The Lakoff Code: Biconceptuals and Unicorns
I’ve sure had some fun over the years making fun of George Lakoff.
You will recall that after the Democratic debacle of 2004, Professor Lakoff became the equivalent of progressive sliced bread. He was hosted and toasted from college campuses to the Democratic congressional caucus as the guy who held the keys to unlocking progressive “framing.”
I thought he had finally faded from the scene. I don’t know, maybe he has.
I know one thing: He had no role whatsoever in getting Barack Obama elected as President of the United States. That was mostly the work of Barack Obama, his crack campaign staff, and tens of thousands of hard-working volunteers who put in the hours of networking, phoning and canvassing.
And having read Obama’s earlier writings and work, his “framing” of the issues required no assistance from Prof. Lakoff. Obama knew how to do it all on his own.
But, no matter. Lakoff is back. And now he’s painstakingly lecturing us on what he calls The Obama Code. Here’s the link to Lakoff’s essay. I read it. I think. In fact, I just read it and all that stuck with me was that Obama was “binconceptual.” Cool. America’s first bi president!
I don’t want to brag, not by any means. But I test with a really high IQ. In fact, that got me in trouble my whole life as my school counselors kept putting me in really advanced classes which I found really hard. boring and stuffed with way too much homework (when all I really wanted to do was play baseball, go fishing and tinker with my ham radios). The point of this short self-advertisement is that I consider myself as smart as your average guy and, I swear, I can’t make heads or tails of Lakoff’s piece. This thing reads like the transcript of some sort of dialog that Lakoff is having with himself inside his own head.
The most I cant get out of this is the usual quasi-paranoid Democratic fretting: that the horrible Republican Message Machine is efficiently cranking away 24 hours a day and that Dems better catch up (mostly by giving consulting gigs to Lakoff). I dunno, but if the Republican message is so effective, how come Obama won nearly 370 electoral votes? How did the Dems win such big majorities in both houses? Why did 85% plus of Americans like Obama’s speech last night? And why did Republican messenger Bobby Jindal only win the approval of eight people in Texas, three salamanders and one Tom DeLay? Are they uniconceptual? Or just unicorns? And why is there air anyway?
If Democrats were smart (they’re not), they’d keep this guy safely bottled up in his hometown of Berkeley, where he can confuse the least number of people.
If any other of you biconceptuals out there can figure this thing out, let me know. Thanks.
February 25th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Drew Westin is the new George Lakoff, and he actually had a hand in making this a big election for the Dems.
February 25th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Some people, like Lakoff, do too much thinking, which results in confused positions.
February 25th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Cool, Marc. I suppose you were catalyzed by the bit I posted mentioning Lakoff in previous thread. I was really only interested in bringing to the fore the Jung reference. The rest was a bonus.
Um. Also out of instinct I felt Obama’s campaign was as calculated and “framed” as anything ever put in a bottle with a label on it. I wouldn’t discount a Lakoffian perspective at all.
We always feel things have to be marketed here. People were sold “hope” and “change” without much else behind it. The difference– maybe– is that the Obama campaign knew to have to deal with the reality discussed in that article I posted and used the tools of a marketing campaign and knowledge of mass psychology to at least win the election and then try to do “the right thing”. Its a risky ploy. American’s respond to bullshit. For real change to be implemented there has to be an awakening. Which, to some extent, there was.
I still think its gonna get real ugly for awhile. Just the disbursement of all that dough. The chicanery that will ensue. I am tapping my foot waiting for the reports. But…it has to happen.
February 25th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Sorry. That last line was mine, as if you couldn’t be sure.
But, Obama was wearing an American flag pin last night. Maybe he’s catching on about traditional patriotism–unless it’s an act.
February 25th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Anna sums up Obama’s pledges to American voters: American’s respond to bullshit.
February 25th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Marc, I glanced at your link to Lakoff. There is nothing mysterious about what he is saying if you have read Jung. What is annoying about Lakoff is he is one of those who appropriate ephemeral ideas and tries to bolt them into a whole thuggish construct. Typically American.
Its what my friend George said (that I tried to clue people to in the education argument thread) that education now is no longer lifting ones self out of the much but one pig teaching the other pigs how to eat from the trough. Lakoff is a literalist. The American disease is literalism.
February 25th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Read a Huff Post Lakoff piece. Revolting man. Still talks about people in terms of manipulating them rather than the idea that people need to discover their inner critical thinker. Which really means one had to disconnect from the collective.
February 26th, 2009 at 2:53 am
Last election the Republicans kept “framing” the conversation like they have the last couple decades (God, real America, liberals are weak and unpatriotic, blah blah blah), so if Lakoff’s theories were right, they should have won again. Instead, the frame got trumped by that other thingie Lakoff isn’t too respectful of: actual empirical fucking reality. At this point, Lakoff should apologize for being wrong and go away, but where’s the fun in that?
February 26th, 2009 at 7:02 am
“And why did Republican messenger Bobby Jindal only win the approval of eight people in Texas, three salamanders and one Tom DeLay?”
Actually, this might underestimate the number of salamanders, as many of them live in rotting logs and may not have poked their heads out to be counted–unlike Tom DeLay.
February 26th, 2009 at 7:09 am
Balter, go back a thread and read what I put about Jindal. His Wiki and just my opinion on his self sabotage and psychic reality.
February 26th, 2009 at 8:10 am
Okay, I read the Lakoff piece and my conclusion, Marc, is that there really is nothing to understand. It’s just blather.
Except for one thing: Lakoff, like Mike Lux and all those other dreary knee-jerk liberals, likes to argue that his own political opinions, to the exclusion of everyone else’s, are THE “real” American political values.
This presumes, among other delusions, that American political values are somehow a) pure b) simple and c) a Good Thing. (Or would be, if it wasn’t for all those pesky people who disagree with him.)
In reality, he’s just another starry-eyed American idealist who thinks this country and its politics are special and/or blessed by a higher power.
The truth is, American politics are messy and frequently ugly, like every other country’s. Not only does the ideology of exceptionalism forever butt up against any number of awkward realities; the very fact that people believe in it becomes a cover behind which a lot of very ugly stuff gets both done and excused. (We’re the greatest country in the world, so these accusations that we’re monsters CAN’T be right…)
Not only is Lakoff misguided, he isn’t even as much fun to kick around as he used to be. (Am I right you are a tad disappointed by that, Marc?) He used to be absurd. Now he is just a windbag.
February 26th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Thanks for the hot tip on your words of wisdom, Anna, but I only have time to read what Marc writes–even if, as you imply, he steals all his ideas from you.
February 26th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Balter: your attacks on me are really OTT. I was offering the suggestion to have a look at the Wiki on Jindal…cause where he started from and what he has tried to become are interesting from many points of view.
And I wasn’t implying Marc was stealing, Balter. I had posted an excerpt in the previous thread that happened to have put in a load about Lakoff. It was “under moderator’s approval” before it got posted. Maybe cause it was too long. Who knows. I have never heard of Lakoff previous to that article. As stated it was only an article on the subject at hand and had a juicy Jung quote which was–and is–quite relevant to all that gets discussed here. It was obvious that the mention of Lakoff turning up may have suggested a blog topic for Marc or perhaps synchronously something caught Mar’s attention about Lakoff.
Dial it down, Balter.
February 26th, 2009 at 10:27 am
You’re right, Anna, my attacks on you are uncalled for. I just think you are full of shit and so sometimes I let my annoyance show. I will try to do better.
February 26th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Fishing and ham radios, I get. But Marc Cooper ditching class to play baseball? Very interesting.
February 26th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Oh really, and what is full of shit about being able to extend the conversation? I don’t see you saying anything but dumping in judicious comments.
February 26th, 2009 at 10:36 am
I suppose being able to see the connection between the constant whines about collective stupidity and particularly within the political arena…and what Jung wrote “full of shit”.
No, its little academic hacks like you who just like to shout about what you have read with no ability to integrate any of it in any meaningful way.
February 26th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Anna,
While I, on the other hand, actually do appreciate your horse shit.
February 26th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Ya know, I found this website because I used to get a kick out of Marc’s columns when I lived in LA and got the Weekly before it totally went South.
I also found Dan Savage’s Savage Love brilliant social satire. Which reminds me I must go back and read his columns.
Now I have been dragged down into a boys locker room and can’t get out. I know I have been comprised when a psychopath tells me he enjoys my posts. I feel like Clarice.
February 26th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Didn’t I read this in Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine” with the names changed?
February 26th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Hey gang, how about that increase of 4 % in the militarists’ budget! GO USA!
I love Hope and Change and permanent military bases and the world’s largest Imperial fortre…, er, embassy in Iraq.
And I’m betting (I wonder what the odds in Vegas are) those 17,000 extra troops bombing Afghanistan will find Osama and declare Victory this time, despite those uncooperative Canadian socialist peaceniks cutting and running.
Maybe some funds for a Pinochet memorial?