george lakoff talk at time tested books
June 30th, 2008 ethereali just returned from a lecture by george lakoff at time tested books in midtown sacramento. he was there to speak about his new book, The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain.
i have read some of lakoff’s writing for meredith davis’ cognition seminar in the fall of 06 (geez, was it almost two years ago? really?). the context i was reading his work in was to understand schemas and schema theory enough to connect it to how visual information is stored and processed.
today’s lecture featured a bit of the theory, mainly to define key terms and set a baseline for application. he used the terms ‘framing’ and ‘metaphors’ as key components in understanding the political rhetoric of the conservative and progressive voice in american politics. it was an interesting application of linguistic theory and i found the lecture to be quite inspiring. its no mystery to anyone that knows me that i would find a close analysis of the language used to describe political positions, often employing metaphors, fascinating. he aligns specific phrases used often today like “broken promises” and “war on terror” with the conservative right and pointed to how it is ineffective for the progressive positions to use the same language if that language is understood as conservative in culture, especially if it is an subconscious recognition rather than an overt one. after the lecture, i wondered if a matrix of phrase characteristics could be made that would reveal a word set to be rooted in left or right politics. i know that this would not be a polar list, rather a gradient of the position of the phrase. i found myself nodding enthusiastically whenever he spoke to the blended nature of conceptual information rather than examining something to find its position on an extreme. nothing is exactly one or the other. (i.e. objective OR subjective)
i found the idea of studying cognition and neuroscience for the purpose of doing better marketing and design to be in line with what we talked about in md’s seminar and something that i have adopted into my own view of places design research should go. however, just as there is no rational without the emotional (a big point from the intro to his lecture) it is important to remember that design research should not rely on cognitive science to become the empirical proving ground for why design has impact in changing minds (by changing brains and therefor behavior). the emotional connection to the design process and the critical thinking skills that designers develop in order to apply the process are key as well.
at any rate, a well framed lecture that refreshingly promoted the ideas, the methodology and the research in addition to the book. however, it was SO evident that i am back in california. the audience was overwhelmingly progressive. it was preaching to the proverbial choir. then again, if progressives are not acting on what they are nodding in agreement to, maybe it really does need to be said again. hey, repetition IS how we learn.
then end.
