[lbo-talk] Political Cartography: "I Am Not a Crook"

[ravi]

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote <quoting adam cohen?>:
> 
> "The title [of Berkeley linguistics professor George Lakoff's surprise
> best seller about how to frame the debate] 'Don't Think of an Elephant!'
> comes from a classic experiment Dr. Lakoff conducts in Cognitive Science
> 101. He tells his students not to think of an elephant, and he has yet
> to find one who has managed it.
>

i read the lakoff piece (i posted a link to an online copy a while ago)
and found it interesting. however, i find the above analogy useless. i
can quite easily not think of an elephant (when told to do so) if i
don't want to. what's the big deal? (of course all this assumes there is
a clear definition of what thinking is, and i can actually see what i am
thinking of!).

	--ravi