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GOLDLEAF_FRAME
January 6, 2011
George Lakoff,
"The Political Mind" (2008);
"Where Mathematics Comes From" (2000) Another superficial summary,
with Rafael E. Núñez. brought to you by the
FIRST13
After listening to a 2008 talk
by George Lakoff, I at last [ref]
decided to look at some of his
many popular books of the last
few decades. PROBLEMATIC_TALES
I wasn't sure what to make of
him. He claims to have a deep
understanding rooted in cognitive
science of how people think. He
was volunteering his great wisdom,
offering advice on rhetorical He claims he's identified the
strategies for Democratic biological (?) underpinnings of
political campaigns. common metaphors/points-of-view/
conceptual frameworks. He calls
these "frames", a coinage that
annoys me for some reason.
My first suspicion,
though, was that there (I'm an anti-
was a disconnect between neologotarian.)
his cognitive science and
his political advice. But the usage
His campaign strategy is isn't *that*
plausible, but similar You can call it unusual:
things are proposed by "narrative" rather "framing an
many people who don't than "frames"-- issue",
claim a deep grasp of sometimes Lakoff "perceptual
cognitive science. does-- and you've frames", etc.
got it without the
Is the science really CogSci dressing.
necessary to reach
these conclusions Roughly, his approach is
about campaign strategy? to assume that the dominant
(Are there other political metaphor is
conclusions it might always "the nation as
lead to in other hands?) family". The conservatives
get by as Big Daddy, and
Is any of this falsifiable? liberals are Big Mommy.
If the campaign strategy
failed, would Lakoff regard (My terminology,
the science as flawed, and not Lakoffs.)
in need of revision?
Now that I've said that I
have trouble summarizing
Also, Lakoff casually Lakoff's campaign strategy
mentions in passing that based on that assumption.
"there are universal It's not as simple as "wear
frames". This sort of claim nicer dresses", or "have
always (a) gets me very bigger tits".
interested (b) sets off
alarm bells. His actual line is you
need to balance strict and
It seems as though nurturant aspects of your
Everyone out there image... but it's hard to
these days claims see how you're going to
there are large get crisp sound bytes out
areas of human of that formula.
behavior that are NATURE_OF_THE_WALLS
biologically He really likes Obama's
determined. schtick calling for both
"responsibility" and
When I try to track down "empathy".
claims like this, the
evidence isn't often as (But isn't "empathy"
strong as the claim. kind of a mushy word
to push?)
SERPENTINE_FEARS [ref]
I flipped through "The Political Mind",
and I skipped back in time to an earlier Lakoff often makes bold
work "Where Mathematics Comes From". claims that are supported in
some earlier work that isn't
Just beginning to read in front of you. This is
through it carefully, I not precisely a "foul", it's
think I can already see a not exactly against the
disturbing tendency. He rules of the game, but it
begins by insisting that makes one wonder...
something is so, and
evidence will follow, but Lakoff is essentially
when you get to the evidence arguing for tricks to put a
it's a claim that the message over on the rubes.
burden-of-proof is on the Isn't it possible that he's
other side, and that means willing to use some tricks
he wins as long as it's to sell his tricks?
unproven.
BOP
And so, I decided to peek
at the answer key, and
went poking around on
the web for other
people's criticisms, to
try to get a sense of It appears that the Lakoff
Lakoff's reputation. fad peaked in the
mid-naughts, and was well
As might be expected, into the backlash phase by
there are a number of 2008, a good two years back.
professional-class (You can't call *me* trendy.)
intellectuals out there
that aren't as impressed DEAD_METAPHOR
with Lakoff as Lakoff is.
"So why should we give primacy to
the nation-as-family metaphor?
Lakoff doesn't give any direct
evidence for that hypothesis: no
surveys, interviews, case studies
or ethnographic investigations; no
database counts or empirical
investigations of language use; no
historical or contrastive analyses;
no experiments that support the
centrality of the family metaphor
over others." -- Geoffrey Nunberg,
There are complaints that "Frame Game", November 4, 2006
he's sloppy about citations [ref]
and tends to act as though
his "discoveries" are more
original than they are, and
more widely accepted.
Cosma Shalizi, as usual, comes up
with a brilliant cheap-shot, this
one presented in passing while
Shalizi attacked the "cult
following" of Stephen Wolfram:
"This frankly is part of a disturbing
trend, pronounced within the field of
complex systems. In addition to Wolfram,
I might mention the cult of personality
around Ilya Prigogine, and Stuart CONTROL
Kauffman's book Investigations, or even
the way George Lakoff uses 'as cognitive
science shows' to mean 'as I claimed in
my earlier books'."
[ref]
So now that I feel like I've got (Jan 12, 2011)
Lakoff pegged, I can look at his Well... I tried. That constant
work again in a different light: air of overblown certainty,
he's not to be taken seriously in the assertions with proof
his claims of authority, but I might always off stage, the constant
try using him as a potential source parade of neologisms
of ideas to scavenge from. ("metaphorical framing",
"conceptual blending")...
I just can't take it.
Consider his political advice:
The core notion would The proposition that everything
not seem to be all that is a metaphor is easy to prove
controversial: if you use the word metaphor to
mean everything.
There are multiple ways of
phrasing the truth, and if only
as a practical matter, it's
important to find more engaging
(or at least, less offensive) Framing: Putting
ways of stating the truth. a positive spin
on "spin".
Contrary arguments might be:
"The truth will out, stylistic
flourishes are irrelevant."
"Sugar-coating the truth should
not be needed for adults."
"You can inadvertantly turn people
off with obvious 'marketing'." Certainly I'm often turned
off by such things.
"Diplomacy is what you
Geoffrey Nunberg argues that use on your enemies."
realities are more important
than marketing labels. BURDEN_OF_SKIN
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