Centerfield

I like that highlighted paragraph. I've never understood the traditional conservative/liberal positions. In some cases, they seem hypocritical.

I may have used this example before, but my favorite one is marijuana/tobacco. Liberals want to legalize pot but regulate cigarettes out of existence. Conservatives believe marijuana is equivalent to "rape and murder" but believe every red blooded American has a right to smoke cigarettes and get cancer.

My moderate position is that both marijuana and tobacco are plants that come out of the ground. They both are bad for your health, but everybody already knows this. We should be able to smoke at our own risk.

I've been a big fan of Lakhoff for a long time. His various articles on the framing of political messages are really fascinating. I understand that Howard Dean spent time talking with Lakhoff during the early part of his Prez campaign.

I'll be very interested to know what you think of Lakhoff's book.

In reading the excerpt, I thinking Lakoff is guilty of exactly what he accuses Conservatives of doing...... framing the entire world based upon his own framework of reality and not realizing that the opposition has a seperate framework that doesn't fit very well into his model.

Lakoff may be somewhat accurate in how he frames the liberal/progressive worldview but I think he has a very poor understanding of the conservative worldview and probably hasn't spoken very much with them.

Cengal,

"Lakoff may be somewhat accurate in how he frames the liberal/progressive worldview but I think he has a very poor understanding of the conservative worldview"

This book is certainly not meant to deal with the conservative framing. But I'm curious what he says that show a poor understanding of the conservative worldview and how would you correct him. (?)

A while back, when George Bush proposed changes to the way affirmative action is still used at our universities (something I agree with), I posted on an internet forum a piece describing how his attempts to make this unpopular change in academia was similar to Bill Clinton's attempt to change the policy of allowing gays in the military (something I also agreed with). I felt that both issues were morally correct, but would never pan out due to the nature of the beast they were each trying to change.

Well, I got some interesting responses, but I think it shows that Lakoff is definitely onto something, and I find myself going out my way at times to frame my 'conservative' arguments with typically 'liberal' thinking and vice versa. It's fun to do. :)

Well his whole analogy of the conservative viewpoint being reflective of the "strict father model" is way off-base. In my opinion, that is pretty close to the anthesis of the classic conservative viewpoint.

Liberals may see the relationship between a government and it's citizens in the context of a parent/child relationship, in fact it's always been my perception that is the classic liberal viewpoint. However that is the opposite of the context, imho, that classic conservatives view such relationship. In the conservative framework, citizens are not children that need nuturing, care or protection....and it is not the governments role to play mommy or daddy to it's citizens to protect them and "better" them.

In the conservative model everyone is an adult. If I can use an analogy, myself. The classic conservative viewpoint would have the nation as a sort of ball-field and the citizens are all ball-players who are all trying to play a somewhat different version of the same game and are at the same time competing with each other while still playing on the same team. The governments role is to play referee in order to make sure that everyone can at least co-exist on the same ball-field without a riot breaking out. The government is a slightly inept and corrupt referee at that... one that has to be constantly watched by the players to insure it is applying the rules fairly and not trying to take over the game itself.

In this context, people who violate the rules are punished simply because they make it impossible for everyone to have the opportunity to play on the same field. Now there will be some players that have more talent then others or are luckier then others or have a more effective style of play and doing so will garner them more points....while the players with less talent, luck or technique may get little to no points....and that is perfectly fine. It is not the referee's job to help people earn more points.
It's only important that people are given the opportunity to TRY to play.

Finaly, when another team comes to town, everyone on our team must band together and work together to beat the other team.... and all the rules for how you should play go out the window when you are playing against the other team....because the other team will do everything they can to win regardless of the rules...and loosing means your team getting kicked off the field permanently.

Cengel, in my opinion that is a great description of classical conservative thinking. I suspect, though, that Lakoff's "strict father" view could be applied to certain members of the Religious Right.

Cengal,

Consider the following a pompous cop-out if you wish BUT...

You're trying to compare apples to trees. What I mean is that cognitive science concerns that part of the mind that is not accessable to the conscious mind. That's why cognitive scientists must start with language and 'back into' how the human mind actually structures knowledge -- how we KNOW something -- how we 'store' learning. Thus describing a conservative viewpoint with a specific analogy may say how you prefer to 'picture' it, but that is already a conscious activity, isn't it?

Although I've read three of Lakoff's previous books, I don't claim to know much more than what I've written here -- I'm not trying to pass myself off as an expert of any sort, although I would definitely consider serious study in cog-sci if I were thirty years younger. I find how humans beings work to be quite fascinating quite apart from any political ramifications.

The excerpt really makes me want to read the book because I have always wondered about the role of ideologies in people's lives. Ideology is a set of assumptions that people use to simply their decision making process. But why do certain political positions go together when there is no logical reason they should. Why can't someone be for gun control and against abortion? There is no logical reason why someone couldn't be "conservative" on one issue and "liberal" on another. I think a lot of people are like that but political elites don't recognize that. They assume that since they have a unified worldview everyone else must as well. So if you are a religious conservative, ipso facto, you must be an economic conservative as well. And the same goes for conservatives who assume that people with liberal views on one subject must have liberal views on all.

This is not even to mention the fact that people with a specific ideology may be inconsistent or hypercritical in applying that ideology. So, to talk about "conservative" or "liberal" may be utterly misleading. Cengel's point about conservatives treating all people as adults may be true as a matter or principle, but if you look at, for example, traditional Catholic conservatives in the 40s and 50s, many believed in a very hierarchical society with strict attention to authority. The point is that this may not be "conservative" ideology, but some amalgam of beliefs that people adopt that reflect their view of the world. This view may be more visceral than it is intellecutal.

I must dispute Erasmus' characterization of Cognitive Science as being primarily concerned with "that part of the mind that is not accessable to the conscious mind." This reflects perhaps a bit too much exposure to Freud or Jung and has nothing to do with Cognitive Science (I'll note that I received a Doctorate in Cognitive Psych from UDel in 1988).

It *is* true that we study processes that are quite often "below consciousness" but that is only because we are decomposing information processing tasks to such minutia that consciousness isn't really the point.

It is perfectly reasonable to take both conscious and unconscious biases into account when analyzing the role of "framing" in belief formation. Indeed, looked at closely enough, I'm not sure that attempting to distinguish between them makes sense! If you think deeply about your reaction to some news are you not turning unconscious biases into conscious ones? In typical reading, how much of your emotional response is really "conscious"? (Keep pressing and you'll arrive at the point where consciousness itself is damn near impossible to pin down.)

In any event, I find his analysis quite insightful and see nothing in CogSci that mitigates against using it as a candidate to understand how people frame issues from a conservative position.

WildMonk:

I hope I've been clear that I'm no expert. What I've said about all this is geaned from Lakoff & Johnson's "Philosophy in the Flesh", 1999. This is an argument that the human power to reason is an embodied process and that the way the physical mind structures knowledge is through metaphor. Are you familiar with all this? I'm sure there are other schools of thought?