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09 September, 2008

John Kerry – Bob Dole Redux

Quick, somebody, put a pen in this guy’s hand! . . . It’s all over!

Check out the above Obama Interview with Keith Olbermann

This is a personality test – repeat – this is a personality test.

HA!!! “Have you thought of using more explanation points?”

Is he taking a fall like John Kerry did? The same question on everyone’s lips was, is he doing this on purpose?

God damn it! He can’t possibly really be this skinny and bland and prim! What a bore!

He’s gotta be doing it on purpose!

Check out what George Lakoff says about it here: It’s right on.

http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100705980

The Political Mind
Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain
George Lakoff

In What’s the Matter with Kansas?, Thomas Frank pointed out that a great number of Americans actually vote against their own interests. In The Political Mind, George Lakoff explains why.

As it turns out, human beings are not the rational creatures we’ve so long imagined ourselves to be. Ideas, morals, and values do not exist somewhere outside the body, ready to be examined and put to use. Instead, they exist quite literally inside the brain—and they take physical shape there. For example, we form particular kinds of narratives in our minds just like we form specific muscle memories such as typing or dancing, and then we fit new information into those narratives. Getting that information out of one narrative type and into another—or building a whole new narrative altogether—can be as hard as learning to play the banjo. Changing your mind isn’t like changing your body—it’s the same thing.

But as long as progressive politicians and activists persist in believing that people use an objective system of reasoning to decide on their politics, the Democrats will continue to lose elections. They must wrest control of the terms of the debate from their opponents rather than accepting their frame and trying to argue within it.

This passionate, erudite, and groundbreaking book will appeal to readers of Steven Pinker and Thomas Frank. It is a fascinating read for anyone interested in how the mind works, how society works, and how they work together.

2 comments:

  1. “As it turns out, human beings are not the rational creatures we’ve so long imagined ourselves to be.”
    No, human beings are motivated and driven by what they feel, an interpretation from feeling to mind which is not easily translatable because it attempts to portray a definitive idea always based on feelings that are fleeting esoteric ambiguous and therefore, as a result, in part of the idea will include things that negate the best life form.

    “Ideas, morals, and values do not exist somewhere outside the body…”
    They exist definitively in the body.

    “...they exist quite literally inside the brain…”
    The brain attempts to translate those feelings into language, which is not doable in an accurate way. Once something is felt, it literally begins to leave the system so that translation of what was felt is closer to guesswork. And, therefore, can be quite detrimental to the best life in a society.

    As an example, we have agreed and have been programmed with the laws concerning traffic lights, green meaning go and red meaning stop. There are people, unfortunately too many of them, who, if were at a stop light showing red in the middle of the desert, would not move until the light turned green, regardless of the fact that for miles in all directions, there was nothing else moving. This simple illustration can be extended across all lines of political, social, and economic ways of being.

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  2. Right! I remember a story that made the rounds pre-email, I think it was in Nexus, where a woman in Australia sat at a broken red light for 24 hours or so and had to be taken to the hospital for dehydration. So yeah, some people are so afraid of authority or fearful of making a wrong move because they're so programmed.

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