Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics

[Bonnie Urciuoli]

To John McCreery and Alkistis Fleischer, Thanks for bringing the Lakoff piece to Linganth attention.  If readers put Lakoff's piece together with Stuart Ewen's account (PR! A Social History of Spin, 1996, Basic Books) of the history of corporate/conservative hegemony-maintenance engineering of PR over most of the past century, you get a really grounded and illuminating historical-cum-discursive-analytic perspective (suitable for passing on to students, one might add) on the enormous degree to which the conscious construction and massive financing of this perspective has long, long been part of US history.  Scary, too-- Happy Halloween, eh? --Bonnie Urciuoli

----- Original Message -----
From: Alkistis Fleischer <fleischa at georgetown.edu>
Date: Thursday, October 30, 2003 5:24 pm
Subject: Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics

> The interview with Lakoff is available at the Berkeley web site:
>
> Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff tells how
> conservatives use language to dominate politics
>
> By Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter | 27 October 2003
>
> http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John McCreery" <mccreery at gol.com>
> To: <anthro-L at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU>; <EASIANTH at LISTSERV.TEMPLE.EDU>;
> <linganth at cc.rochester.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 10:04 PM
> Subject: Why can't progressives talk tough?
>
>
> > The following paragraphs were written as part of a political
> > discussion, but also partly as an exercise in applied
> anthropology. Any
> > and all thoughts are welcome.
> >
> > ===========
> > On the demsjapan blog, a friend has posted a bit about one of my
> > favorite authors, George Lakoff. She quotes Lakoff as saying,
> >
> >    "...the progressive worldview is modeled on a nurturant parent
> > family. Briefly, it assumes that the world is basically good and
> can be
> > made better and that one must work toward that. Children are
> born good;
> > parents can make them better."
> >
> > I feel that Lakoff is basically right about how many progressives
> > think. I also feel, however, that progressives need to think again.
> > Nothing in my reading of history suggests that the world is
> basically> good or that children are born good. If anything, the
> indifference of
> > nature to the destruction that natural disasters cause and the long,
> > bloody record of human affairs supports other conclusions.
> >
> >
> > The good news is that there is no need whatsoever to assume
> goodness to
> > justify progressive stances on issues like building a strong social
> > safety net, protecting civil liberties, or regulating markets
> and using
> > progressive taxation to preserve and grow a strong middle class.
> >
> > The authors of the Federalist Papers got it right. They didn't
> assume> that greed, envy and the lust for power would disappear
> from human
> > nature. In a manner consistent with Christian theology, they assumed
> > original sin and created a system of checks and balances. In a
> totally> tough-minded way, they assumed that evil will always lurk
> in human
> > hearts and asked themselves how best to keep it from getting out of
> > hand.
> >
> > In the process, I believe, they laid the foundations for a powerful
> > case against both market and religious fundamentalism, a case
> that is
> > infinitely more realistic than any based on the illusion that
> the world
> > and our children are inherently good.
> >
> > It is also a case with strong roots in the Christian tradition. When
> > scripture says, "For God so loved the world...." the miracle is
> that He
> > loves his children in spite of their sins, not because their
> born a
> > bunch of goody two-shoes in a world that is still Eden. A
> progressive> can point with conviction to "Love thy neighbor as
> thyself" and be
> > talking about tough love, when tough love is needed.
> >
> > ===================
> >
> >
> > John L. McCreery
> > International Vice Chair, Democrats Abroad
> >
> > Tel 81-45-314-9324
> > Email mccreery at gol.com
> >
> >  >>Life isn't fair. Democracy should be. <<
> >
> >
>
>