We been framed
Steven Pinker gets off some good zingers at George Lakoff.
If Lakoff is right, his theory can do everything from overturning millennia of misguided thinking in the Western intellectual tradition to putting a Democrat in the White House…Conceptual metaphor, according to Lakoff, shows that all thought is based on unconscious physical metaphors, with beliefs determined by the metaphors in which ideas are framed. Cognitive science has also shown that thinking depends on emotion, and that a person’s rationality is bounded by limitations of attention and memory. Together these discoveries undermine, in Lakoff’s view, the Western ideal of conscious, universal, and dispassionate reason based on logic, facts, and a fit to reality. Philosophy, then, is not an extended debate about knowledge and ethics, it is a succession of metaphors…Citizens are not rational and pay no attention to facts, except as they fit into frames that are “fixed in the neural structures of their brains” by sheer repetition.
Hmph. I don’t believe it. (Nor does Pinker.) Thinking can depend on emotion without completely ruling out reason based on logic, facts, and a fit to reality – can, and has to, and does.
Finally, even if the intelligence of a single person can be buffeted by framing and other bounds on rationality, this does not mean that we cannot hope for something better from the fruits of many people thinking together–that is, from the collective intelligence in institutions such as history, journalism, and science, which have been explicitly designed to overcome those limitations through open debate and the testing of hypotheses with data. All this belies Lakoff’s cognitive relativism, in which mathematics, science, and philosophy are beauty contests between rival frames rather than attempts to characterize the nature of reality.
That captures what I’ve always disliked about Lakoff’s ‘framing’ stuff – its anti-thought, anti-cognitive, anti-intellectual, pavlovian advertising approach. Never mind substance, never mind rational thought about substance, never mind actually thinking about what political candidates say, just offer slogans to counter Their slogans, reflexes to trump Their reflexes, and let it go at that. Meet baby stuff with baby stuff. No thanks, I’d rather do better than that.
Lakoff tells progressives not to engage conservatives on their own terms, not to present facts or appeal to the truth, and not to pay attention to polls. Instead they should try to pound new frames and metaphors into voters’ brains. Don’t worry that this is just spin or propaganda, he writes: it is part of the “higher rationality” that cognitive science is substituting for the old-fashioned kind based on universal disembodied reason.
Ick.
Lakoff’s faith in the power of euphemism to make these positions palatable to American voters is not justified by current cognitive science or brain science. I would not advise any politician to abandon traditional reason and logic for Lakoff’s “higher rationality.”
Yeah. Lakoff’s euphemisms are a tad on the obvious, self-undermining side, also (as Pinker notes) the self-congratulatory side (they almost boil down to ‘just call us The Nice People and all will be well’). His popularity with the Democratic party is 1) suprising and 2) a bad sign.
Pinker is an airport psychologist: i.e. his “psychology” books are read by no one except harassed businessmen (or academics) zooming from conference to conference (or meeting to meeting) who need something light to read on the plane. He has no serious reputation. He has carried out no original research. His ‘best’ book was rehashed Chomsky, and his others are just popularisations of standard Cognitive Science cliches. He is, however, a fluid rhetorician, not afraid of misrepresenting his original sources (in reviews, as in this case), who writes well for mid market, middlebrow journals and magazines. He is also possessed of a not inconsiderable ego, and defends ‘his’ opinions with aggression and venom.
To repeat: look at the average psychology undergraduate course and look for Pinker’s books on the set reading list. You will not find them because he HAS no serious academic repuation. Lakoff’s books, on the other hand, turn up on psychology (and philosophy) reading lists all the time. That’s the difference.
Which books though? Lakoff’s books on framing surely don’t turn up on psychology (and philosophy) reading lists all the time, do they? Pinker admires the academic books, and says so; it’s the recent, poppy books he’s reviewing.
And Pinker doesn’t claim his recent books are anything other than popularization-synthesis, I don’t think – I’ve heard him correct reporters by pointing out that he’s synthesizing the research of others. But popularization is not automatically a bad thing, you know – it’s a form of education. The idea that it is a bad thing discourages academics from doing it, and that’s a bad thing. The more good academic popularization there is, the better.
‘anti-thought, anti-cognitive, anti-intellectual’
But isn’t that the right approach for a large proportion of American voters?
I think Lakoff is on to something. I’ve just read the first two chapters from his book “Thinking Points”, which are available from his website. I think the British Conservative Party leader David Cameron has read Lakoff, or someone advising Cameron has. He’s been doing just what Lakoff says progressives should do by focusing on values rather than policy, and values of the “nurturing family” type: warm words about the NHS, hug-a-hoodie, supporting same-sex marriage, environmentalism, and the Webcameron video of him as a modern dad, talking from the kitchen and dealing with the kids. Is this a case of the conservatives once again trouncing the left when it comes to understanding the importance of the “vision thing”?
Andy White – only if you’re gullible enough to swallow the “politics-light” drivel…
…which would be most of the electorate.
Oh, bollocks.
:-)
“But isn’t that the right approach for a large proportion of American voters?”
Yes. [tears hair, thrashes about]
But that’s partly because it keeps being reinforced. It would be nice if that could stop and things could go the other way. Of course that’s not going to happen – but it would be nice.
It won’t stop. Why should it? Who would benefit from an educated populace that can transcend fuzzy feel good pablum? Certainly not the elites that comofrtably run things now-there’s plenty of career in the system as it exists. To be even more bleak, thought and cognition require work. Why would the average person, busy with daily life, want to do this? It’s easier to vote for the Family Values.
Brian, I think you’re committing the same mistake that Lakoff accuses other non-conservatives of making by assuming that conservatives are lazy thinkers who don’t have a well worked out world view. We all have a set of values that we apply to facts when making political choices. David Hume said that there was no reason to prefer the scratching of his finger to the destruction of the world. Values come first and we apply thought later. To quote Hume again: “reason should be the slave of the passions”, and I’m sure you’ll agree that Hume was no intellectual slouch. There’s nothing wrong with “feel-good” politics. It’s what you feel good about that matters. Politicians need to talk more about their values and less about dry policy. As you say, people are busy, so they have to vote an outline of the politician’s moral vision. Nothing would get done if everyone was a policy wonk.
That’s not exactly what Hume said. He said “‘Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.” That may look like a quibble but isn’t: the two are actually quite different. Also, the accurate quotation is “Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions.”
But that’s not quite the same thing as saying there’s nothing wrong with “feel-good” politics and that it’s what you feel good about that matters.
“people are busy, so they have to vote an outline of the politician’s moral vision”
Oh, that takes too long too – they should just vote on the politician’s appearance. Pretty, yes, ugly, no. Much quicker.
“they should just vote on the politician’s appearance. Pretty, yes, ugly, no. Much quicker.”
According to Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Blink” this happens anyway, even amongst political sophisticates. Their reaction to appearance skews ther reaction to the politician’s words. Height is a politcal asset for a politician because it suggests strength. The infamous Kennedy/Nixon TV debate was won by the more comely Kennedy according to viewers, but radio listeners favoured Nixon. Gladwell attributes the selection of Warren Harding as Republican presidential candidate and his eventual election as all down to his looking the part, despite being one of the worst presidents in US history.
The conclusion? All politicians should be forced to wear niqabs ;-)
Of course appearance makes a difference, it makes a huge difference. It doesn’t follow that the right response is to say ‘let’s focus on appearance to the exclusion of everything else.’ We’re all silly and irrational and prone to making mistakes; therefore we should be aware of this tendency, try to check ourselves, try to be careful, etc. We’re all silly and irrational but we’re also all capable of learning.
Andy: My main argument is that the forces that run the current American oligarchy, while understanding very well what they want, have little interest in really discussing many of their goals, which often transcend or contradict the “values” which they do speak of. I think our current elite are very much “Straussians” in my limited understanding of the term, and thus have little interest in an educated electorate that can see through their values claims to the underlying power and money and ideological nastiness underneath. Now, “the right” may actually not define said “nastiness” as nastiness, but then, that’s why I consider myself a bit of a leftwing libertarian, so…
Ophelia, I agree entirely. Gladwell’s book ends with a story about how the Berlin Philharmonic increased its number of women players by auditioning all new musicians behind a screen. Before that time, interviewers allowed their prejudice against women to affect their ability to properly appreciate the women’s playing. I’m told that screened auditions are now standard practice for orchestras.
Brian, I agree that the activities of the elite often contradict their stated values: corporate scandals like Enron belie the notion that wealth is always a reward for honest toil, for example. I also agree about getting to grips with right-wing “nastiness”. Re-framing those aspects of right-wing morality – homophobia, indifference to the poor, etc. – as intolerance and lack of empathy is precisely what I want to see.