George Lakoff Interprets Obama's "More Perfect Union" Speech -- A Call for A New Politics

[babylonsister]

Linguist George Lakoff Interprets Obama's "More Perfect Union" Speech -- A Call for A New Politics
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Mon, 04/07/2008 - 6:59pm. Interviews
A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

... what Obama was addressing was not just race or just the nature of politics. The great speeches address who we are as people, what it means to be a human being.

-- George Lakoff


snip//


George Lakoff: First let me talk a little bit about what Obama is trying to do in the campaign and how that differs from what Clinton is trying to do in the campaign. Obama understands what Ronald Reagan learned, which is that people vote not on the basis of issues and policy details, but on the basis of something deeper, namely, what are your values? Are you authentic? Do you say what you believe? Can we trust you? Do you communicate with us? And do we identify with you?

It's not just a matter of personality or of superficial issues. You don't know what particular issues are going to come up in the future, so you have to depend on someone's values, and whether they are telling you the truth, and whether you can trust them in office. Obama's been running a campaign on that basis.

The second thing you have to recognize is his understanding of progressive values and American values, which he sees as the same thing. I've written in Moral Politics and elsewhere what progressive values are about. Empathy -- that is, caring about people and acting responsibly on that care, not just for yourself, but for others -- this is something that he understands very well. He was a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago for ten years. As an expert on the Constitution and on our family values, he understands very well that the country is fundamentally about caring for one another. The day after his speech, he was interviewed on CNN, and Anderson Cooper asked him what patriotism was. He said patriotism begins with caring for one another.

In his speech he talks about what kind of progress we want to make -- we want to become more free, more equal, and then more caring and more prosperous. So he understands empathy, not just as a progressive ideal, but as a fundamental American ideal.

And union has to do with the idea that we're in this together. Things can't get done unless the country agrees on this. That goes along with a further thing that Obama has mentioned in his speeches, and that I've written about -- what I call biconceptualism. It's the idea that we all have these conservative and progressive modes of thought about different issues. If you're a progressive, you can find lots of people who call themselves conservatives, but who agree with you on lots of things. There are people who call themselves conservatives, but who love the land as much as any environmentalist, who are honest business people who want to live in progressive communities with people who care for each other and so on. Progressives share a number of common values with people who call themselves conservatives. Obama, who's campaigned throughout Illinois and won a lot of votes in Southern Illinois, which is basically the South, has understood that very well. What he calls bipartisanship is not adopting conservative views, but finding where people who consider themselves conservatives share with him and other progressives these fundamental American values. When he talks about union, that's the kind of thing he means.

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http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/103

[izzybeans]

1. Lakoff is dead to me.

:sarcasm:

Interesting perspective as usual.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. OH NOES!

Even Lakoff, the guy who invented "framing," has been seduced into joining the cult!

:sarcasm:

Is he dead to you, too, or do we actually have to throw him under the bus?

[OhioChick]

3. K&R

:kick: