[WS:} The difference is empirical proof. What philosophers only speculated abot, modern science can support with empirical observations. Wojtek
--------------------------------------------------------------- "When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost. [...] All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men." - HL Mencken ----------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message ---- From: Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Friday, September 19, 2008 2:25:28 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] why people vote the way they do
I still fail to see why this is a tremendous insight. "People are rational" hasn't been a dominant paradigm since David Hume and "exposure produces changes in the mind" is both obvious and much older.
--- On Fri, 9/19/08, Wojtek Sokolowski <swsokolowski at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> [WS:] Lakoff claims a third possibility - it is biological
> but not innate. Instead it is a product of what
> neuroscientist call "neuroplasticity" or changes
> in the neuron connections as a result of
> experience. Someone who has been repeatedly exposed to
> the right wing framing of issues, develops neural
> connections that evoke that frame (and its associations)
> more easily than those who have not. That would explain
> why Americans tend to be more conservative than their
> European ancestors.
>
> It is my understanding that the claims linking ideological
> prefrences to different functioning of our brains
> are pretty firmly grounded in neuroscience, which has been
> rapidly advancing during the past decade or so thanks to
> modern brain imaging technology (fMRA.) One consequence of
> that is the realization that people are not
> rational after all, at least in
> the "Cartesian" sense of the word, but think
> mainly in terms of emotions. Even smart and educated
> people, save those affected by Asperger Syndrome. The
> problem is that most lefties (inlcuding this writer) were
> taught that it is the reason alone that counts, and
> emotions are irrelevant or altogether bad, and thus should
> be controlled. This firm belief is perhaps one of the key
> reasons why the left has been failing to make popular appear
> for some time - it got stuck in the rut of making rational
> arguments, thus ceding the realm of emotional appeals to
> the right. And the right
> played on those emotions quite skillfully.
>
> Lakoff sugests to reverse that trend by using frames that
> are based in left wing emotions (nurturance, fairness,
> compassion, etc.) - but that is easier said than done
> while facing a relentless blitz of the Repug hate machine.
> However, framing "progressive" issues in the right
> wing frames (flag, duty, etc.) is precisely something to
> be avoided, because it only strengthens the conservative
> grip on public discourse. Bill Clinton tried that approach
> and succeeded for a while, but this was a short lived gain
> that only strengthen Repug positions in the long run.
>
> Wojtek
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> "When a candidate for public office faces the voters
> he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose
> chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite
> incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any
> save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done
> in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of
> what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate
> must either bark with the pack or be lost. [...] All the
> odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious
> and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the
> notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency
> tends, year by year, to go to such men." - HL Mencken
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
>
>
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