Once again The Talking Dog has an intriguing original blog Q & A interview — one so fascinating and thought-provoking that we actually do it a disservice by quoting a small part of it.
But here is the intro:
George Lakoff is Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, a senior fellow at the progressive think-tank Rockridge Institute, and is the author of “Whose Freedom: The Battle Over America’s Most Important Idea” and a number of other books including a multitude of articles in major scholarly journals and edited volumes, as well as books such as Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, and Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values, Frame the Debate. Dr. Lakoff’s current work discusses the concept of “framing”, both deep frames representing an underlying value structure; for conservatives, the deep frames revolve around strict father morality, and for progressives, the deep frames revolve around a nurturant family morality, and “surface frames”, which, in Dr. Lakoff’s analysis, are the ideas associated with individual words and expressions and which make political sense only given the deep frames. The concept of freedom is one such case. On July 25, 2006, I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Lakoff by telephone.
There’s too much “meaty” material to quote here, but here is just a SMALL TASTE:
The Talking Dog: Why, if you can tell me, has the 9-11 imagery been seized upon so potently as a right wing talking point, particularly, why it seems to mesh so well with what you conclude is the framing of the underlying moral world-view basis of right wing (the “deep frame” of “strict father morality”) as opposed the underlying moral world-view basis of progressive thought (the “deep frame” of “nurturant family morality and empathy”)? I should note that an attorney I interviewed who, like myself, was in downtown New York that day (he actually suffered burns to his eyes from the ash, and was covered in ash after the tower collapsed) suggested that people who DID NOT experience it personally actually have a harder time dealing with it than people who did. Do you have a view on that as a cognitive science matter?
George Lakoff: I actually have a paper out on the subject of the 9-11 imagery. There is a difference between imagery of someone who watches from afar, and the reality of someone who was actually there. The way the picture was shown, the buildings were hit, like a person being hit. The image would permit one to identify with the building– as if it were you. This has to do with mirror neurons: in our brains, there is a system of neurons that fire when you are either doing something physically or seeing another do the same thing. Seeing the plane hit the tower over and over on tv is as if you were seeing someone in shot, over and over again. The twin towers, of course, were symbols of strength– again, symbols that could represent personal strength of the person watching. Now, as to the effect of the repeated images, part one involves evoking fear, and of course, a need for protection. Part two involves conservatives who have bought into strict father morality to invoke their need for protection. Progressives, interestingly, don’t have that, though their moral system does. The progressive underlying values (empathy and responsibility) imply that protection is actually the most important thing you can provide for your family. And this is followed through in the political realm with protections for consumers, for workers, for the environment and social safety nets, though less so in the area of military and police protection. This is a big mistake: it is a natural fit– after all, nurture and care require strength. And yet, progressives have ceded strength and security to conservatives, who of course, have exploited it.
There’s a ton more. Read the entire interview.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.