> --- On Thu, 9/4/08, Thomas Seay <entheogens at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Lakoff's book is one of the scariest I have read. Has
>> it come down to this? That the only way to change the world
>> is to come up with linguistic tricks (reframing) to
>> manipulate people into action (or inaction as the case may
>> be).
>>
>
> [WS:} So what is a better way? Firing squads, concentration camps, and blowing things up?
I'm in the middle of Deerhunting with Jesus, a lot of which reminds me of what I've read about right wing authoritarianism as a psychological type (see here for readable version: <http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/> -- anybody know of critiques?). Both suggest that a lot of one-on-one example setting, showing that pointy-headed types aren't so awful, could wear things down. I dunno -- you've all seen plenty of "I love you despite your heathen beliefs" in families for that to get any bite. Probably shag's idea of providing services, much like the megachurches, could get more of a hold. But I bet you once they started attracting attention that they'd get all the loving care a union would get, from the same people.
One of the interesting bits of Bageant's book is his tracing of Scots-Irish as a kind of buffer group to be stuck in whatever ugly situation that suited the powers that be, and how this lineage bred a kind of vicious, pious anti-intellectualism the US seems to specialize in. It's hard to say how a non-majority, mostly downtrodden group would come to have such influence on the national character, but it certainly seems like the distilled essence of the larger tendencies.
I think Bageant mentions the psychiatrists' phrase "lack of self-reflection", which was funny because that's exactly what keeps coming to my mind.
-- Andy