George Lakoff
hello I’m Justine Willis Tom’s today I’m
hosting dr. George lay cough he’s the
author of the all new don’t think of an
elephant know your values and frame the
debate George welcome to the new
dimensions cafe a pleasure to be here
it’s a pleasure to have you and tell me
let’s talk about the differences between
the concept of freedom between the
different political parties in this
country well that’s not just parties
it’s it’s ideologies if you are a
progressive then freedom is defined in a
very interesting way it says you believe
that in a democracy citizens care about
other citizens and they act through
their government to provide public
resources for everybody and those public
resources allow for freedoms so for
example in a business you need public
resources you need roads and bridges and
sewers and you need an electric grid and
you need communications and you need a
judicial system that’s mostly for
corporate law and you need police
protection and on and on along things
you need access to public resources
constantly and public education if
you’re going to hire educated workers so
freedom to start a business or work in a
business requires those public resources
private enterprise depends on the public
and that gives you freedom but it’s also
true in private life because if you for
example don’t have an education and
public education is there for you then
first you don’t know enough to know how
to be fulfilled in life you need to know
things you know what possible
fulfillments there are and you don’t
have the skills and knowledge to carry
them out if you’re not educated so
public education is crucial public
health is crucial if you’re sick or
diseased it’s um you know you need it if
you don’t have health insurance what
happens well if you have cancer without
health insurance you’re certainly not
free you’re not free if you break your
leg and you don’t have health insurance
you
get it set you can’t move you can’t walk
you know if you know you are
discriminated against and so on in jobs
and so on in all sorts of ways you are
not free
Martin Luther King was clear about this
and similarly in all sorts of areas you
are not free if you are discriminated
against if you don’t have public
resources if you don’t have education
public health health access the safe
food all of the things that our
citizenry offers to the government and
this is important because you need to
talk about it conservatives have taken
over freedom as if they owned it how did
they look at freedom for conservatives
they talk about liberty and freedom in
the following way they say that a
democracy provides liberty that is the
ability to do what you want with your
property and your abilities period
without depending or getting anything
from anyone else because getting
something from someone else makes you
dependent and that isn’t free and
without having any responsibility for
other people because everybody should
have their own personal responsibility
alone they believe in personal not
social responsibility and that is a
major point because they don’t see other
people’s freedom as having to do with
their freedom and the whole point about
progressive views of freedom is that
other people’s freedom has everything to
do with their freedom so there’s a kind
of like we call it the John Wayne
syndrome you know that highly
individualized in fact people from other
countries look on the US as that’s one
of our primary motivations is the the
freedom of the individual right and the
point is that in reality the individual
can’t really be free without public
resources without all those without an
education without public health without
roads and bridges and you know airplane
routes and without an internet that was
developed for the government without a
pharmaceutical
goals that were developed mainly through
university research paid for by the
government most of your freedoms
actually come through public resources
so let’s talk about the Commons this is
like something that is not usually in
the public discourse what if what are
the Commons the Commons have to do with
what we all own for example who owns the
air well it turns out we all do let me
give you an example in an aquifer who
owns the water well what happens is for
example there was an interview recently
with a farmer who was taking all the
water out of his well and then in
California as a cotton farmer use a huge
amount of water and in California the
agribusiness folks years ago said that
people who have wells can take all they
want and they don’t have to tell the
state how much water they’re taking and
there was an attempt to check that
recently they changed that bill and the
farmer was arguing against it he said no
the water in the well is my water it’s
on my property no it’s in an aquifer
it’s flowing it’s everybody’s or take
fracking fracking uses you know maybe
millions of five million gallons of
water in each hole that’s everybody’s
water it’s not just their water not only
that they put in huge amounts of
chemicals cancer-causing chemicals in
each case they’re polluting our water
everybody’s water if it goes into
aquifer so if it goes into streams and
so on if you’re doing if you’re a coal
company and you blow off the tops of
mountains and they go into streams and
pollute the streams that’s everybody’s
water you know this is crucial
the idea of water and air if you have
are polluting the air that’s everybody’s
air it’s not just your air you all own
it in common and the same is true of
property that is not private property
that’s public property like national
parks for example so there are you know
people who have grazing rights in dense
national parks who destroy the the
national parks
there are timber companies who do
clear-cutting in national parks which is
horrible they are destroying the forest
so George let’s let’s go back to water
now one of the facts that scientific
fact is that when you deplete an aquifer
that that spongy quality that it has
goes away
so it’s not renewable now this is a
scientific fact but you have said in
your book and have pointed out that
facts don’t mean diddly-squat so to
speak to someone who has a different
viewpoint that’s correct
absolutely right you have to change the
viewpoint and you change the viewpoint
through language and through
communications and through a system of
communications that says look most
people conservatives or progressives are
partly the other that is the many
progressives who are partly conservative
most conservatives are partly
progressives on some issues but you need
to be able to say what you believe and
get your language out there because your
language changes brains and this is a
kind of what you talk about when you
talk about framing and what is what you
are is framing a slogan no or propaganda
what really framing first of all we all
frame every time we think frames are
what you think in terms of theorists
there are neural structures that you use
for thinking every word is the fine
relative to a frame relative to that
neural structure so every time you say a
word or hear a word you’re that frame is
activated and when that’s activated that
neural structure gets stronger if the if
the word is repeated it gets stronger
and stronger so it’s actually about
thinking and about reasoning that’s what
framing is about now slogans can
activate frames as well and that’s the
case and people can use propaganda
things they don’t believe that to say to
say things to try to change people’s
frames I’m against it I think that we
need to be honest but to be honest you
need to know what you believe
and 98% of our thought is unconscious
and most progressives don’t know their
own moral system they don’t know their
own view of democracy because they have
it unconscious in their brains it does
work it affects what positions they
believe but they don’t know the general
principle upon which those beliefs are
based and progressives need to know that
that notion that is unconscious about
what your moral principles are and what
your view of democracy is needs to be
made conscious you need to say it so how
can you help us to get that unconscious
belief that moral system out from
unconscious thought to conscious thought
this book is for that the all new don’t
think of an elephant is first of all
tells you what it is and and things to
say but in addition to that you can’t
just read the book and do it because you
need training
the Conservatives train people all the
time over and over they have long
trainings they go on all the time the
Leadership Institute has trained 159
thousand people in 20 years and they’re
out there on talk shows they’re out
there all over the place
constantly doing this and they are on
listservs they are given talking points
every day and booked on radio talk shows
and in high schools and in businesses
and so on to say these things over and
over and they do and that changes
people’s brains when they do
progressives need a communication system
and a training system that will take
what is in this book and allow them to
get at what they really believe deeply
in their own brains to make the
unconscious conscious that’s what this
book is about it’s about making the
unconscious conscious so that you can
honestly say what you really believe
well George may it be so may it be so me
we really bring that to light in
whatever ways we can to really help
democracy be a true democracy Thank You
Justine it’s been a pleasure to be here
it’s been my pleasure I’ve been speaking
with dr.
George Lakoff he’s the author of the all
new don’t think of an elephant no your
values and frame the debate and if you
want to know more about his work you can
go to his website
George Lake Ofcom and lake office pail
la ke o FF George Lake Ofcom or you
could get there through the new
dimensions website new dimensions org
thank you so much for joining us on the
new dimensions cafe I’m Justine Willis
toms and I invite you to please join us
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