The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain

All Lakoff's previous books were excellent but left me wondering, "What's a frame?" This book answers that question, and goes well beyond that. If you haven't read any of Lakoff's books, start with this one. It is by far the best! The last chapter, which contains no politics, is an overview of the New 21st-Century Enlightenment we are entering. This chapter really is superb, destined to be a classic that changes our philosophical understanding of the world. And since philosophy determines what type of government people will adopt, politics is a natural field to use for examples. This book is like Isaac Newton's Principia. It's full of new knowledge, not about what we think, but how we think. How we go about understanding and reasoning about abstract concepts. If I tried to summarize the book I'd end up quoting the entire book. 18th-Century Enlightenment said reason can solve all problems. If that were so then all these controversial issues would have been solved by now. Progressives and conservatives both reason quite well, yet they still arrive at opposite conclusions. Discussing the issues doesn't work. Yet we still insist on doing that because 18th-Century Enlightenment tells us it should work. Rather than talking about issues you disagree on, which is exactly the wrong thing to do, you should instead talk about issues which you agree on. Find what issue a conservative has adopted a progressive view on, and discuss that issue. By discussing an issue a conservative has adopted a progressive view on, you are helping to reinforce their progressive mode of thinking. It's brain exercise! The more they exercise their progressive mode of thinking, the stronger it gets. The more you get them to discuss issues where they already have adopted a progressive view, the more their progressive mode of thinking is strengthened. As their progressive mode of thinking gets exercised and strengthened, they will tend more and more to use progressive thinking on other issues. It's that simple. And that different.

There is a very nice description of the essentials of narrative theory and its relation to personality theory to start but then the focus is on frames and two narratives in particular, those of the strict father and empathy. This becomes essentially the Kantian Enlightenment narrative versus the evolution (complex systems) narrative with argument that contemporary neuroscience supports the evolution narrative instead of the Enlightenment narrative. The evolution narrative then becomes the New Enlightenment narrative. Conservatives primarily hold the Enlightenment Narrative and Progressives the New Enlightenment Narrative. (For an interesting sense of how this difference changes the interpretation of a person see his other book "Philosophy in the Flesh")

Few people know enough about neuroscience to agree or disagree with Lakoff's description of its discoveries, but nearly everyone can use what this book teaches as a recipe for dealing with people who, to us, seem irrational in their political choices. I think it is very likely that Lakoff has his science right, or at least right enough. Can anyone reasonably say that the centuries-old concepts of how mind and language work are not as obsolete as their contemporaries, the theories of phlogiston and of the Great Flood? Whether Lakoff's brain science is exactly right matters little; it is sufficient to give a scientific foundation to think more effectively about how people think. Science continually evolves, and for today it suffices to take today's preliminary results to develop a useful technology of persuasion; waiting for a perfect knowledge that may never come is a recipe for failure. More important than the precise rightness of Lakoff's formulation is its utility. Who has not found it frustrating to lay out fact after fact, logical argument after logical argument, and still to lose in the matter of persuasion? How many times I have drawn the conclusion that the listener was insincere, deluded or stupid! And never have those conclusions been especially helpful; no-one has ever been persuaded by being called "Stupid!" Lakoff's explanations are much more useful than simply blaming the listener. It is very likely that people who brush aside my logic are almost never being stupid; they simply have a very different frame of reference and way of thinking. And since all thinking is based in biology, there is a biological basis for that thinking. (Lakoff's description of the biology is interesting for those who like that sort of thing, and can be skipped by those who don't.) As Lakoff notes, whether "they" are being "rational" or not is completely irrelevant. They think the way they do, and I can't magically expect them to change by mere logical argument. I can fail to respect their frame of reference, their way of thinking, the way they are built; and with that choice, I will fail. And (going beyond Lakoff) may I add that I would deserve to fail, for being disrespectful. Or ... I can accept our differences, and work with them, gradually changing the way they think over time. There is no magic formula for persuading people to agree with me (...and it would be frightening if there were. Think about it!) But Lakoff's recipe for action offers hope: offer alternative frames, non-authoritarian ways of thinking about the problems that matter, thus gradually getting people used to non-authoritarian conduct. We often do this without knowing it. It's the heart of every potluck supper, neighborhood watch or other volunteer community organizing event. Really, "all" Lakoff does is give us a metaphor for thinking about what works, so we can implement the methodology effectively. But since thinking is fundamentally the use of apt metaphors, perhaps that's all

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.

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.