Free The ALL NEW Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate by George Lakoff Page B
Authors: George Lakoff
to two very different ideas of what an ideal person should be like, and how our politics should be arranged to produce a version of the ideal person with the “right” moral system, whether purely conservative, purely progressive, or the right combination of the two.
Reflexivity and Personhood
At this point we have to ask The Reflexivity Question for Personhood: Can linguistic framing change the kind of person someone is? The answer seems to be yes, though possibly not in extreme cases. And of course it may depend on age and circumstances. But such changes do appear to have happened over the years—so far as I can tell, mostly with biconceptuals. Extreme conservatives (estimated at about 25 to 30 percent of the US population), it appears, cannot be changed by reframing and setting up an effective communication system that operates full time, not just at elections. Yes, this means that some people cannot be “reached” (an inaccurate progressive metaphor) or “woken up” (another inaccurate progressive metaphor).
Consider a moderate progressive who is partly conservative. She hears conservative language and conservative arguments over and over, day after day for years—in the media or with friends or both. The conservative language will activate the conservative moral system, making it a bit stronger every time the language is heard. As the conservative circuitry in her brain becomes stronger (the synapses strengthen), the more likely it is that her views on issues will change from progressive to conservative. The result may be a shift within the brain from a person who is partly conservative to a person who is mostly conservative. I believe that this has actually happened in many cases.
That is the power of the conservative messaging system: It is reflexivity in action. Over time, someone’s very personhood can change, and with it her ideal of what other people should be. And, of course, who they should vote for.
The other conservative use of reflexivity depends upon getting those votes. Once in office, conservatives can not only say that government cannot work and has to be minimized and privatized, but by being in the government, they can also stop it from working, thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. How? By cutting taxes, by cutting funding, by passing laws, and, in the Supreme Court, by reinterpreting laws.
In contemporary America, politics and personhood are inseparable—and apparently moving in a conservative direction. To change that direction, progressives need to understand the role of the brain and of communication systems in the process.
Politics and Personhood at the Founding
When the United States was founded, politics and personhood had come together, but in the progressive direction.
Historian Lynn Hunt at UCLA goes through the history in detail in her book Inventing Human Rights: A History . She starts with the defining passage of the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
If these rights are self-evident, she asks, why does Jefferson have to say that they are self-evident? And when did they become self-evident?
Hunt, a former president of the American Historical Society, studied the writing and culture of France, England, and the Thirteen Colonies. She shows that those ideas were not there in the 1600s, and came into existence in the mid-1700s, mainly after 1760, when Western Europe and the States were swept up in a major cultural change. That change can be seen in the period’s novels, like Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Julie , the biggest bestseller of the century, with seventy editions between 1761 and 1800. Julie was written as a collection of intimate letters between two lovers. Readers identified deeply with the emotional lives of the characters, whose psychological
Reflexivity and Personhood
At this point we have to ask The Reflexivity Question for Personhood: Can linguistic framing change the kind of person someone is? The answer seems to be yes, though possibly not in extreme cases. And of course it may depend on age and circumstances. But such changes do appear to have happened over the years—so far as I can tell, mostly with biconceptuals. Extreme conservatives (estimated at about 25 to 30 percent of the US population), it appears, cannot be changed by reframing and setting up an effective communication system that operates full time, not just at elections. Yes, this means that some people cannot be “reached” (an inaccurate progressive metaphor) or “woken up” (another inaccurate progressive metaphor).
Consider a moderate progressive who is partly conservative. She hears conservative language and conservative arguments over and over, day after day for years—in the media or with friends or both. The conservative language will activate the conservative moral system, making it a bit stronger every time the language is heard. As the conservative circuitry in her brain becomes stronger (the synapses strengthen), the more likely it is that her views on issues will change from progressive to conservative. The result may be a shift within the brain from a person who is partly conservative to a person who is mostly conservative. I believe that this has actually happened in many cases.
That is the power of the conservative messaging system: It is reflexivity in action. Over time, someone’s very personhood can change, and with it her ideal of what other people should be. And, of course, who they should vote for.
The other conservative use of reflexivity depends upon getting those votes. Once in office, conservatives can not only say that government cannot work and has to be minimized and privatized, but by being in the government, they can also stop it from working, thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. How? By cutting taxes, by cutting funding, by passing laws, and, in the Supreme Court, by reinterpreting laws.
In contemporary America, politics and personhood are inseparable—and apparently moving in a conservative direction. To change that direction, progressives need to understand the role of the brain and of communication systems in the process.
Politics and Personhood at the Founding
When the United States was founded, politics and personhood had come together, but in the progressive direction.
Historian Lynn Hunt at UCLA goes through the history in detail in her book Inventing Human Rights: A History . She starts with the defining passage of the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
If these rights are self-evident, she asks, why does Jefferson have to say that they are self-evident? And when did they become self-evident?
Hunt, a former president of the American Historical Society, studied the writing and culture of France, England, and the Thirteen Colonies. She shows that those ideas were not there in the 1600s, and came into existence in the mid-1700s, mainly after 1760, when Western Europe and the States were swept up in a major cultural change. That change can be seen in the period’s novels, like Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Julie , the biggest bestseller of the century, with seventy editions between 1761 and 1800. Julie was written as a collection of intimate letters between two lovers. Readers identified deeply with the emotional lives of the characters, whose psychological
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