George Lakoff: Moral Politics

Russ Olsen, author of Getting Closure, Eloquent Ruby and Design Patterns with Ruby, telling the story of the moon landing as a conference talk. Inspired me beyond measure and brought tears to my eyes. link —- George Lakoff’s lecture on Moral Politics. Instantaneous understanding of political language and identity politics. Incredibly important, especially today in time of extreme polarization. ▶ this video —- Sir Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity link

In this lecture on Moral Politics, George Lakoff addresses the “nonsensical” speech, metaphors, framing and more. Changed how I listen to mass media and political speech. ▶ this video Also highly recommend his Truth Samndwich methodology to defanging propaganda messages in the media. link

I highly recommend Lakoff’s lecture on framing and metaphors in political speech and discourse. Changed how I listen - to anyone - forever. ▶ this video His framelab podcast is also excellent.

May I recommend this talk on the neuroscience of language and thought by George Lakoff? link And also this one on political language, morals and metaphors? It will change how you listen to political speech, and especially political speech targeting people with different political orientation -- which can often sound nonsensical, but is actually carefully constructed to activate their metaphors. ▶ this video Basically, the ideas of enlightenment (we are rational beings) are not true. A couple of slides from the first lecture: Myth: Reason is conscious, you know what you think. Science: Reason is mostly unconscious, estimates are about 98% unconscious. Conscious thinking is linear. Brain circuitry is massively parallel. Myth: Ideas are made meaningful via their direct connections to the external world. Meaning is a matter of truth conditions. Science: Ideas are made meaningful via the brain's connections to the body and our embodied experience. Myth: Emotion gets in the way of rationality. Science: Emotion is necessary for rationality.

His framelab podcasts are informal and easily digestable. link I highly recommend * truth sandwich time (if you only listen to one make it this one) * how republicans really think (if you only listen to one make it this one, too) * how trump uses twitter to control the media (very eye opening) * guns over people (on how to frame the gun debate) Also, this lecture on political language exposes the leverage hooks politicians and propagandists use to hook and manipulate us. You will never listen/read political speech the same. ▶ this video

George Lakoff did an excellent linguistic analysis of conservative vs. liberal political speech, metaphors and framing in his lecture Moral Politics. I found it extremely valuable in understanding the driving and defining forces behind the two movements. ▶ this video

I think you'll enjoy this lecture by linguistics professor George Lakoff: ▶ this video Among other things he speaks of the think-tank-driven concerted effort to influence political support by using language invoking specific metaphors to frame important issues. Like "Tax Relief" for dramatically reducing taxes for the rich etc. Changed how I process political speech and pretty much any media-supported narrative.

I highly recommend the Moral Politics talk by Linguistics professor George Lakoff: ▶ this video In short, the two sides of the debate speak different language representing different world views rooted in upbringing and triggered / exploited by metaphors. This talk changed my view on political speech and narrative dramatically.

The right[2] looks at intent because that's what matters in a hierarchical view of society. This division is from a fundamental difference in what societies are. This can be observed din how they use language; from one of the most enlightening articles[1] I've ever read: > One of the biggest problems of the entire Culture Wars is that people like us [the left[2]] use language impart information. We usually are not aware that a nice big chunk of population does not use language in that way at all. Their use of language is that of Phatic Language [...] In a hierarchical society [the right[2]], language is [often] not used for exchange of information [...] It is used to establish social hierarchy. For a good explanation of how this works, George Lakoff's lecture[3] "Moral Politics". [1] link [2] The "left"/"right" labels are being use in a general psychological sense, which doesn't always match the political groups with the same names. [3] ▶ this video

This would be a great way to prevent polititians from framing the bills. For more on framing, see George Lakoff’s lecture on moral politics — reveals the way political language uses metaphors and How framing a debate ensures its outcome. Repeating the frame reinforces the intended meaning. Merely Using the name of the bill defines its outcome. “Tax Relief” - no one wants to fight a “relief” effort. Tax cuts for the rich would be the correct name. “Clear sky initiative” is the name of a clear cutting bill. ▶ this video

You've probably seen this, but for those who haven't George Lakoff give's this a fairly good treatment in this[1] on 'Moral Politics'. By 'this' I mean the idea that the Left and the Right have different experiences of what is moral. My issue with politics is that I think we need to extricate it from morality. Like we have separation of Church and State a la Secular Society, we need amoral politics. 1. ▶ this video

On that note, I found this talk on Moral Politics by George Lakoff[1] elsewhere on HN. The basic idea is that people who have different political opinions to you aren't necessarily stupid or greedy or bad actors, they just have different morals and therefore a different set of rationales. 1. ▶ this video