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Brains, Frames, and Understanding Political Speech, and perhaps understanding other communication topics

Steve Ordog

I originally became interested in this topic because I bring my newspaper to work. A number of people come by and read the paper and discuss the news. They regularly discuss topics in the news and politics is a big one. I found myself wondering why the conservatives sounded so convincing but I wasn’t convinced. Why did they have such good, slick arguments for ideas I disagreed with? How could I find ways to state my opinions on issues, tie them to values that matter to me, and present them in a way that was clear and without rancor? I read the Lakoff books in the next paragraph and became more interested in the underlying topic of how the brain works and the implications of that than I was in the whole political thing. I think this is an interesting topic for all and I have found a number of my conservative friends have an interest in this topic as well. This is not a political topic or an attempt to sway you to change your opinion on guns or social security. In fact, it will be a better discussion if we have a diverse group with people of different political views. This is a discussion of how brains work and how that shapes the way we view the world and the way we communicate. The best preparation for discussing this topic is to read Thinking Points by George Lakoff and the Rockridge Institute as recommended in the next chapter. Any item in blue underlined has a clickable hyperlink to get you to the source or an Amazon.com link so that you can go as deep as you want. I have a few notes here from a talk by George Lakoff that I attended that outline some of his big ideas.

Recently (3/1/08), I heard Dr. George Lakoff of UC Berkeley speak at RTP. Lakoff is originally a linguist whose linguistic studies took him into cognitive science. He became interested in political speech and opinions later and has produced books such as:

Moral Politics : How Liberals and Conservatives Think by George Lakoff

Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives by George Lakoff, Howard Dean, and Don Hazen

Thinking Points by George Lakoff and the Rockridge Institute

Thinking Points is available at the above link online for free download. Chapters 2-5 give most of the basic ideas.

Cognitive Policy vs. Material policy

In Lakoff’s talk here he mentioned the difference between “cognitive policy” and “material policy.” A material policy is what we will do e.g.: let’s cut class sizes so that the student teacher ratio is no more than 15 to 1 would be a material policy. A cognitive policy would be the plan for communicating and getting support for the material policy. The cognitive policy includes the idea, the words used to communicate the idea and supporting arguments, and the existing “frames” in people’s minds that will be activated by these words and communications. A cognitive policy needs to be created with cognitive science and neuroscience results in mind.

Descartes was wrong – no rational actors

Lakoff went back to Descartes who asserted that reason is conscious, unemotional, and logical. If this were true you could put out the same facts to all people and come to the same conclusion. There are many that believe that Descartes was right about this and people are just making some “mistakes” in reasoning. Lakoff asserts that cognitive science has proven Descartes is absolutely wrong on this and his ideas on reason are completely false.

Thought is an iceberg – 98% below the “waterline” (conscious level)

Modern cognitive science has shown that 98% of our thought process is unconscious. It has also proven that you cannot be “rational” without emotion. Here he references Descartes’ Error by Anthony DeMasio. DeMasio did brain imaging on people with damage to various parts of the brain and showed that people who had centers of the brain governing emotion damaged to the point of not having emotions could not think rationally. You must have emotions to accomplish rational thought.

Positive path vs. Fearful path

A dopamine pathway in the brain is associated with positive emotions while a norepinephrine pathway is associated with fearful, anxious, angry, disgusted emotions. Fear invokes a conservative worldview. When you talk to someone about a subject, you need to be aware of which pathway you are activating.

Frames

A person defines words relative to a conceptual frame. A frame is a structure saved in the brain that contains characteristics of a thing or idea. Example: When we think of a cup we have a conceptual frame for what a cup is. We know that it can be used to hold things, liquids, etc. We know that it may or may not have a handle. We boil down all our cup experience into this frame that allows us to understand what a cup is, what it is used for, etc. When someone says “cup” this frame is invoked in our brains.

Frames change your brain

Each frame changes your brain. Frames are stored in synapses. These things mediate your understanding of the world. Words matter. Examples: War on Terror vs. Occupation. Health: do we talk about Care or Coverage. These words invoke frames in our brains and one frame invokes different feelings and associations than the other. Frames come in systems and in politics the systems link up with morality.

Many frames form early

Concepts that are deeply ingrained have to do with the way your physical body works in the world. Example: More is up. Less is down. This is a universal metaphor. The metaphor of Warm people vs. Cold people is another one. From childhood quantity and verticality are in different parts of the brain. So are temperature and affection in different parts of the brain. Activating pathways builds the synapses stronger every time the two different areas are activated together. These circuits are physical metaphors in your brain. You build up hundreds of these by the time you are 6 or 7 years old. Metaphor is used when reasoning.

Facts bounce off of frames

This is an important idea I didn’t take a note on but once you “invoke” a frame you have created a context in the listener’s brain. This context views other ideas in terms of the frame. This means that if a disagreement is brought up in the form of a fact that refutes or shows a problem with the frame, it will be ineffective. In fact the person that brings up the fact to refute the frame will inadvertently reinforce the frame. Example: a proponent of cutting taxes mentions that “tax relief” is a good idea and “Americans can better decide how to spend their own money.” Someone who disagrees with the proposed cut cannot win by saying that the particular proposal will cost too much or by stating how much it will cost. They will only reinforce the “tax relief” frame. The opponent of this must start from scratch building up and using competing frames that show a different story. Example: Barack Obama once referred to a proposal to eliminate the Estate Tax as a “Paris Hilton tax cut” neatly summarizing the facts that only rich people are subject to this tax and that many of them had not earned the money that was taxed. See the book for more details on this.

Self interest vs. empathy

Does rationality automatically equate to self interest? Many neurons fire when you perform an action OR when you see someone else perform it. This is hardwiring for empathy and cooperation. Thus we are not just hard wired for self interest.

Empathy vs. personal responsibility

Nurturing parent family vs. Strict father family

The basis of Progressive thought is empathy – caring about people. In understanding the difference between Progressive thought and Conservative thought Lakoff uses the metaphor of the nation as a family. Here we have the competing visions: strict father family vs. nurturing parent family. Here Lakoff references James Dobson of Focus on the Family who is a leading proponent of child rearing in a strict father style. The strict father metaphor operates consistently through the whole of conservative thought. Note: please read Thinking Points about this one. I have read the three Lakoff books above and gotten a very good idea about his view on this and they are described much better in his materials than they are here in my notes.

Biconceptualism – there is no center!

Regardless of the fact that Progressives and Conservatives might gravitate strongly to one family metaphor, all people have both frames. Here Lakoff introduces the idea of Biconceptualism. Note that although we have both competing frames and can pretty much choose one or the other issue by issue, there is really no such thing as a conceptual center. There is no ideology of the center. There is no such thing as a moderate or a continuum from right to left. Understanding biconceptualism is key to pitching progressive ideas to conservatives (or vice versa). Talking to conservatives requires asking what they care about, what they are proud of, what they have done to help people. This way you activate their progressive frames. Barack Obama did this in a big way in his speech at Rick Warren’s conservative megachurch. Help the poor and sick. Be a good steward of the Earth.

Some get it – some don’t

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, believes in the rational actor model. Remember Descartes was wrong. She believes in the center and moves to the right to get there. Barack Obama believes America is based on empathy – on caring. He talks about American values. Reagan talked about values and was considered a great communicator. Obama made a big speech on MLK day where he talked about an empathy deficit and fundamental change. Obama and Clinton are opposites on how to govern.

Here is where I ran out of journal to write in but it went more toward specific political questions.

Full argument and details in the book

To get the full flavor of Lakoff’s argument, I recommend reading Thinking Points chapters 2-5 at least downloadable in pdf format.

Check out the other side- politically – they validate Lakoff!!

Besides studying Dobson, Lakoff studied some of the very successful people on the conservative side like Frank Luntz. Note that Frank Luntz is not a cognitive scientist. He is an in-the-trenches consultant who helps conservatives come up with their talking points. The following links have information on the Luntz approach to crafting strong political “words that work.”

Let’s talk

Discussion questions:

Descartes has an excuse for being wrong. He had no MRIs or cognitive science experts to work with to understand our brains and minds. He had to fly by the seat of his pants and he may be responsible for inspiring the very work that has proven him wrong. What about the idea that our thought is 98% below the surface. How does this make you feel? Do you accept this or is this hard to accept?

One of the criticisms of Lakoff has been: Hey, you’re just showing techniques that Liberals can use to fool people in the same way as Conservatives have been for all these years. You haven’t staked off any moral high ground. Lakoff counters this by saying that he would prefer that everyone learns about framing and understands the messages coming to them. He also draws a distinction between making compelling arguments that link with a person’s existing values and “spin”. Spin is when we use words to mislead people on purpose. Example: Calling a bill that relaxes air pollution standards a “Clean Air Bill.” What do you think of this? Do you think the “general public” will one day understand frames or are they too complicated? Do people know that “new and improved” often is a label on the same old stuff? What problems does this cause?

There has been some interesting work in economics recently showing that the rational actor model is not true. People were shown to have numbers “stick” in their short term memory and this was shown to influence an estimate they were asked to make of the retail value of an item. This subconscious effect fits in well with claims made by Lakoff and DeMasio about how our brains work. Have you ever observed this in your thinking? Do you think it is possible for us to develop self-awareness sufficient to take over from the “framers” and understand when we are being manipulated? Are some of our basic beliefs just repeated frames and not based on fact?

Cognitive policy is maybe just sort of a fancy name for crafting a good sales pitch. If so, what steps could we take to evaluate the message and then the effect of the Material policy that will be implemented? – the one being sold to us by the cognitive policy.

What other areas of life does this information about how the brain works apply to?

Lakoff’s and Nunez’s theory of embodied Mathematics claims that all Mathematics that we possibly can access is human Mathematics, structured and restricted by our mental capacities. What do you think of this claim? Does the human mind/brain constitute a kind of restriction similar to Plato’s cave? Is our mathematics the shadows on the wall, or direct from the realm of the “light of the Good” outside the cave?

George Lakoff: “First let me talk a little bit about what Obama is trying to do in the campaign and how that differs from what Clinton is trying to do in the campaign. Obama understands what Ronald Reagan learned, which is that people vote not on the basis of issues and policy details but on the basis of something deeper, namely, what are your values? Are you authentic? Do you say what you believe? Can we trust you? Do you communicate with us? And do we identify with you?” When you have heard Obama speak do you get the feeling Lakoff is talking about? Are there others in public life that embody this way of speaking? Is this just a public face on the same old stuff or is it a better way of communicating?

Lakoff says, “In language, it is Noam Chomsky's claim that language consists in (as Pinker puts it) "an autonomous module of syntactic rules." What this means is that language is just a matter of abstract symbols, having nothing to do with what the symbols mean, how they are used to communicate, how the brain processes thought and language, or any aspect of human experience — cultural or personal. I have been on the other side, providing evidence over many years that all of those considerations enter into language, and recent evidence from the cognitive and neural sciences indicates that language involves bringing all these capacities together. The old view is losing ground as we learn more.” What about this idea? Have we gained a new way to consider what language is? Is it possible to understand a language without knowing something about the operation of the mind/brains that work with this language?

Are the strict father vs. nurturing parent family models the only choices for understanding our nation and political views? Can you propose other competing frames?

Is nurturing parent family frame a namby-pamby, wimpy sort of sounding thing that is an easy target for critics who say we have to get tough to fight the war on terrorism, keep us safe from crime, etc?

Matt Bai writes: “The question here is whether Lakoff purposely twists his own academic theories to better suit his partisan audience or whether his followers are simply hearing what they want to hear and ignoring the rest. When I first met Lakoff in Los Angeles, he made it clear, without any prompting from me, that he was exasperated by the dumbing down of his intricate ideas. He had just been the main attraction at a dinner with Hollywood liberals, and he despaired that all they had wanted from him were quick fixes to long-term problems. ''They all just want to know the magic words,'' he told me. ''I say: 'You don't understand, there aren't any magic words. It's about ideas.' But all everyone wants to know is: 'What three words can we use? How do we win the next election?' They don't get it.''” Can you see it this way? Is this a way to get on to talking about new ideas rather than just crafting a sales pitch for the same old stuff? Does talking about basic values move us to a new way of thinking about our problems?

"So if you go on Fox News -- 'fair and balanced' -- two liberals, two conservatives, and one commentator who is asking the questions, and the question is, 'Are you in favor of the President’s tax relief program or are you against it?' -- it doesn’t matter what you say. If you say, 'I’m against tax relief,' you’re still evoking that framing. You’re still in their frame, and all that it automatically brings with it: what kinds of policies are good, who is bad, and so on. That’s how Fox News works. It frames the issues from a conservative perspective. Once the issue is framed, if you accept the framing, if you accept the language, it’s all over." -George Lakoff. What about this? Doesn’t this make debating more difficult? How do you approach understanding a presidential debate with this idea in mind?

To Buddhists, our minds are not simple mirrors that reflect the world. Rather we take part in constructing 'reality'. Has Lakoff essentially taken this view, arriving there though linguistics and cognitive science?

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