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32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
novel, insightful, invaluable, June 30, 2009
This review is from: The Political Mind: A Cognitive Scientist's Guide to Your Brain and Its Politics (Paperback)
This is Lakoff's latest and most fascinating elaboration of mind/metaphor theory since its appearance in "Women, Fire and Dangerous Things" (1987). It is arguably the most important, too, as his discussion makes sense of the reasons behind stark differences we may notice in disparate attitudes about pressing things that matter to us here and now - public policies, policy makers, and the institutions of power that touch our lives.
Drawing on the latest brain science and a very nice range of examples to support his case, Lakoff develops logically persuasive and easily understood models for the cognitive cause-and-effect relationships that emerge as political differences. So straightforward are these approaches to discerning and understanding political differences voiced in public discourse that they prove again the case he has been building for what's really going on beneath the surface.
Students/readers of linguistics, communication theory, sociology, political science, cultural studies, philosophy/epistemology would find this book illuminating and invaluable.
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23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must read for anyone in the political world!, August 11, 2009
This review is from: The Political Mind: A Cognitive Scientist's Guide to Your Brain and Its Politics (Paperback)
Lackoff is perhaps the foremost linguist and cognitive scientist working in the realm of political speech and this iteration of "The Political Mind" follows on the heels of his 2008 book "The Political Mind: You Can't Understand 21st Century American Politics with an 18th Century Brain" as well as "Framing the Debate" (2007), "Thinking Points" (2006) and "Don't Think of an Elephant" (2004), all of which focus on how politicians employ language to frame their arguments. For a layperson the idea of reading a book on linguistics and cognitive science sounds daunting, but Lakoff is a master at making the material easy to understand while not dumbing things down. The main idea Lakoff puts forward is that reason is mostly unconscious and challenges the conventional wisdom of many political scientists, political theorists, policy makers and other scholars regarding how to frame issues for the electorate. The key problem for those parties, to Lakoff's theory, is that they fail to grasp the biological explanations that drive the electorate's thought processes. Lakoff frequently points to the successes Republicans have had in framing issues through narratives when presenting ideas to the electorate rather than presenting raw facts, statistics and data which largely leave voters to frame the issue in their own minds. The net result is voters understand the narratives presented by Republicans to frame the argument. Failure to frame the information presented results in widely varying degrees of comprehension and mixed messages or in some cases the "paralysis of analysis." This is perhaps the argument that is of most value to political scientists, theorists, and policy makers but potentially the hardest for some to embrace as it runs counter to long-held beliefs.
"The Political Mind" is indeed a thought provoking book and it abounds with ideas and concepts relating to political theory. Lakoff's arguments are relatively simple, straightforward, and easy to grasp, but written in a prose that will certainly appeal to the reader and their intellect. The decidedly retro cover may be a bit offputting with its 1970s graphic, but don't let that fool you; "The Political Mind" is a must read for anyone in the political world!
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29 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The real Obama nation: neuropolitics, September 8, 2009
This review is from: The Political Mind: A Cognitive Scientist's Guide to Your Brain and Its Politics (Paperback)
For the better part of forty years less than a quarter of the electorate dominated American politics.
The second Amendment was honored and sanctified. Our American wildnerness was cut down as fast as could be. The military machine was fed along with corporate America while sub poverty line mothers and children were starved. The execution of criminals proceeded apace and abortion rights were frozen all to the chagrin of most electors who if categorically given the choice would have chosen otherwise.
How? Why?
In the academic arena these questions plagued George Lakoff. Since his 1977 masterwork Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff has been at the forefront of neuroscience. Neuroscience is a field which examines the morphology of the brain.
Neuroscience says that just as evolution has effected the way our bodies look, it has also effected the way our minds work too.
In applying neuroscientific principles to political question of why right wing politics was so strong Lakoff discovered that it benefited from the strength a cohesive, emotionally appealing vision.
According to Lakoff for over forty years right wingers dominated by selling the dream of a Leave it to Beaver America with a strong disciplinarian father who could protect us from the mean world "out there." In this way, like the Nazis who were able to alternatively harken their people back to a Germany that never was, the American right proselytized for an America which never should be.
That the left finally got the message and responded with its own cohesive vision is now history but this book is nevertheless sober reading of what can happen and just how easily it can happen.
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