So George Lakoff.....

[bighughdiehl]

Says in his latest book The Political Mind....that we need to learn from the latest findings in cognitive science and linguistics how to push the right buttons. he also says the right have known how to push the right buttons all along? How did they do this before we learned through hard science? Was it a Machiavellian intuition that we lack? Did it have something to do with the CIA mindfuck experiments back in the 50s(largely started by the Nazi scientists of operation Paperclip)? Did they just decide to push a handful of buttons that just happened to work? Does it dovetail all too well with the ancient manipulations of their frontmen in organized religion? What was behind their success in pushing the right buttons?

Also....does anyone else think that Lakoff gave too much credit in Moral Politics to the right for having a "moral system"? Although (somewhat conditional) respect for authority can be a part of a healthy moral system, I don't see how blind authoritarianism in national politics can simply be an extension of a parenting style.

[bighughdiehl]

1. Kicking...

I really wanna get a few takes.

[ColbertWatcher]

2. Maybe b oth sides knew, but...

...liberals resisted the manipulative nature of "pushing buttons"?

[bighughdiehl]

3. Gee...

That has turned out to be a real winning strategy. Does anyone else think we need to frame these people as just sanctimonious hypocrites and authoritarians? Screw rational debate....as they themselves have shown.

[ColbertWatcher]

4. Which is the winning strategy? n/t

[bighughdiehl]

5. Sorry....

Should have used a sarcasm tag when saying that abstaining from manipulation was a winning strategy. Lakoff demonstrates that rational decision making is tied up with emotional investments. Liberals seem to not know or want to take advantage of it, which is our problem.

[ColbertWatcher]

6. That may be true if you take every word Lakoff says as "gospel"...

...using the manipulation "strategy" seems to only work for the short term.

It never works in the long term, emotionalism aside.

I hope Lakoff was also able to demonstrate that rational decisions can be effected by a lack of valid information.

[Gabi Hayes]

8. it's worked since 1980; depends on how you define long term, and how

repressive the regime in which it's applied is

have you read this?

pretty much marketing 101:



Karl Rove & the Spectre of Freud’s Nephew

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/bender2.html

[ljm2002]

7. Your question...

...of "how did the right know, then, before all these studies?" -- perfectly illustrates why we never gain control of the dialog. Well -- it's not your question that illustrates it, but the answer. Which is, to my mind, that we miss what is as plain as the nose on our collective face, namely: what motivates people is what gets them riled up. And what gets them riled up is based on either anger, or fear.

Now I don't want us to do what the rabid right does, playing to the worst in us and manufacturing fear and outrage. But I do want us to tap into that righteous anger that we feel, or that we ought to feel, when we see injustice, when we realize that we really do live in the Matrix, when we realize that instead of progressing, we are regressing at an alarming rate, that we are killing the planet, not to mention each other, for no good reason whatsoever.

All of these things are the stuff of anger and outrage, and it is just such outrage that motivates. But our mealy-mouthed Democrats have by and large sold out to the corporations, and the corporations demand platitudes and content-free utterances about any topic under the sun, because they are happy with how things are.

We are fools to go along. We need to reclaim the outrage of the left, from the phony outrage that Rush and his ilk have been manufacturing for all too long. We need to have ads that ask people, in very specific terms, how they like it that our bridges are crumbling, in the USA, the "greatest country in the world". We need to ask people, how do they like it that this wonderful country can't take care of its sick and its elderly. We need to ask people, how do they like it that our great wealth goes to make weapons for the entire world, that the threats from thugs like Saddam et al are largely of our own making, ... well I could go on and on, but I think the point is clear: there is plenty of room for righteous, non-manufactured from a different perspective than that drummed up by the rabid right. And it's about damned time we tapped into it.

[librechik]

9. It's quite simple. Republicans appeal to your hidden, worst side

the unconscious needs, as Freud points out. This is a very difficult appeal to fight, especially since we often deny we even have that need or fear.

Democrats appeal to our common needs as social, open, civil individuals. Community organizing and sacrifice for the whole. These are rather complex goals which require a closeness and community that has been systematically destroyed by suburban development and the decay of towns and inner cities.

Unfortunately the right has had a hugely successful run for the last 60 years scoffing at "communal enterprises" and painting nurturing Dems as girly men and communists.

They have been aided at every step by corporations, who also want to appeal to the hidden needs, and don't want individuals to organize (since this gives us the only chance we have ever had of offsetting the power of corporations, and they want us disorganized and needy.)

There are a couple of British documentary series that I have watched recently which explain all this better and more completely. The first is called The century of the Self, which describes how the consumer society was invented and enforced. The second is The Trap, which describes how the original definition of freedom has been changed and perverted through the years, until we are content with the sort of negative freedom we have today--our choice of Coke or Pepsi.

Both series are available at www.moviesfoundonline.com, which is currently my favorite website.

[Igel]

10. Lakoff has some acolytes.

What he doesn't do is give the likes of Madison Avenue their due. Or populists, from Paul on back--some petty, some horrendous. They all knew how to "frame" issues.

However, they also all knew what Lakoff apparently has yet to figure out: That "framing" an issue only works when the frame fits, when people accept it. Push a "frame"--or pitch an ad--at people who are sceptical, or make it a bad pitch, and you get nowhere.

Now, Lakoff is glad that some of this is finally based on "hard" science. The problem is, that psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics--neither of which is his forte, by the way, he's a "cognitive linguist", which is different from "cognitive science" by a far piece--are very humble sciences. Lakoff's conclusions aren't. However, they just happen to be exactly what he's believed since the '60s, when he was a loser in the linguistics wars (generative semantics and the like). Lakoff is too reductionist, and avoids ambiguity and nuance in favor of believing himself right. Many cognitive linguists are like him. Both the cognitivists and the formalists have driven many good people from the field with their all-or-nothing, I'm-right-and-they're-crap thinking.

Now, generative semantics under other names has made a bit of a comeback--led, more than Lakoff, by Seuren (oddly enough). The reasons are good: Formal generative linguistics wasn't able to deal with a fair number of linguistic issues in the '50s and '60s, and had to ignore some perfectly valid insights from generative semantics and other allied sub-fields. However, it pays not to find complete validation when some insights are finally acknowledged, nor does it pay to "frame" others' research in self-promoting and self-validating ways. At least not when you're a scholar. In this, Lakoff is a pundit.

Note that Chomsky was keen to keep his politics and linguistics separate. Lakoff should find inspiration in this.

[csziggy]

11. After Noxin resigned, the right got $$$$$$$ to set up some of those "think tanks"

To study this kind of thing. That is why the Repubs have been using the tactics of staying on message and framing the dialog since the late 1970s.

Right after the 2004 election, Howard Dean promoted Lakoff's ideas and our local Democratic Executive Committee had focus groups to work on doing this kind of shaping our message for our local races. Unfortunately, I had to drop out in early 2006 and have not kept up with how they did with all that.

The problem on the national level is that Democrats are resistant to lockstepping our ideas and we don't have fanatics willing to donate the millions to set up competing think tanks to mind wipe people to believe in a single set of messages. I am sure I prefer our ways.

[Kat45]

12. I recently took an online class with Lakoff as the speaker

He was talking about things in this book. It was quite interesting, and I tried to take notes the best I could since my memory ain't what it used to be when I was in school (neither is my notetaking).