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Product Description: In What’s the Matter with Kansas?, Thomas Frank pointed out that a great number of Americans actually vote against their own interests. In The Political Mind, George Lakoff explains why.
As it turns out, human beings are not the rational creatures we’ve so long imagined ourselves to be. Ideas, morals, and values do not exist somewhere outside the body, ready to be examined and put to use. Instead, they exist quite literally inside the brain—and they take physical shape there. For example, we form particular kinds of narratives in our minds just like we form specific muscle memories such as typing or dancing, and then we fit new information into those narratives. Getting that information out of one narrative type and into another—or building a whole new narrative altogether—can be as hard as learning to play the banjo. Changing your mind isn’t like changing your body—it’s the same thing.
But as long as progressive politicians and activists persist in believing that people use an objective system of reasoning to decide on their politics, the Democrats will continue to lose elections. They must wrest control of the terms of the debate from their opponents rather than accepting their frame and trying to argue within it.
This passionate, erudite, and groundbreaking book will appeal to readers of Steven Pinker and Thomas Frank. It is a fascinating read for anyone interested in how the mind works, how society works, and how they work together. Customer Reviews: Rating: 
Date: 2008-06-28
I enjoyed "Moral Politics" more
I have enjoyed all of Lakoff's books very much, I found this book harder to embrace than his earlier book, "Moral Politics"
Lakoff is an important voice in politics today. He not only explains what "is behind the curtain" of language but also everything you ever wanted to know about the curtain.
Unfortunately, the people who need to read and understand this book will be unable to grasp the concepts he presents ... the electorate. Until Lakoff can reach the people who are being manipulated, he will only reach those who wish to manipulate us more effectively. Rating: 
Date: 2008-06-24
Simply brilliant
Lakoff has been making his case on behalf of democratic values for many years. Maybe this book, free of scientific jargon, will make the general public sit up and take notice, now that the need for such leadership is urgent beyond comprehension.
His interpretations synthesize many areas of inquiry and clearly and pragmatically show what we need to do to reverse the destructive course on which the country now falters.
Must-reading for Democrats - and everybody else. Rating: 
Date: 2008-06-23
Left Wing Ideology Posing as Fact: What's New?
Even the left wing NY Times review of this propagandistic screed had to trash it, and that's saying a lot. As William Saletan commented in said review of this laughable work: ...it's hard to take Lakoff's neurodeterminism seriously if you know any science. As he acknowledges, current brain-imaging technology is far too crude to see specific neural activity. Cores? Narrative structures? Issue-to-worldview binding? It's all speculation.
To dismiss his politics (Lakoff's) as a brain defect would do him no more justice than he's done voters. His proposal to re-engineer our heads is neither democratic nor scientifically warranted. It defies public accountability, the very principle he purports to serve. It also underestimates our intelligence. The fact that brain formation materializes mind formation doesn't simplify their relationship. To the extent that the brain is the mind's recorder, physical laws constrain the writing process. But maybe the power of rationality isn't in the writing. Maybe it's in the editing. The mind, through the brain, revises itself.
We're capable of changing our minds. Just give us a good reason.
Rating:
Date: 2008-06-15
Lakoff Avoids Putting Descartes Before the Horse
Those reading George Lakoff's latest work, THE POLITICAL MIND, might find some benefit in perusing his earlier work PHILOSOPHY IN THE FLESH in which he explains the embodied mind. Whereas, Plato imagines human values as pure concepts held in some heavenly sky beyond our reach, Lakoff sees human values as being a product of human development. While Descartes said, "I think; therefore, I am," Lakoff would say, "I am; therefore, my existence structures my thinking." Concepts are supported by metaphors, which are based on experience. Trust follows from an investment metaphor. Love is consistent with the metaphor of a journey. The importance of this difference is that it is inappropriate to measure people against a standard of a disembodied concept and find them wanting. Values are defined by our experience, both personal and vicarious, and, while wearing the label by which they are named, are more like glasses being filled with meaning over our lifetime than like a set standard defined as a goal to be achieved.
Lakoff says that the metaphors, associated with values, structure our thinking. Further, he claims that Democrats, seeing how Republicans use metaphors to capture votes, often decry their appeal to emotions. Lakoff reminds Democrats that rationality is not separate from emotion and that it is not only legitimate, but necessary, to use emotion to get across our moral thinking. By examining how the brain operates and highlighting the mirror neurons with their empathic quality, he shows how we are structured to want to protect and empower others, as we would like others to protect and empower us. This is what America is all about. It should be what all governments are about. When we operate through this moral imperative, we galvanize the thinking of others, forming coalitions that allow us to accomplish our goals.
In this way, George Lakoff is both a realist and an idealist. He may well be the most important philosopher of the 21st century. As such, he deserves our attention. Rating:
Date: 2008-06-14
Rich, like chocolate cake
While building on his previous books, Lakoff also gets into a new area: the use of narratives in poltics.The DWIs and purorted drug use of President Bush ,standing alone, never mattered because people saw him through the narrative of Redemption, the overcoming of adversity and the possibility of salvation. The opening section on Anna Nicole Smith and the narratives used to view her contain some of the book's best writing. it also helps explain the power of Senator Clinton---women who have it rough(sex discrimination, faithless husband etc) don't just identify with her, they are her and she is them as she struggled for the nomination. He hammers away ,as before on frames and the building of them. As a trial attorney I see this all the time---if the other side responds to my framing, I will usually win because in telling their "story" they just end up repeating mine. Instead, to be persuasive you must create a different story. The Dems are still having a hard time grasping this fundamental truth.Some good stuff on how we are wired for empathy. He coins a new word "privateering" for what happens when a government function is abandoned by government and handed over to corporations; ie a wealth transfer, think no bid contracts a la Iraq and Katrina.The book is like chocolate cake---almost too rich, and it loses focus as it goes along. Still , it deserves a 5 star rating because it is a book of ideas, which is always welcome, no matter party affliation. |
