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David's Reviews > The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain
The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain
by George Lakoff
by George Lakoff
This is a very important book for progressives to read. Cognitive sciences are showing how our brains organize concepts results in consequences for politics. Most people's brains have developed in ways that can respond to terminology in a way that can activate emotional responses either consistent with conservative attitudes or progressive attitudes. The more times one version is activated by terminology, the more the strength of the structures supporting that view become. Therefore, the terminology progressives choose and implement affects whether listeners actually have their conservative or progressive structures activated and strengthened.
Lakoff explains how progressives tend to work under the assumption that political discourse is only a matter of facts, figures and unemotional logic. But that's not how the brain works. Terminology has associations with brain organization built up during our childhood and otherwise as an individual's brain attempts to make sense of personal experiences. Brain mechanisms relevant to politics are associated with feelings of right and wrong, fair and unfair, desirable and undesirable. Those are linked to emotions and emotion-related chemicals. Unemotional facts and figures just aren't as effective by themselves as the emotional terminology and approaches used by conservatives. Terminology that results in emotional activity in the brain is not necessarily blatantly emotional. But taking care to use wording that elicits empathy and other forms consistent with progressive thought will activate and strengthen brain structures that support progressive attitudes in your listeners.
This book is not presented as merely being a science popularization on cognitive theory affecting political thought. It's intended to educate people on incorporating scientific findings into practical political expression. Lakoff uses more scientific jargon in the practical political parts of the book than would be ideal. However, that shouldn't prevent you from getting the essential ideas.
Cognitive Policy Works makes available a free PDF download of Thinking Points. This is supposed to be more oriented to practical political applications, but I haven't read it yet.
http://www.cognitivepolicyworks.com/w...
Lakoff explains how progressives tend to work under the assumption that political discourse is only a matter of facts, figures and unemotional logic. But that's not how the brain works. Terminology has associations with brain organization built up during our childhood and otherwise as an individual's brain attempts to make sense of personal experiences. Brain mechanisms relevant to politics are associated with feelings of right and wrong, fair and unfair, desirable and undesirable. Those are linked to emotions and emotion-related chemicals. Unemotional facts and figures just aren't as effective by themselves as the emotional terminology and approaches used by conservatives. Terminology that results in emotional activity in the brain is not necessarily blatantly emotional. But taking care to use wording that elicits empathy and other forms consistent with progressive thought will activate and strengthen brain structures that support progressive attitudes in your listeners.
This book is not presented as merely being a science popularization on cognitive theory affecting political thought. It's intended to educate people on incorporating scientific findings into practical political expression. Lakoff uses more scientific jargon in the practical political parts of the book than would be ideal. However, that shouldn't prevent you from getting the essential ideas.
Cognitive Policy Works makes available a free PDF download of Thinking Points. This is supposed to be more oriented to practical political applications, but I haven't read it yet.
http://www.cognitivepolicyworks.com/w...
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Richard
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Jan 24, 2011 04:42pm
Does Lakoff repeat himself endlessly in this one? Makes him really tough to slog through...
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There is some repetition. It wasn't a big issue for me. The audiobook was 8.5 hours, so it's not a long book.I know you (Richard) regularly read books on cognitive science. So, while I was reading Political Mind, I checked & saw you'd read Moral Politics. I haven't read it, so can't compare. You raised the issue that your views are more complicated than just "progressive". At least in Political Mind, he makes clear that most people have a mixture of attitudes that might be called conservative and progressive. And most people have both brain structures that could be consistent with conservative attitudes and ones that could be consistent with progressive attitudes (for a particular issue area) - and how much each one is triggered by relevant wording affects the individual's behavior. So you may be within what he discusses. (I don't read cognitive science as much as you, so this might not be expressed as well as someone in your cognitive group.)
Regardless of whether one accepts all the details of his thesis, at least the general outlines seem to be of considerable importance.
I found his analysis in Moral Politics very intriguing, but I must say I'm disappointed with where he seemed to be taking his work.In the years after that, he seemed to be striving to help progressives in their struggle against the conservatives. While I probably come down more-or-less in the same range of the political spectrum as him, I'd rather he pursued the underlying research. Presumably the frameworks he identified are partially derived from culture, and partially genetic. I want to know what causes those frameworks to drift and change over time, and what can and can't be changed.
If this book addresses how the 18th-century founders had a different moral and cognitive framework, then he seems to be back on a track I'd appreciate.
At least one of the fellows in my PopCog reading group wants to read his Philosophy In The Flesh (which I started once and couldn't get into), another wants to see what he has to say about mathematics and is urging Where Mathematics Comes From on us. I was leaning towards Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things , just because of its delightfully provocative title, but I'm really pushing for The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind , for the obvious reasons :-)
Is the "18th-Century Brain" really a significant part of this book? Is there an examination of how moral/cognitive frameworks evolve over time?
The "18th century" material mainly refers to the old assumption that political discourse / thought is a matter of rational, conscious mental activity. Since we now realize the extent of subconscious and emotional involvement, Lakoff argues it's mistaken to simply present facts & figures and expect others to attain wisdom. He talks of the need for a "new enlightenment" vision that includes modern cognitive science.I think part of the reason Lakoff put more time into practical political applications is because he believes the Right has been effectively expressing itself in ways that activate the brain structures which are consistent with conservative attitudes. Over the course of time, the frequent activation of those areas have strengthen those structures to give them advantages over the structures consistent with progressive attitudes. He believes there has been a widespread changing of brains becoming biased towards conservative attitudes. He believes a major effort would be needed to reverse the process. That is probably what he is trying to do. Also, he believes the strengthening of conservative attitudes has allowed concentration of executive powers & restrictions of civil liberties which threaten aspects of our democracy.
To some extent, that may answer your question about how Lakoff believes the frameworks drift. However, if you want to know why in one era people thought slavery was OK, in the next era they thought slavery was bad but racial segregation was OK, in the next era they thought segregation was bad, etc. - I don't think Lakoff addresses that.
Hmmm, that explanation seems pretty obvious: increased use of doctrine strengthens the cognitive pathways involved, which in turn would increase the cultural prevalence of those beliefs, thus replicating it within culture over time and between generations.Crudely, it's as if everyone is subconsciously using a confirmation bias to perpetuate communal reinforcement.
But this would be true even with a "blank slate" brain, which isn't what our species has. What's missing is a tie-in to heritability.
Clearly living in small clans over hundreds of millennia during paleolithic time created tendencies and inclinations, however much those are affected by subsequent cultural changes. Are there built-in biases towards patriarchal thinking forever battling with other built-in biases towards culture based on nurturing?
One way of examining that question would be to tease out what cognitive and moral frameworks are present in other cultures and at other times, looking for consistency and variation.
I can understand Lakoff's desire to deal with what seems to be the dysfunctionally unbalanced dogmas of our time, but without knowing how deeply rooted these might be, any attempts to shift the balance are likely to be less effective.
Lakoff associates the patriarchal biases with conservatism. He associates empathy (related to mirror neurons, etc.) with progressive attitudes. He sees parallels between strict obedience-oriented parenting and conservatism / patriarchal obedience-oriented government. He see parallels between nurturing parenting and progressive attitudes / government responsible to the people. I suppose we'll all have both tendencies - even with nurturing parents and gov't, we'd learn some degree of following existing authorities, but also have senses of empathy and fairness. [Lakoff gives examples of animals having a sense of fairness.]There is a chapter in Political Mind on elements that tend to favor hawks over doves in war.
Lakoff doesn't seem to talk about family genetic tendencies towards conservative or progressive attitudes. He seems to only discuss what is true of humans in general and what is the result of personal experience.
He does indicate there are various frames/pathways which can be significant for this or that issue. Most people have both a pathway consistent with conservatism on that issue and a pathway for progressivism on that issue. To what extent individual experience / political words activate one or the other pathway influences the person's behavior. In that sense, the two approaches "battle" in a person.
