George Lakoff, distinguished professor of linguistics and cognitive science at UC-Berkeley and the author of The Political Mind, has generously submitted a piece to us in advance of Barack Obama's speech tonight. I'll step out of the way now and let the submission speak for itself; it's on the long side, but should be read in its entirety.
The Obama Code
By George Lakoff
Berkeley, CA. February 24, 2009.
As President Obama prepares to address a joint session of Congress, what can we expect to hear?
The pundits will stress the nuts-and-bolts policy issues: the banking system, education, energy, health care. But beyond policy, there will be a vision of America—a moral vision and a view of unity that the pundits often miss.
What they miss is the Obama Code. For the sake of unity, the President tends to express his moral vision indirectly. Like other self-aware and highly articulate speakers, he connects with his audience using what cognitive scientists call the “cognitive unconscious.” Speaking naturally, he lets his deepest ideas simply structure what he is saying. If you follow him, the deep ideas are communicated unconsciously and automatically. The Code is his most effective way to bring the country together around fundamental American values.
For supporters of the President, it is crucial to understand the Code in order to talk overtly about the old values our new president is communicating. It is necessary because tens of millions of Americans—both conservatives and progressives—don’t yet perceive the vital sea change that Obama is bringing about.
The word “code” can refer to a system of either communication or morality. President Obama has integrated the two. The Obama Code is both moral and linguistic at once. The President is using his enormous skills as a communicator to express a moral system. As he has said, budgets are moral documents. His economic program is tied to his moral system and is discussed in the Code, as are just about all of his other policies.
Behind the Obama Code are seven crucial intellectual moves that I believe are historically, practically, and cognitively appropriate, as well as politically astute. They are not all obvious, and jointly they may seem mysterious. That is why it is worth sorting them out one-by-one.
1. Values Over Programs
The first move is to distinguish programs from the value systems they represent. Every policy has a material aspect—the nuts and bolts of how it works— plus a typically implicit cognitive aspect that represents the values and ideas behind the nuts and bolts. The President knows the difference. He understands that those who see themselves as “progressive” or “conservative” all too often define those words in terms of programs rather than values. Even the programs championed by progressives may not fit what the President sees as the fundamental values of the country. He is seeking to align the programs of his administration with those values.
The potential pushback will come not just from conservatives who do not share his values, but just as much from progressives who make the mistake of thinking that programs are values and that progressivism is defined by a list of programs. When some of those programs are cut as economically secondary or as unessential, their defenders will inevitably see this as a conservative move rather than a move within an overall moral vision they share with the President.
This separation between values and programs lies behind the president’s pledge to cut programs that don’t serve those values and support those that do — no matter whether they are proposed by Republicans or Democrats. The President’s idealistic question is, what policies serve what values? — not what political interests?
2. Progressive Values are American Values
President Obama’s second intellectual move concerns what the fundamental American values are. In Moral Politics, I described what I found to be the implicit, often unconscious, value systems behind progressive and conservative thought. Progressive thought rests, first, on the value of empathy —- putting oneself in other people’s shoes, seeing the world through their eyes, and therefore caring about them. The second principle is acting on that care, taking responsibility both for oneself and others, social as well as individual responsibility. The third is acting to make oneself, the country, and the world better—what Obama has called an “ethic of excellence” toward creating “a more perfect union” politically.
Historian Lynn Hunt, in Inventing Human Rights, has shown that those values, beginning with empathy, lie historically behind the human rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Obama, in various interviews and speeches, has provided the logical link. Empathy is not mere sympathy. Putting oneself in the shoes of others brings with it the responsibility to act on that empathy—to be “our brother’s keeper and our sister’s keeper”—and to act to improve ourselves, our country, and the world.
The logic is simple: Empathy is why we have the values of freedom, fairness, and equality — for everyone, not just for certain individuals. If we put ourselves in the shoes of others, we will want them to be free and treated fairly. Empathy with all leads to equality: no one should be treated worse than anyone else. Empathy leads us to democracy: to avoid being subject indefinitely to the whims of an oppressive and unfair ruler, we need to be able to choose who governs us and we need a government of laws.
Obama has consistently maintained that what I, in my writings, have called “progressive” values are fundamental American values. From his perspective, he is not a progressive; he is just an American. That is a crucial intellectual move.
Those empathy-based moral values are the opposite of the conservative focus on individual responsibility without social responsibility. They make it intolerable to tolerate a president who is The Decider—who gets to decide without caring about or listening to anybody. Empathy-based values are opposed to the pure self-interest of a laissez-faire “free market,” which assumes that greed is good and that seeking self-interest will magically maximize everyone’s interests. They oppose a purely self-interested view of America in foreign policy. Obama’s foreign policy is empathy-based, concerned with people as well as states—with poverty, education, disease, water, the rights of women and children, ethnic cleansing, and so on around the world.
How are such values expressed? Take a look at the inaugural speech. Empathy: “the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job, the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child…” Responsibility to ourselves and others: “We have duties to ourselves, the nation, and the world.” The ethic of excellence: “there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of character, than giving our all to a difficult task.” They define our democracy: “This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed.”
The same values apply to foreign policy: “To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and make clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.” And to religion as well: By quoting language like “our brother’s keeper,” he is communicating that mere individual responsibility will not get you into Heaven, that social responsibility and making the world better is required.
3. Biconceptualism and the New Bipartisanship
The third crucial idea behind the Obama Code is biconceptualism, the knowledge that a great many people who identify themselves ideologically as conservatives, or politically as Republicans or Independents, share those fundamental American values -- at least on certain issues. Most “conservatives” are not thoroughgoing movement conservatives, but are what I have called “partial progressives” sharing Obama’s American values on many issues. Where such folks agree with him on values, Obama tries, and will continue to try, to work with them on those issues if not others. And, he assumes, correctly believe, that the more they come to think in terms of those American values, the less they will think in terms of opposing conservative values.
Biconceptualism lay behind his invitation to Rick Warren to speak at the inaugural. Warren is a biconceptual, like many younger evangelicals. He shares Obama’s views of the environment, poverty, health, and social responsibility, though he is otherwise a conservative. Biconceptualism is behind his “courting” of Republican members of Congress. The idea is not to accept conservative moral views, but to find those issues where individual Republicans already share what he sees as fundamentally American values. He has “reached across the aisle” to Richard Luger on nuclear proliferation, but not on economics.
Biconceptualism is central to Obama’s attempts to achieve unity —a unity based on his understanding of American values. The current economic failure gives him an opening to speak about the economy in terms of those ideals: caring about all, prosperity for all, responsibility for all by all, and good jobs for all who want to work.
I think Obama is correct about biconceptualism of this sort — at least where the overwhelming proportion of Americans is concerned. When the President spoke at the Lincoln Day dinner recently about sensible Midwestern Republicans, he meant biconceptual Republicans, who are progressive and/or pragmatic on many issues.
But hardcore movement conservatives tend to be more ideological and less biconceptual than their constituents. In the recent stimulus vote, the hardcore movement conservatives kept party discipline (except for three Senate votes) by threatening to run opposition candidates against anyone who broke ranks. They were able to enforce this because the conservative message machine is strong in their districts and there is no nationwide progressive message machine operating in those districts. The effectiveness of the conservative message machine led to Obama making a rare mistake in communication, the mistake of saying out loud in Florida not to think of Rush Limbaugh, thus violating the first rule of framing and giving Rush Limbaugh even greater power.
Biconceptual, partly progressive, Republicans do exist in Congress, and the president is not going to give up on them. But as long as the conservative message machine can activate its values virtually unopposed in conservative districts, movement conservatives can continue to pressure biconceptual Republicans and keep them from voting their conscience on many issues. This is why a nationwide progressive message machine needs to be organized if the president is to achieve unity through biconceptualism.
4. Protection and Empowerment
The fourth idea behind the Obama Code is the President’s understanding of government—“not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.” This depends on what “works” means. The word sounds purely pragmatic, but it is moral in operation.
The idea is that government has twin moral missions: protection and empowerment. Protection includes not just military and police protection, but protections for the environment, consumers, workers, pensioners, disaster victims, and investors.
Empowerment is what his stimulus package is about: it includes education and other forms of infrastructure—roads, bridges, communications, energy supply, the banking system and stock market. The moral mission of government is simple: no one can earn a living in America or live an American life without protection and empowerment by the government. The stimulus package is basically an empowerment package. Taxes are what you pay for living in America, rather than in Congo or Bangladesh. And the more money you make from government protection and empowerment, the more you owe in return. Progressive taxation is a matter of moral accounting. Tax cuts for the middle class mean that the middle class hasn’t been getting as much as it has been contributing to the nation’s productivity for many years.
This view of government meshes with our national ideal of equality. There needs to be moral equality: equal protection and equal empowerment. We all deserve health care protection, retirement protection, worker protection, employment protection, protection of our civil liberties, and investment protection. Protection and empowerment. That’s what “works” means—“whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.”
5. Morality and Economics Fit Together
Crises are times of opportunity. Budgets are moral statements. President Obama has put these ideas together. His economic program is a moral program and conversely. Why the quartet of leading economic issues—education, energy, health, banking? Because they are at the heart of government’s moral mission of protection and empowerment, and correspondingly, they are what is needed to act on empathy, social and personal responsibility, and making the future better. The economic crisis is also an opportunity. It requires him to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the right things to do.
6. Systemic Causation and Systemic Risk
Conservatives tend to think in terms of direct causation. The overwhelming moral value of individual, not social, responsibility requires that causation be local and direct. For each individual to be entirely responsible for the consequences of his or her actions, those actions must be the direct causes of those consequences. If systemic causation is real, then the most fundamental of conservative moral—and economic—values is fallacious.
Global ecology and global economics are prime examples of systemic causation. Global warming is fundamentally a system phenomenon. That is why the very idea threatens conservative thinking. And the global economic collapse is also systemic in nature. That is at the heart of the death of the conservative principle of the laissez-faire free market, where individual short-term self-interest was supposed to be natural, moral, and the best for everybody. The reality of systemic causation has left conservatism without any real ideas to address global warming and the global economic crisis.
With systemic causation goes systemic risk. The old rational actor model taught in economics and political science ignored systemic risk. Risk was seen as local and governed by direct causation, that is, buy short-term individual decisions. The investment banks acted on their own short-term risk, based on short-term assumptions, for example, that housing prices would continue to rise or that bundles of mortgages once secure for the short term would continue to be “secure” and could be traded as “securities.”
The systemic nature of ecological and economic causation and risk have resulted in the twin disasters of global warming and global economic breakdown. Both must be dealt with on a systematic, global, long-term basis. Regulating risk is global and long-term, and so what are required are world-wide institutions that carry out that regulation in systematic way and that monitor causation and risk systemically, not just locally.
President Obama understands this, though much of the country does not. Part of his challenge will be to formulate policies that carry out these ideas and to communicate these ideas as well as possible to the public.
7. Contested Concepts and Patriotic Language
As President, Barack Obama must speak in patriotic language. But all patriot language in this country is “contested.” Every major patriotic term has a core meaning that we all understand the same way. But that common core meaning is very limited in its application. Most uses of patriotic language are extended from the core on the basis of either conservative or progressive values to produce meanings that are often opposite from each other.
I’ve written a whole book, Whose Freedom?, on the word “freedom” as used by conservatives and progressives. In his second inaugural, George W. Bush used “freedom,” “free,” and “liberty” over and over—first, with its common meaning, then shifting to its conservative meaning: defending “freedom” as including domestic spying, torture and rendition, denial of habeus corpus, invading a country that posed no threat to us, a “free market” based on greed and short-term profits for the wealthy, denying sex education and access to women’s health facilities, denying health care to the poor, and leading to the killing and maiming of innocent civilians in Iraq by the hundreds of thousands, all in the name of “freedom.” It was anything but a progressive’s view of freedom—and anything but the view intended in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.
For forty years, from the late 1960’s through 2008, conservatives managed, through their extensive message machine, to reframe much of our political discourse to fit their worldview. President Obama is reclaiming our patriotic language after decades of conservative dominance, to fit what he has correctly seen as the ideals behind the founding of our country.
“Freedom” will no longer mean what George W. Bush meant by it. Guantanamo will be closed, torture outlawed, the market regulated. Obama’s inaugural address was filled with framings of patriotic concepts to fit those ideals. Not just the concept of freedom, but also equality, prosperity, unity, security, interests, challenges, courage, purpose, loyalty, patriotism, virtue, character, and grace. Look at these words in his inaugural address and you will see how Obama has situated their meaning within his view of fundamental American values: empathy, social and well as personal responsibility, improving yourself and your country. We can expect further reclaiming of patriotic language throughout his administration.
All this is what “change” means. In his policy proposals the President is trying to align his administration’s policies with the fundamental values of the Framers of our Constitution. In seeking “bipartisan” support, he is looking beyond political affiliations to those who share those values on particular issues. In his economic policy, he is realigning our economy with the moral missions of government: protection and empowerment for all.
It’s Us, Not Just Him
The president is the best political communicator of our age. He has the bully pulpit. He gets media attention from the press. His website is running a permanent campaign, Organizing for Obama, run by his campaign manager David Plouffe. It seeks issue-by-issue support from his huge mailing list. There are plenty of progressive blogs. MoveOn.org now has over five million members. And yet that is nowhere near enough.
The conservative message machine is huge and still going. There are dozens of conservative think tanks, many with very large communications budgets. The conservative leadership institutes are continuing to turn out thousands of trained conservative spokespeople every year. The conservative apparatus for language creation is still functioning. Conservative talking points are still going out to their network of spokespeople, who still being booked on tv and radio around the country. About 80% of the talking heads on tv are conservatives. Rush Limbaugh and Fox News are as strong as ever. There are now progressive voices on MSNBC, Comedy Central, and Air America, but they are still overwhelmed by Right’s enormous megaphone. Republicans in Congress can count on overwhelming message support in their home districts and homes states. That is one reason why they were able to stonewall on the President’s stimulus package. They had no serious media competition at home pounding out the Obama vision day after day.
Such national, day-by-day media competition is necessary. Democrats need to build it. Democratic think tanks are strong on policy and programs, but weak on values and vision. Without the moral arguments based on the Obama values and vision, the policymakers most likely be unable to regularly address both independent voters and the Limbaugh-FoxNews audiences in conservative Republican strongholds.
The president and his administration cannot build such a communication system, nor can the Democrats in Congress. The DNC does not have the resources. It will be up to supporters of the Obama values, not just supporters on the issues, to put such a system in place. Despite all the organizing strength of Obama supporters, no such organizing effort is now going on. If none is put together, the movement conservatives will face few challenges of fundamental values in their home constituencies and will be able to go on stonewalling with impunity. That will make the president’s vision that much harder to carry out.
Summary
The Obama Code is based on seven deep, insightful, and subtle intellectual moves. What President Obama has been attempting in his speeches is a return to the original frames of the Framers, reconstituting what it means to be an American, to be patriotic, to be a citizen and to share in both the sacrifices and the glories of our country. In seeking “bipartisan” support, he is looking beyond political affiliations to those who share those values on particular issues. In his economic plan, he is attempting to realign our economy with the moral missions of government: protection and empowerment for all.
The president hasn’t fooled the radical ideological conservatives in Congress. They know progressive values when they see them — and they see them in their own colleagues and constituents too often for comfort. The radical conservatives are aware that this economic crisis threatens not only their political support, but the very underpinnings of conservative ideology itself. Nonetheless, their brains have not been changed by facts. Movement conservatives are not fading away. They think their conservative values are the real American values. They still have their message machine and they are going to make the most of it. The ratings for Fox News and Rush Limbaugh are rising. Without a countervailing communications system on the Democratic side, they can create a lot of trouble, not just for the president, not just for the nation, but on a global scale, for the environmental and economic future of the world.
George Lakoff is Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of The Political Mind and Don’t Think of an Elephant!
2.24.2009
George Lakoff on The Obama Code
@ 12:45 PM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
59 comments
Very interesting. What I think is most interesting is the way he doesn't talk about 'I...' all that often. There was a lot of stuff about that in the media this time last year as Hillary used 'I' a lot more and Obama used 'We' a lot more. I think thats a small thing, but its one of the main reasons he is such a good communicator.
Ah, I always love reading Lakoff. Looking forward to this...
Lakoff posted this on Kos, too. It's interesting stuff, but as I replied on there: my daughter is a grad. student at Berkeley, taking one of his classes and is not impressed by his distortions. Just sayin'
Well written and well thought out. As some on the 'far' left rant that Obama isn't "doing enough" I find comfort in the thought that anyone who is currently being challenged by both the left and the right is probably about where I (and, I believe, a lot of America) really want them to be. I remain convinced that the Limbaugh Republicans are well on their way to marginalizing themselves out of contention.
Lakoff is always an interesting read, whether on linguistics, cognitive science, or politics.
I dunno. It's interesting, but it seems to be missing conclusions.
Which part of the "code" is conscious? Which part will he expect his subordinates to do as well? Is the underlying purpose here really as simple as Lackoff claims it is? How about some examples of phrases, how they fit the different parts of the code and how they help get him what he wants?
Or was it just that it was too long? To me, the article actually seemed too short.
Cue the retard with comments on C2H5OH in 3,2,1...
seems to be a hole in one. Particularly the following part:
"The systemic nature of ecological and economic causation and risk have resulted in the twin disasters of global warming and global economic breakdown. Both must be dealt with on a systematic, global, long-term basis. Regulating risk is global and long-term, and so what are required are world-wide institutions that carry out that regulation in systematic way and that monitor causation and risk systemically, not just locally.
President Obama understands this, though much of the country does not. Part of his challenge will be to formulate policies that carry out these ideas and to communicate these ideas as well as possible to the public."
Very interesting.
I agree with most of the specific content, but I fundamentally disagree with the thesis that Obama's messages are "coded".
It's my impression that President Obama has generally stated his motivations, values, and intentions very clearly, and in his first month or so, obviously governed in the way that his campaign suggested he would. This is true whether you like all, some, or none of what he is doing.
I think that it is important to make this point, because there is plenty of "code" in US politics, and the massive majority of it comes from the right.
For example, when George W. Bush ran in 2000, he positioned himself overtly as a "moderate", and would not otherwise have been elected. Once elected, he governed quite differently from what many who voted for him expected.
However, I was hardly surprised, because his campaign contained what I perceived as somewhat coded messages to his supporters on the right.
For example the contents-unrecorded speech at Bob Jones University. To those of us who are aware of what BJU is, and that the speech was made, the implication is clear. But most Americans were unaware of the event at all.
NATE:
Off topic, but I think you should address this. The recent legislation that should be signed into law soon, giving voting House representation to DC and adding one seat to Utah's Delegation for 2010.
Two seats are being added to the house, but DC already has three electoral votes. Does this mean that the Electoral College will be Five Thirty Nine in 2012?
Will tied results be impossible? Will you change your name?
Interesting read, though I wish he had talked about the linguistics of it all.
While it's well and good to be a progressive and not to hide your bias, it does get old to hear the same old far left adages on how the free market is somehow inherently evil.
It just seems to rob the article of some of it's worth and serve no real point on getting the author's point across to fill it with partisan phrases.
I liked the linguistic analysis. I am not particularly convinced by the need for a call to action to create a response to the Republican media machine. What he envisions would be nice, but recent history and demographics belie its necessity. The Dems won big in 2006 and 2008. Any reader of this blog knows that all lines point to continued Republican losses in 2010 and beyond, unless the Republicans do the unlikely and change direction, away from their shrinking base.
The movement conservatives attacking the moderate Republicans make it more likely that those seats will flip to Democrats. If Snowe, Collins or Specter lose in primary challenges to more conservative Republicans, Pennsylvania and Maine are more likely to vote for a Democrat. With a commanding lead in the House and an increase of just 3-4 in the Senate, the Republicans will become both more shrill and more irrelevant. The current group will not wake up and become more pragmatic, they will scream louder, and be quicker to wield their long knives. Instituting a firing squad while circling the wagons creates a circular firing squad.
So long as Obama and Republicans continue their current trajectories, the message gets out, even against the tide of the conservative media
fatuous and empty, like most lakoff. his old debates with pinker on TNR (unfortunately not archived?) were worth reading if only to reveal his stunning lack of depth.
lakoff's heart is in the right place, but he's an indistinct bloviator.
Nate,
With all these voices, you might consider a bit of a formatting shift. Possibly different color fonts for different authors? I don't know.
BTW: thanks for including academics. I'm glad to see some people still care what we think.
A lot of the points made by Lakoff are fair and appear to hold truth. However, the ultra-liberal ranting is a bit overplayed and makes you second-guess his overly bold and absolutist assertions.
No one actually writes UC-Berkeley with a hyphen. It's just UC Berkeley
Apart from his cursory denigration of freemarketism, I don't see anything in Lakoff's post that exhibits any radical leftism. On the other hand, he does express deep conviction in a leftish humanism. I make a distinction between having an extreme position and having an extreme conviction about one's position.
With Clinton, we had a very competent president who did almost nothing to "move the center" of debate. He, basically, found the middle and stayed there. With Obama, we have an opportunity, if he is successful, to move the middle. I hope we succeed.
what a masterpiece from George Lakoff !
this is the reason why sometime I come here !
Thanks 538's staff for this article.
is not only matter of money.
fascism:failure
communism:failure
capitalism:failure
we need a brand new start !
Go Obama!
bye.
;)
Prof. Lakoff:
There is much to like in your essay, but your repeated, unsupported assertions that President Obama's ideology is the same as the view intended in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution - and, therefore, by the Founders - come across as propaganda and don't pass the smell test. You're talking about the same Founders who created a weak confederation and subsequently federation of largely autonomous states, many of which had slavery, a Senate that represented state legislatures, and indirect election by the Electoral College, which was expected to benevolently use its own judgment, regardless of popular will. I could go on and on. So just what are you talking about, and could you please either actually make specific arguments for your assertion or drop it, as an unnecessary appeal to a mythic past that really wasn't nearly as good as people with false patriotism pretend it was?
I would make two comments, one about the article in general and one about his exhortations in particular.
1) I think Lakoff is entirely right that we are heading into new territory with a new language that many people, particularly in media, do not get. I think the general panning of Obama's inaugural address by the talking heads ('not inspiring enough' etc. etc.) is a case in point. I was quite a good speech that made a sharp distinction between the past and what needed to happen now. Most in the audiance seemed to get it, but most in the media seemed at a loss. I think the seven points are very descriptive and potentially useful. I would agree with some comments here, however, that Lakoff has done too little to flesh out what consequences follow from this analysis -particularly in the 'systemic causation and risk' section.
Finally, I would make one point regarding the summary. Clearly, in the end, Lakoff's politics get in the way of his analysis. All the heavy breathing about the conservative 'message machine' leaves out the fact, despite this advantage, it has lost every significant argument (by which I include elections) since 2006. At this point it is good only at delaying. There is significant risk for the GOP in this policy as more Obama policies are put in place and are seen as working, or at least heading in the right direction -remember the bar has been set pretty low- then their obstructionism will be seen as having no rational or practical purpose. The result will be bigger loses in 2010, even if the economy is not 'cured', and likely continued loses even into the 2012 elections. This is in fact not hard to foresee though it will 'defy' media assumptions of how our election cycles work. What will likely been seen after 2012 is either the complete remaking of the Republican Party, or its wholesale disintegration. Right now, the latter is far more likely.
Harold
I agree with most of the specific content, but I fundamentally disagree with the thesis that Obama's messages are "coded".
I think you understand something different by "code" than what Lakoff intends. He is deeply committed to a view of language which holds that all communicative expression is inherently "coded". It's not a slight on the the President's honesty.
Jbarnett,
I never read the exchanges between Pinker and Lakoff in TNR. What were they about?
But "fatuous and empty" seems to me a bit harsh considering what I have read from Lakoff. He does have a tendency to oversimplify but his fundamental insights have always been strong. His litttle tete-a-tete with Chomsky back in the 60's foreshadowed the intractable problems Chomsky's more expansive claims would encounter and which would eventually cause him to retreat to the far more parsimonious P & P version of UG.
Pinker, while he has done some interesting work on language, has always seemed to me to be the consummate hack. Of course I'm highly biased against evolutionary psychology which I find to be, Tooby and Cosmides excepted, a domain of utter hackdom prematurely parading about triumphantly under the baner of Wilson's Consilience.
Hard to take anything from the the 'Obama Code'. I mean:
"Seven crucial intellectual moves that I believe are historically, practically, and cognitively appropriate, as well as politically astute. They are not all obvious, and jointly they may seem mysterious. That is why it is worth sorting them out one-by-one."
FFS! What nonsense! Obama is not framing anything...he is removing the framing:
"There are three things that Democratic political candidates tend to do when talking with constituents: they display an impressive grasp of the minutiae of their constituents’ problems, particularly money problems; they rouse indignation by explaining how those problems are caused by powerful groups getting rich on the backs of ordinary people; and they present well-worked-out policy proposals that, if passed, would solve the problems and put the powerful groups in their place. Obama seldom does any of these things. He tends to underplay his knowledge, acting less informed than he is. He rarely accuses, preferring to talk about problems in the passive voice, as things that are amiss with us rather than as wrongs that have been perpetrated by them. And the solutions he offers generally sound small and local rather than deep-reaching and systemic."
Lakoff is correct in noting that Obama is an amazing communicator but I'm afraid he is missing the qualities that make him so.
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/2006_09_30_thenewrepublic.html
In response to this ending quotation: "Without a countervailing communications system on the Democratic side, they can create a lot of trouble, not just for the president, not just for the nation, but on a global scale, for the environmental and economic future of the world;" how can average, and also not exorbitantly-wealthy Americans support Obama by combating the Republican message machine?
What a great article! Thank you!
Eric,
I'd read any of the following, which sum the debate. Pinker may be a bit tendentious, but Lakoff is the epitome of overreaching, whose condescencion dismisses moderates as "biconceptuals" (political mishmashes of conservative and liberal framing, rather than ideologically coherent selves). Moreover, as people like Tom Frank and Kevin Drum have noted, Lakoff dismisses class, race, and socio-economic status in his attempt to make cognitive frames the be-all and end-all of political explication. Plus, he's either woefully ignorant of, or horrifyingly comfortably with, a gross simplification of political philosophy and thought, trumpeting himself as the author of a "21st century politics" that resembles nothing so much as mid-20th century structuralism.
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/open_university/archive/2006/11/04/60751.aspx
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_06/009101.php
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080703/REVIEW/206981881/1008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/books/review/Saletan-t.html?_r=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin
http://blogs.abc.net.au/allinthemind/2008/08/all-in-the-mind.html
I have difficulty envisioning a "countervailing communications system" that wouldn't be too much like a negative mirror image of the current movement conservative apparatus. There are too many examples of left/liberal/progressive media productions that are too strident, angry, preachy, weepy, etc. to bear repeated watching or listening, regardless of the appropriateness of the message.
I tend to agree with what peglyn61 seems to be implying; I'm troubled by how easily Lakoff dismissed conservatism as being fundamentally self-serving and anti-community. I don't think it serves the progressive purpose to not take conservatives seriously, as intellectual peers.
It's also troubling (and a little dishonest) that he puts this article forward as an analysis, while it is so clearly an ideological piece.
Jbarnett,
Much thanks for the links.
And if I may, I'd like to recant my charge that Pinker is a hack. That's unfair. His academic writings are solid even if I strongly disagree with them. But his popular works, especially The Blank Slate, are exceedingly tendentious polemics which grossly misrepresent the position of those he attacks.
I do agree with you that Lakoff's political writings are terribly simplistic and his reach often greatly exceeds his grasp. I'm just more sympathetic to his general perspective on how language works than I am to Pinker's.
Really insightful post and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Only thing I really have to comment on is the length. I love this site because I usually only have ten minutes on the computer before I have to go, so the short articles on this site I love. Maybe a shorter article, basically just a little blerp of something, is usually best for this site. Just my opinion.
"I agree with most of the specific content, but I fundamentally disagree with the thesis that Obama's messages are "coded"."
Coded, but not cryptic.
Lakoff over-reaches, but that's expected—he has a pretty sweet hammer, so everything does look like nails.
Regarding the individualism of conservatism, it should be noted that American conservatism very much does privilege the individual, but that's true of the vast majority of American political history. Burke's arguments against change, which were roughly contemporary with the American and French revolutions (French, especially), often invoked how rapid change would damage communities. In America, political thought owes more to Locke, and thus emphasizes the individual. People who disagree with noting American conservatism as individualistic either don't know what they're talking about or are uncomfortable with the ramifications.
As for being in line with the Founding Fathers, Lakoff's doing a bit of persuasion there, rather than straight argument. Obama is undoubtedly in line with some of the Founding Fathers, Madison especially (I note that the previous commenter to address this seemed to miss the Federalist papers in his memory), but the Founding Fathers were a roiling mass of contradictions, so hearkening to them is always rhetorical rather than strictly factual.
(It's worth also noting that American Liberalism is individualistic, but American Progressivism is more like Progressivism around the world, and emphasizes populism.)
We discussed our problems this morning at the coffeeshop and it ended last line as did Professor Lakoff:
"Without a countervailing communications system on the Democratic side, they can create a lot of trouble, not just for the president, not just for the nation, but on a global scale, for the environmental and economic future of the world."
The next question is: how do we establish a countervailing communications system? Who is willing to purchase dozens of stations in the areas not served by intelligent commentary?
Excellent points Josh.
It's worth also noting that American Liberalism is individualistic, but American Progressivism is more like Progressivism around the world, and emphasizes populism.
Which points to the reason why, despite my being more or less a lefty, I find Burke and Eliot philosophically much more interesting than liberal icons Locke and Mill.
Truman
I don't think purchasing stations is going to do it, particularly when the stations need to be supported by advertisers who are in short supply these days. There's lots of intelligent commentary on public radio and television, and as the internet makes deeper inroads into everyday life, broadcast media's grip may be loosening while access to diverse sources is expanding.
Whatever the case, I don't see the solution to fanatics on the right (the usual sickos) being more fanatics on the left. Limbaugh et al don't represent some sort of reasonable conservative voice that is unopposed in the media. They represent a pathology that resonates with similarly afflicted listeners/viewers--an American Taliban so lacking in empathy that their focus is drastically narrowed to the interests of people just like them, and everyone else be damned.
As damaged hyper-individualists, what's needed to restore these sad/angry people (mostly men, with some macho exceptions like Sarah Palin) to the community? What will stop them from trying to bring down society in the name of the individual? Someone (who?) said that fear of absorption into the collective and into the Female is a driving psychological force for many men, causing them to flee towards manly individualism.
High on the list of movement conservative swear words are "feminist" and "socialist". While few would argue that either of these words is free from extremist associations, the absolute horror and loathing they conjure up in the conservative psyche suggests an imbalance not easily addressed by simply articulating a different point of view.
Indeed, the frenzied media voices of the right do not represent what can truly be called a point of view so much as an emotional armor plating against empathy. Their own psychological needs preclude their seeing validity in opposing positions.
My hope is that only a relatively small number of dittohead-types are as far from reconciliation with the rest of America and the world as Rush is. The apparent power of the raging right media in the south would seem to offer clues as to the psychological factors behind its appeal.
In the south, the stereotypical white sense of the otherness of black people might be seen as a template for the movement conservatives' projection of otherness onto vast portions of the population in general: hispanics, liberals, women, "hippies", intellectuals, environmentalists, Europeans, GLBT's, etc., until you get to the "oppressed white male minority" valiantly struggling against the mongrel hordes.
Sorry for the rant. Incidentally, the word verification I'm to type in is "momma". I'm guessing that if more movement conservatives had experienced more love from their mothers, there wouldn't be as many conservatives out there trying to make it all alone. They always complain about the "nanny state" as well...
Ah, Lakoff is renowned for his work in cognitive science. If you like this, you should try some of his other works co-written with one of our professors at the University of Oregon; Mark Johnson. Try 'Philosophy in the Flesh', or 'Metaphors we Live By'. Interesting stuff.
Davy
Assuming you were replying to my post, thanks.
I wasn't too crazy about this Lakoff article, but I watched a CSPAN talk he gave, discussing the ramifications of Dan Quayle's lament that the "best people" are always taxed the most. Impressive synthesis.
Politics and economics always seem to me to be psychological epiphenomena. If one tries to analyze either without discussing deeper psychological aspects, what's left is just a game played by inscrutable experts.
As it happens, I'm in Eugene already, so finding Mark Johnson's work should be easy.
Metaphors be with you.
There is much of value in this blog and the comments. I also have been thinking about the need for a moderate alternative to the conservative message machine.
I think we need to think of ways to penetrate these deeply red districts and states where only one political voice is now heard. We need to penetrate these districts, not to convert them so much as, to make people there aware of at least some shared values with all Americans. We need to let them see that not every issue has only one right way.
This will be missionary work of a difficult nature, but one that would have long term benefits to the nation and do much to derail the conservative message machine.
As usual a brilliant piece by Dr Lakoff. It does need to be put into the Basic Reading for Literacy column.
While I have not been so certain that Obama has always held to that thinking, often excluding people on the left (Paul Krugman comes prominently to mind), I am fully in favor of exactly what Dr Lakoff has outlined.
In the Contested Concepts division I have been very active in stealing back "Socialism" insisting on the Socialized Child definition and debunking the Soviet definition as they also claimed to be democratic. In this fashion I have grabbed many "conservatives" who can easily agree that Bernie Madoff is a poster child for the need of a socializing cop on the beat.
The Feralist Society of Unsocialized Gang Of Pirates as the bogeyman, will also create a reaction on the right, but eventually if the terms are used often enough and wide enough even they will hear "Gang Of Pirates" every time the letters GOP come up.
I agree that we need a much bigger face out there contesting the situation, and a public face matching Limbaugh's Feminazi's with Gang Of Pirates, and Feralist Society will allow the center to move considerably to the left.
@Taft
I actually just read your comment but I might as well have been responding to your thoughtful commentary. And I shouldn't be surprised to find somebody else from Eugene on this blog regarding this topic.
It's peculiar how language and words and metaphor can imbue imagery or moral 'code'. One of the things that got under my skin during the Bush administration was the hijacking of language in order to create an illusion or hide the fact that Bush, et al were pulling the wool over America's eyes. It's like they hired a bunch of advertising guys to sit around and think up ideas on "how can we sell this to these public stooges?" And we get trite stuff like 'homeland security', "Operation: Enduring Freedom", etc.
I'm glad the last eight years are over and we finally have someone who can at least pronounce 'nuclear' correctly.
I agree with Lakoff's politics, but I took some classes with him in college and I can't say I've got much respect for his academic work.
The main reason I don't appreciate his work, is because he doesn't have any factual or even logical basis for his conclusions, he just strings together a set of assertions that would seem intuitively appealing, as long as you have the same intuitions as he does.
Lakoff's technique amounts to just telling himself what he wants to hear; a proverbial pat on the back. A quality theory in linguistics or philosophy needs to have a strong empirical basis, or must be determined by axiomatic deduction, and most importantly must be falsifiable by some epistemic criterion.
mmm, I love Lakoff. I study linguistics at UPenn and love reading this man's stuff, brilliant. The way Lakoff can synthesize how someone frames an issue through metaphorical language into completely digestible nuggets is great. Yay.
This article is an excellent idea of what I'm talking about. Lakoff has a neat theory, but there is absolutely no reason to believe that the 7 points that Lakoff makes are any more accurate than any other values that one might perceive to be implied by Obama's speech.
In short, Lakoff just makes stuff up.
This contrasts strongly with the work that Nate does, where every conclusion is supported by statistical evidence; where alternative hypotheses are acknowledged and compared to the available data.
More Nate less Lakoff.
Words are powerful shapers of ideas and results.
Which is why Rush Limbaugh's expressed hopes that Obama fails is so deploarble.
www.AmericansAreNotQuitters.com
Great article - very useful perspectives on what Obama is doing and how he's doing it. (Interesting reading the comments, also -- striking how many of the folks who had problems with it actually seem to have misunderstood.)
It's particularly interesting that no one has picked up on the systemic vs. direct causation issue. I think Lakoff is absolutely onto something - I'm replaying arguments with my conservative brother-in-law, and seeing his refusal to acknowledge systemic causation.
AND Lakoff is right that most Americans don't understand that either. We want simple solutions. We don't bat an eye when the media asks the wrong question over and over, looking for simple solutions.
Several comments said, "OK, we gotta respond to conservatives, but I don't want us to be just left-wing versions of their stupidity." Exactly right. I think a big part of what we have to do is communicate about the systemic nature of our current problems, and the systemic nature of the solutions we need to find to solve them.
I am a huge fan of Professor Lakoff, and of Berkeley - even though I am a UW Husky alumni. Remember the FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT OF BEKELEY? These blogs, of course, are technical implementations of FREE SPEECH values. Linguistic analysis is fascinating to me, and leans into the way we think -- our worldview.
Just a brief comment on the insight offered by MarkyMark. The use of the word "I" stems from individualism. The use of the word "We" stems from social responsibility, as in "We are all in this together." A clear reference to democracy is "We the People."
Thank you so much for this article.
Now I know why I am so happy after hearing President Obama speak, and why I am delighted to work very hard to promote his vision, which is my vision and the vision of America that is appreciated around the world.
This is a really awesome piece... thanks!
To the complainers: "code" in this context isn't the same as "he isn't being honest".
... and, I'm a techie/numbers person myself, and it's very important that techie/numbers people understand the limitations of science and mathematical analysis. Not every sort of valuable/valid thinking lends itself to that sort of proof, or to proof at all. Science is a tool and scientific thought is a subset of philosophy. And no, I'm not saying "believe things without proof" (so don't even start)... I'm saying that thinking can be useful and insightful without necessarily being proven or provable. Some thinking is more about framing a point of view in our ambiguous world than about being solidly "right" or "wrong."
@nikip5555
The problem with the stuff that Lakoff says is that there is NO standard.
I could take Lakoff's #1 and turn it around.
"Obama's code is programs over values."
He pushed bipartisanship to get his stimulus program passed, and even included some regressive and economically ill-advised tax cuts to make his program happen, despite the fact that regressive and ineffective tax cuts don't cohere with his value system.
The only standard that we have to determine if Lakoff's #1 or its contradiction is true is our own political inclinations. I'm willing to bet that whether people take the rosy view or the contradiction, splits on how these people feel about Obama.
If Nate were making the same claim, I guarantee that he would try to provide *some* evidence(or at least some caveats). I could see Nate coming up with a hypothetical argument like this: "Obama talks about values 70% of the time in his speeches and policy 30% of the time in his speeches, so it seems clear that Obama puts values before programs."
It is this sort of evidentiary basis that generally makes this blog good, and leaves Lakoffs work lacking.
p.s. I love Berkeley too, but there are a lot of people there that do much better science that Lakoff.
Interesting reframe on American values. The framers of our construction valued individual responsibility and liberty. By and large, due to their religious values, they personally chose to value social responsibility. They abhorred coercion from government. Logically, they considered government interference in the private matters and choices of free citizens to be immoral. They went to great lengths to prevent government from gaining the power to define and dictate such matters as social responsibility.
They observed that one of the fundamental differences between the slave and the free individual is the free individuals right to private property, most particularly the right to the fruits of one's own labor. It is folly to imagine the framers of our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution sharing the same values as either the Bush or the Obama administration.
Both administrations, both parties, are quite comfortable with the coercion of private citizens in many forms. Probably the most abhorrent to the framers being the partial enslavement of the citizenry through the confiscation of personal property, or the fruits of ones labor, through a multitude of overt and covert devices. It is objectively clear that Obama is exponentially more comfortable with this form of coercion, yet the framers, based on their own writings, would consider both an abomination.
One might well argue that Bush and Obama value empathy. Bush would likely argue he demonstrated great empathy toward the the enslaved Iraqi citizens, the victims of terrorism, and the AIDS victims in Africa, through massive expenditures of American wealth and human sacrifice to alleviate their sufferings. The stimulus package is clearly an example of how Mrs. Pelosi, and perhaps Obama would act on their shared emapthy through even more massive expenditures of the fruits of other peoples labor.
It is a fact that both presidents expressed their empathy against the will of nearly half of their citizens. Both presidents express their empathy toward a few by the coercion of the many. These are not American values as expressed by the framers. QUite the opposite really. it is hard for me to imagine how a man of your intellect could so misunderstand the values of the framers.
You submit "The logic is simple: Empathy is why we have the values of freedom, fairness, and equality — for everyone, not just for certain individuals. If we put ourselves in the shoes of others, we will want them to be free and treated fairly. Empathy with all leads to equality: no one should be treated worse than anyone else."
I suggest It is illogical to submit that a person can truly value empathy while at once steeling from neighbor A to donate to neighbor B. As that act does not respect neighbor A's freedom, does not represent equal treatment for all, is not fair, and does not recognize neighbor A's right to decide what is or is not an appropriate way to be socially responsible. You may counter that neighbor A is selfish and greedy. Why, because neighbor A does not share the same hierarchy of values with you that make up the framework for deciding what our social duties are? Is neighbor A really greedy or are you envious? Greed and envy, two sides of the same coin.
Socially conscious individuals who value empathy and have good will toward all other citizens may honestly disagree in how to act on their values. For instance, three such individuals may encounter a drug addict suffering from withdrawal symptoms. Person 1, having great empathy, may give the addict drugs to relive their pain. Person 2, having great empathy, may object deeply to giving the addict more drugs and instead supports the addict through withdrawal in hope of recovery and healing Person 3, having great empathy, may strongly object to giving the addict more drugs, may strongly object to supporting the addict personally considering from past experience that the support given was actually enable rather than supportive. Person 3 decides the most loving empathetic act is to let the addict "hit bottom" and make it on his or her own. Which expression of empathy involves the most pain and sacrifice from the giver? Which is the right way? Each may argue passionately in favor of the program flowing from their deeply held value of empathy.
I reject the premise that some leader be it Bush or Obama can act appropriately on behalf of my deeply held values of empathy, and freedom for self and others, to name the top two of fifty. That is for me to do. That is my social responsibility. Only I can choose and a culture that values empathy, freedom and equality, would never take that choice from her citizens.
You are right about one thing. The logic is simple. Unfortunately it escapes you.
Lakoff is full of it. He is like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland 'First the punishment then the Trail.'
Obama's values are most reflect by what he doesn't or didn't say. The Israelis blow the crap out of Gazan children and Obama says nothing. The morality of cowardice is not an American value. Obama code my A$$ ... same old pro-military war-mongering entitled lawyer, just a different color.
輕 輕 吹 奏 著 那 消 失 記 憶 緬 懷 過 去 那 段 已 逝 的 愛 情
免費視訊聊天 辣妹視訊 視訊交友網 美女視訊 視訊交友 視訊交友90739 成人聊天室 視訊聊天室 視訊聊天 視訊聊天室 情色視訊 情人視訊網 視訊美女
一葉情貼圖片區 免費視訊聊天室 免費視訊 ut聊天室 聊天室 豆豆聊天室 尋夢園聊天室 聊天室尋夢園 影音視訊聊天室
辣妹視訊 美女視訊 視訊交友網 視訊聊天室 視訊交友 視訊美女 免費視訊 免費視訊聊天 視訊交友90739 免費視訊聊天室 成人聊天室 視訊聊天 視訊交友aooyy
哈啦聊天室 辣妺視訊 A片 色情A片 視訊 080視訊聊天室 視訊美女34c 視訊情人高雄網 視訊交友高雄網 0204貼圖區 sex520免費影片 情色貼圖 視訊ukiss 視訊ggoo 視訊美女ggoo
080苗栗人聊天室 080中部人聊天室ut ut影音視訊聊天室13077 視訊做愛 kk777視訊俱樂部 上班族聊天室 聊天室找一夜 情色交友 情色貼片 小瓢蟲情色論壇 aio交友愛情館
哈拉聊天室 洪爺影城
情趣用品 情趣用品 情趣用品 情趣 情趣用品 情趣
キャッシング
網頁設計
クレジットカード 現金化
ダンボール
留学
水 通販
ウィークリーマンション
障害者
有料老人ホーム
看板 製作
レーザー脱毛
フランチャイズ
酒店經紀人,
菲梵酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
禮服酒店上班,
酒店小姐兼職,
便服酒店經紀,
酒店打工經紀,
制服酒店工作,
專業酒店經紀,
合法酒店經紀,
酒店暑假打工,
酒店寒假打工,
酒店經紀人,
菲梵酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
禮服酒店上班,
酒店經紀人,
菲梵酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
禮服酒店上班,
酒店小姐兼職,
便服酒店工作,
酒店打工經紀,
制服酒店經紀,
專業酒店經紀,
合法酒店經紀,
酒店暑假打工,
酒店寒假打工,
酒店經紀人,
菲梵酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
禮服酒店上班,
酒店小姐兼職,
便服酒店工作,
酒店打工經紀,
制服酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
菲
梵,
By comparing the traditional Internet users, Internet users to iResearch found that the traditional white-collar-based, cell phones wholesale, corporate general staff accounted for 18.9%, higher than the 5.6% of the wholesale cell phones users accounting; and discount cell phones users in the years students and blue-collar workers accounted for significantly more than the traditional Internet users, respectively, accounting for 19.5% and 18.9%, higher than the traditional Internet users Students and blue-collar workers accounted for 7.8% and 5.1% respectively.
From cell phones users to see the specific situation of occupational segmentation in 2009, accounting for 19.5% of students dropped 21.2 percent over last year, other types of occupations than those last year, the proportion of Internet users cheap cell phones increase. White collar crowd from last year's 29.2% increase to 38.9% this year, accounting for 9.7 percentage points up to replace the student groups cellphone users as one of the biggest occupational hierarchy; blue-collar crowd from last year's 13.9% to 18.9% this year, accounting for rose by 5.0 percentage points, showing that mobile phones users by a group of students to the occupational groups a significant trend in the development. Ereli advice that, cheap cell phones and mobile phone users Internet users monthly income distribution of age, education, occupational distribution has strong correlation with high spending capacity of white-collar workers and some students in the crowd will be a huge cell phone china online potential consumer groups.
The survey found that consumer 3G wholesale china from the crowd of view, the buyer 25 to 40 years old mainly white-collar workers, accounting for about 40%, followed by consumer groups of students, accounting for about three into. According to statistics, 3G wholesale products in sales, compared with a 2G mobile phone sales are still a wide gap between, but since June has been, 3G mobile phones increase in the average monthly buy products for more than 50%, "11" period due to holiday business, the increase of more than 150%. Pk that the "11" after the peak sales of 3G handsets likely to usher in more stable growth.
Post a Comment