening up all kinds of opportunities in life.
Without taxes, we wouldn't have the freedoms we have.
Remember when Obama said, "do you have a small business? You didn't build that?" It was a huge mis-step. What he was trying to say is that you didn't build it all by yourself. All the infrastructure that taxes pay for - roads, Internet, mail, etc, etc, helped you build it. And taxes is a way to support that infrastructure. But conservatives didn't care what he meant. They took it out of context and ran with it to turn people against him. This is framing.
Part III: Framing for Specific Issues
One of the major mistakes made by the Democratic Party is to focus on election campaigns but not on the constant framing of public discourse. All politics is moral.
So true!
As we have seen from a careful reading of the original Declaration of Independence documents, the progressive meaning is at the heart of our democracy and it is time to take it back. Most of the issues in public discourse, both in elections and in everyday decision making, come down to issues of freedom.
Present calculations are that if the government forgave all student loans, it would boost the nation‰ЫЄs economy far more than the cost of the loans. Nonetheless, conservatives are against both loan forgiveness and dropping the interest on student loans to the same rate that banks pay. Or, conservatives are assholes. (I mean, come on! This would help everyone, wouldn't it?)
If you give rich people more money, they will save and invest it - not boost to the economy. If you give middle and poor people more money, they will spend it - there‰ЫЄs an immediate boost to the economy. It‰ЫЄs not rocket science.
All these are freedom issues - and life issues. How do we successfully frame that without the right immediately saying that ‰ЫПyou are free to make all the money you want‰Ыќ - making all of these non-issues??
(Interesting: one thing Lakoff doesn‰ЫЄt want is slogans, but then says stuff like ‰ЫПworkers are profit creators‰Ыќ.)
So what‰ЫЄs the solution? I can talk about this with my friends. I can post about it on social media - until all my friends turn a deaf ear because they‰ЫЄre annoyed by my politicizing. But what beyond that?
It begins by strengthening the framing for the progressive moral system and for the progressive view of democracy based around empathy and the responsibility flowing from that empathy. In other words, we have to care about others‰ЫУfellow citizens of the world we have never met and never will meet‰ЫУand recognize the fact that the private depends on the public. That in turn depends on another systemic effect‰ЫУthe effect of language and the brain on public discourse, and the failure in universities to teach that effect.
Oh, is that all??? No prob!
But if the ones in power - who have the wealth and own the media and own the politicians are controlling all the frames, what chance do we have? If money is speech, Why is it fair that the ultra rich get a billion times the free speech than I do?
And corporations governing us is chilling! What do we do??
I‰ЫЄm really looking forward to the ‰ЫПFrom Theory to Action‰Ыќ section (Part V)!
Part IV: Framing: Looking Back a Decade
This part does well in reframing current domestic and international issues. For some reason, I didn‰ЫЄt put down any thoughts or quest from this section - only that I though it had some great examples.
Part V: From Theory to Action
Ok - so is Lakoff going to get down to the meat of this? Kind of.
He talks about what conservatives really want. A lot of this really resonated with me - and we need to understand to keep going forward.
Conservatives who are ‰ЫПpro-life‰Ыќ are mostly, as we have seen, against prenatal care, postnatal care, and health care for children, all of which have major causal effects on the life of a child. Thus they are not really pro-life in any broad sense.
Yes! We need to be communicating this!
Both same-sex marriage and abortion are stand-ins for the general strict father values that define for millions of people their identities as conservatives. That is the reason why these are such hot-button issues for conservatives. To understand this is not to ignore the real pain and difficulty involved in decisions made by individual women to terminate a pregnancy. For those truly concerned with the lives and health of children, the decision to end a pregnancy for whatever reason is always painful and anything but simple. It is this pain that conservatives are exploiting when they use ending pregnancy as a wedge issue in the cultural civil war they have been promoting.
‰Ы_to stay in power, conservatives need the support of the conservative poor. That is, they need a significant percentage of the poor and middle class to vote against their economic interests and for their individual, social, and religious interests. This means that what appears to be a division among conservatives on the basis of domains of interest actually constitutes strength for conservatism on the whole. Conservatism in all those domains of interest is required for conservatism to reign.
And then he talks about how liberals can unite. And at the end of these progressive values, says:
Don‰ЫЄt just read about these values here and nod. Get out and say them out loud. Discuss them wherever you can. Volunteer for campaigns that give you a chance to discuss these values loud and clear and out in public.
Not exactly a plan of action, but I guess it‰ЫЄs a start.
At the end, he reiterates the integrity of this approach.
The reframing I am suggesting is neither spin nor propaganda. Progressives need to learn to communicate using frames that they really believe, frames that express what their moral views really are. I strongly recommend against any deceptive framing. I think it is not just morally reprehensible, but also impractical, because deceptive framing usually backfires sooner or later.
He also talks about the way to respond to conservatives; I think it‰ЫЄs great. It‰ЫЄs a paradigm shift but I think it makes sense. That doesn‰ЫЄt mean it‰ЫЄll be easy.
Those are a lot of guidelines. But there are only four really important ones:
-Show respect
-Respond by reframing
-Think and talk at the level of values
-Say what you believe
So, there aren‰ЫЄt any simple or short solutions. It‰ЫЄs going to take some time. It‰ЫЄs going to take some work. But if we really want to change the world, it‰ЫЄll be worth it.
_»_Є_¤_Ґ_Щ _ў_Ґ_П_ќ
Reframing, as we discuss it in this book, is about honesty and integrity. It is the opposite of spin and manipulation. It is about bringing to consciousness the deepest of our beliefs and our modes of understanding. It is about learning to express what we really believe in a way that will allow those who share our beliefs to understand what they most deeply believe and to act on those beliefs.
What Is Rationality? The brain and cognitive sciences have radically changed our understanding of what reason is and what it means to be rational. Unfortunately, all too many progressives have been taught a false and outdated theory of reason itself, one in which framing, metaphorical thought, and emotion play no role in rationality. This has led many progressives to the view that the facts‰ЫУalone‰ЫУwill set you free. Progressives are constantly giving lists of facts.
Part I: Framing 101
We all use the family as a metaphor for our nation. But conservatives use a strict father model, and progressives use
The strict father model begins with a set of assumptions: The world is a dangerous place, and it always will be, because there is evil out there in the world. The world is also difficult because it is competitive. There will always be winners and losers. There is an absolute right and an absolute wrong. Children are born bad, in the sense that they just want to do what feels good, not what is right. Therefore, they have to be made good‰Ы_Given opportunity, individual responsibility, and discipline, pursuing your self-interest should enable you to prosper.
You simply reward the good people (who have proven their goodness through their prosperity). In this view, the rich are more moral. And God has ordered it this way. Strict authoritarian worldview also teaches that everything is ok if you don't get caught.
I think the biggest problem with this is (to make it work) you have to assume that everyone has the same opportunity. And that's where many of our conflicts come in - race and affirmative action and race and poverty to mention a couple.
Progressives use the nurturant parent model:
Both parents are equally responsible for raising the children. The assumption is that children are born good and can be made better. The world can be made a better place, and our job is to work on that. The parents‰ЫЄ job is to nurture their children and to raise their children to be nurturers of others.
Interesting Myths:
People listen to facts. (Hint: they don‰ЫЄt)
People do things in their self-interest (Hint: they don‰ЫЄt)
These are reasons that progressives aren‰ЫЄt expressing their ideas very well. We tell people facts, and we tell people why our policies will help them - but this doesn‰ЫЄt convince anyone.
Part II: Framing 102
With framing, you have to look at the long game. This section has more great info on framing.
‰Ы_just telling someone something usually does not make it a neural circuit that they use every day or even a neural circuit that fits easily into their pre-existing brain circuitry‰ЫУthe neural circuits that define their previous understandings and forms of discourse. It is difficult to say things that you are not sure the public is ready to hear, to say things that have not been said hundreds of times before.
One of our issues is systemic causation - it‰ЫЄs difficult to track and see the impacts of global warming, privatization of education, fracking, etc.
Our political divisions come down to moral divisions, characterized in our brains by very different brain circuitry.
This is difficult to overcome!!
This is fascinating. One of the ways that conservatives reinforce the framing is by creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of government impotence:
Once in office, conservatives can not only say that government cannot work and has to be minimized and privatized, but by being in the government, they can also stop it from working, thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. How? By cutting taxes, by cutting funding, by passing laws, and, in the Supreme Court, by reinterpreting laws.
So many people don‰ЫЄt understand the importance of funding public agencies: Public resources make private life possible.
It is a fact that the private depends on the public‰ЫУperhaps the most central fact of American democracy‰ЫУand yet strict conservatives either can‰ЫЄt see it or see it as a form of immorality so fundamental that it must be defeated at all costs.
Um. Wow. Mind. Blown.
Taxes for the wealthy have been cut by conservatives, who have defended huge tax loopholes, and have even drastically cut funding for the IRS so that there are not enough IRS workers or modern computers for the IRS to monitor tax evasion‰ЫУmostly by the wealthy. Since the 1970s, the concept of taxation has shifted from the source of needed, and often revered, public resources to the idea that taxation is a burden‰ЫУan affliction in need of ‰ЫПtax relief.‰Ыќ
What we need people to understand :
Public resources allow for freedom in case after case, opening up all kinds of opportunities in life.
Without taxes, we wouldn't have the freedoms we have.
Remember when Obama said, "do you have a small business? You didn't build that?" It was a huge mis-step. What he was trying to say is that you didn't build it all by yourself. All the infrastructure that taxes pay for - roads, Internet, mail, etc, etc, helped you build it. And taxes is a way to support that infrastructure. But conservatives didn't care what he meant. They took it out of context and ran with it to turn people against him. This is framing.
Part III: Framing for Specific Issues
One of the major mistakes made by the Democratic Party is to focus on election campaigns but not on the constant framing of public discourse. All politics is moral.
So true!
As we have seen from a careful reading of the original Declaration of Independence documents, the progressive meaning is at the heart of our democracy and it is time to take it back. Most of the issues in public discourse, both in elections and in everyday decision making, come down to issues of freedom.
Present calculations are that if the government forgave all student loans, it would boost the nation‰ЫЄs economy far more than the cost of the loans. Nonetheless, conservatives are against both loan forgiveness and dropping the interest on student loans to the same rate that banks pay. Or, conservatives are assholes. (I mean, come on! This would help everyone, wouldn't it?)
If you give rich people more money, they will save and invest it - not boost to the economy. If you give middle and poor people more money, they will spend it - there‰ЫЄs an immediate boost to the economy. It‰ЫЄs not rocket science.
All these are freedom issues - and life issues. How do we successfully frame that without the right immediately saying that ‰ЫПyou are free to make all the money you want‰Ыќ - making all of these non-issues??
(Interesting: one thing Lakoff doesn‰ЫЄt want is slogans, but then says stuff like ‰ЫПworkers are profit creators‰Ыќ.)
So what‰ЫЄs the solution? I can talk about this with my friends. I can post about it on social media - until all my friends turn a deaf ear because they‰ЫЄre annoyed by my politicizing. But what beyond that?
It begins by strengthening the framing for the progressive moral system and for the progressive view of democracy based around empathy and the responsibility flowing from that empathy. In other words, we have to care about others‰ЫУfellow citizens of the world we have never met and never will meet‰ЫУand recognize the fact that the private depends on the public. That in turn depends on another systemic effect‰ЫУthe effect of language and the brain on public discourse, and the failure in universities to teach that effect.
Oh, is that all??? No prob!
But if the ones in power - who have the wealth and own the media and own the politicians are controlling all the frames, what chance do we have? If money is speech, Why is it fair that the ultra rich get a billion times the free speech than I do?
And corporations governing us is chilling! What do we do??
I‰ЫЄm really looking forward to the ‰ЫПFrom Theory to Action‰Ыќ section (Part V)!
Part IV: Framing: Looking Back a Decade
This part does well in reframing current domestic and international issues. For some reason, I didn‰ЫЄt put down any thoughts or quest from this section - only that I though it had some great examples.
Part V: From Theory to Action
Ok - so is Lakoff going to get down to the meat of this? Kind of.
He talks about what conservatives really want. A lot of this really resonated with me - and we need to understand to keep going forward.
Conservatives who are ‰ЫПpro-life‰Ыќ are mostly, as we have seen, against prenatal care, postnatal care, and health care for children, all of which have major causal effects on the life of a child. Thus they are not really pro-life in any broad sense.
Yes! We need to be communicating this!
Both same-sex marriage and abortion are stand-ins for the general strict father values that define for millions of people their identities as conservatives. That is the reason why these are such hot-button issues for conservatives. To understand this is not to ignore the real pain and difficulty involved in decisions made by individual women to terminate a pregnancy. For those truly concerned with the lives and health of children, the decision to end a pregnancy for whatever reason is always painful and anything but simple. It is this pain that conservatives are exploiting when they use ending pregnancy as a wedge issue in the cultural civil war they have been promoting.
‰Ы_to stay in power, conservatives need the support of the conservative poor. That is, they need a significant percentage of the poor and middle class to vote against their economic interests and for their individual, social, and religious interests. This means that what appears to be a division among conservatives on the basis of domains of interest actually constitutes strength for conservatism on the whole. Conservatism in all those domains of interest is required for conservatism to reign.
And then he talks about how liberals can unite. And at the end of these progressive values, says:
Don‰ЫЄt just read about these values here and nod. Get out and say them out loud. Discuss them wherever you can. Volunteer for campaigns that give you a chance to discuss these values loud and clear and out in public.
Not exactly a plan of action, but I guess it‰ЫЄs a start.
At the end, he reiterates the integrity of this approach.
The reframing I am suggesting is neither spin nor propaganda. Progressives need to learn to communicate using frames that they really believe, frames that express what their moral views really are. I strongly recommend against any deceptive framing. I think it is not just morally reprehensible, but also impractical, because deceptive framing usually backfires sooner or later.
He also talks about the way to respond to conservatives; I think it‰ЫЄs great. It‰ЫЄs a paradigm shift but I think it makes sense. That doesn‰ЫЄt mean it‰ЫЄll be easy.
Those are a lot of guidelines. But there are only four really important ones:
-Show respect
-Respond by reframing
-Think and talk at the level of values
-Say what you believe
So, there aren‰ЫЄt any simple or short solutions. It‰ЫЄs going to take some time. It‰ЫЄs going to take some work. But if we really want to change the world, it‰ЫЄll be worth it.
_»_Є_¤_Ґ_Щ _ў_Ґ_П_ќ