Listening to George Lakoff on radio while he recently made the rounds for his new book, The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st Century Politics with an 18th Century Brain, I was reminded that he uses a psuedo-scientific illusion unassailable revelation from current brain/cognition research to introduce and distinguish his own ideas. Lakoff also distracts us by offering to rescue us from 18th century ways of thinking still inherent in 20th and 21st century education and discourse. Lakoff then very nicely presents his repackaged and still-relevant themes about politics, in a style and logic very compatible with our usual ways of thinking.

With his appeal to medical research science, Lakoff means to disarm or diminish our critical attention, and since to a greater or lesser extent most of us revere science, this gambit often succeeds. Thus Lakoff’s own discussion reasonable, very relevant to our interests in political science, but not in itself particularly scientific receives very little analysis or criticism.

Dilemma and dichotomy are effective tools in Lakoff’s skilled hands. Ala his discussion, there’s a tradeoff between the critical and the accepting; so in reducing critical analysis of his ideas, Lakoff enhances their acceptance and dissemination.

Lakoff’s earlier book, Don’t Think of an Elephant! (2004) got a lot of attention during and after the last Presidential campaign/election season. I recall not liking some of his points, though finding him very interesting and cogent overall. That’s not to say that I actually read his book, but I heard him interviewed several times, and I read a review or two, and I also heard about the book from our political club’s reading and discussion group, whose regular meetings fell on a bad day for my schedule.

I recall that in listening to interviews, and in talking about Lakoff’s themes described by my friends, people tended to avoid critically discussing Lakoff specifics. After all, the basis of his revelations was science, and in any case Lakoff himself was a foremost authority. Most readers and interviewers seemed awed by Lakoff’s prose.

As to the essentials of Lakoff’s ongoing discussions about how to view various aspects of discourse, for instance his Huffington Post blog discussion of Barack Obama’s policy and strategic perambulations this summer, The Mind and the Obama Magic, I often not always agree with Lakoff. I don’t really care whether his insights and arguments are original with him, but I do care whether they make sense, and a lot of them do. Again I havent yet read the book, but this time I’m happier for Lakoff’s broad audience, even if his popularizing hook is psuedo-science. ~ Jack Straw

Books by George Lakoff

The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st Century Politics with an 18th Century Brain, book, 2008
Don’t Think of an Elephant! book, 2004
Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think pamphlet, 2002 (paydirt!)
Where Mathematics Comes from… book, 2000
Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind... book, 1999

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