Skip to main content

I heart George Lakoff



With Elyzabethe over at YellowIsTheColor writing all about The Political Brain so much lately, I thought it might be a good time to blog about the Rockridge Institute, which I've recently re-discovered. Anyone who talks to me for more than two minutes about communications or policy knows my affection for George Lakoff. Rockridge is a think thank founded on his work on cognitive linguistics and progressive policy. It's goal is the same as Drew Westen's: reframe the public debate.

The Rockridge Fellows put out some great essays on all sorts of topics, but what really got me drooling was their interactive Rockridge Nation. Framing examples galore! What I especially liked, because it's an issue near and dear to my heart, is the ongoing dicussion about the fallacy of a left/right linear political spectrum, and why moving towards the "center" isn't a good political strategy:

In reality, there are basic progressive and conservative worldviews, and many people have both but apply them to different issue areas. The people "in the middle" actually have many different combinations of progressive and conservative thought. There is no ideology of the middle, no unified worldview that everyone in the "center" agrees on, and no linear ordering of the issues. Something much more interesting is going on.


Another post that might be of interest to those of you throwing around sterotypes about right wing nutjobs and leftist radicals is this one, Too Far Left to be Progressive?"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This post was a whole long longer and more emotional an hour ago...

First off: It's sad that I get better wireless reception in my backyard than in my apartment, right? Sigh. I normally try to stay out of the quagmire that is the abortion debate, but as usually, elyzabethe wrote something insightful about feminist issues that I had to comment on. Actually, I had to comment on the framing war that was going on in the comments section between elyzabethe and another friend. Then I ended up emailing back and forth with her for awhile. Then someone at work mentioned how the "choice" frame is starting to lose ground, even though advocates don't want to admit it. I started scribbling notes, sighed, and thought, "well, I'm gonna have to blog about this." Elyzabeth rants often against anti-choice organizations and legislation, as is her wont as a libertarian feminist. She’s particularly good at teasing out how anti-choice (A, if you’re reading this, bear with me, I’m referring to ‘anti-choice’ as more than just the abortion issu...
1 comment
Read more
The City of Milwaukee launched this ad campaign this week (along with Serve Marketing , my new dream employer). My first reaction was that it was a striking and effective ad, but then I realized it was aimed at co-sleeping, not just putting babies to sleep on their backs. I know next to nothing about co-sleeping, but I have a feeling that there are healthy ways to co-sleep, and un-healthy ways to co-sleep. Putting a child in bed on their stomach would be one of those un-healthy ways, but so is putting them on their stomach in their cribs. I don't know that it's necessarily fair to confuse the two issues. Plus, according to the City of Milwaukee's web page , Between 2006 and 2009 there were 89 infant deaths related to SIDS, SUDI, or accidental suffocation.  Of these 46 (51.7%) infants were sleeping in an adult bed at the time of their death.   Meaning that 48.3 percent (or 43 babies) were not co-sleeping, but presumably in their cribs. Although I loathe to say tha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Less Blogging, More Tweeting

FYI, I haven't been happy with how a lot of my posts are turning out, as well as the frequency with which I'm posting. Since most of the time, I just want to share a link that has an interesting take on telling its story, I'm going to dust off my Twitter account to share those and only post here if I'm really inspired. To the twelve people who read this blog, thanks.
Post a Comment
Read more