george lakoff Archive

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    Disaster Messaging

    Democrats are constantly resorting to disaster messaging. Here’s a description the typical situation. • The Republicans outmessage the Democrats. The Democrats, having no effective response, face disaster: They lose politically, either in electoral support or failure on crucial legislation. • The Democrats then take polls...

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  • A Revolution of Crazy Aunts and Uncles

    A Revolution of Crazy Aunts and Uncles

    If we want an extravagant democracy, we should live together like one another’s crazy aunts and uncles. We are, after all, a nation founded by aunts and uncles.

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  • Character Versus Brand: A Lesson in Framing

    Character Versus Brand: A Lesson in Framing

    Advertising and marketing gurus have so successfully established the importance of “brand” that we in the political sphere often lose sight of the real core of political argument: character. The distinction is not trivial. Brand is about a list of facts or attributes. It’s character...

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  • “Sixteen Tons”: A National Anthem?

    “Sixteen Tons”: A National Anthem?

    Centuries of cultural inheritance teach us that debt puts us at moral and material disadvantage. As Margaret Atwood points out in her book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, there are ancient reasons that Jesus was called the “Redeemer.” He came to pay...

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  • Death Before Disorder: Health Care and “The Reader”

    Death Before Disorder: Health Care and “The Reader”

    In the movie, “The Reader,” Hannah Schmitz is on trial for her Nazi-era war crimes as an SS officer and prison guard, including the murder of 300 Jewish prisoners kept locked in a burning church. Why, she’s asked, didn’t you let them out? Her answer,...

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  • Republicans: “Take Away the Car Keys”

    Republicans: “Take Away the Car Keys”

    Conservative ideologues looking to punish workers and the American middle class for auto industry failures are driven by an authoritarian worldview George Lakoff calls the strict parent model.

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  • Don’t think of a sick child

    Don’t think of a sick child

    George W. Bush doesn’t want you to think of a sick child. Not Graeme Frost. Not Gemma Frost. Not Bethany Wilkerson. Not any of the real children affected. He wants you straining your eyes on the fine print of policies, puzzling over the nuances of...

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  • George Lakoff’s Freedom Frame

    George Lakoff’s Freedom Frame

    George Lakoff is a cognitive scientist whose theories have deepened our understanding of the brain and how we think, act, talk and feel. He works in the domain of mirror neurons and cognitive systems, which may be the stuff beneath our poetry but not necessarily...

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