I have an allegedly forthcoming essay in Reason that started out as a joint review of George Lakoff and Geoffrey Nunberg’s new books. It transmuted into an account of the political upshot of Jonathan Haidt’s work in moral psychology as an alternative to the semi-useless framing and narrative stuff. So, while I’m talking about Lakoff, here’s a few paragraphs that dropped out as the focus changed.
“If Americans are to hold on to freedom as they grew up with it, as they have come to know and love it,” says a very alarmed Lakoff, “then they have to understand that there is a radically different and frightening notion of what extremists on the right call ‘freedom’ shaping our culture and political life. You can’t stop it if you don’t see it.” Lakoff calls for the liberating “higher rationality” only Lakoff’s theories of “conceptual metaphor” make possible.
To Nunberg’s credit, Nunberg and Lakoff have some sharp differences. Lakoff’s argument builds on yet another exposition of his intriguingly comprehensive armchair theory of a metaphor-saturated mind and his astoundingly empirically ill-supported conjecture that at some deep, unconscious level we all understand the nation-state (a form of social organization about as primordial as barometers and pendulum clocks) as a family. Lakoff’s upshot is that the split between the left and the right boils down to differences in ideal parenting style. Nunberg rightly calls bullshit and accuses Lakoff of making stuff up and projecting his pet presuppositions about conservatives and liberals into the mind. Nunberg notes there are lots of metaphors for the state—a ship adrift, an actor on the world stage, a city on a hill, a house with crumbling foundations—and there is simply no reason to think one of them structures our political thought. We should all thank Nunberg for suggesting that there is no thread, metaphorical or logical, that runs through the contingently evolving packages of partisan commitment. Decision: Nunberg!
However, their mutual quest to assuage Democratic disappointment through linguistic therapy overshadows their intramural differences. Squint and the pair look like low-octane liberal versions of communist philosophers Georg Lukacs and Antonio Gramsci, who in the 1920s sought an explanation of Marx’s failed forecast that the working class would “inevitably” rise in revolt against its capitalist masters. Their answer was that the workers couldn’t think straight, so thoroughly had the capitalists bewitched them. Through “hegemonic” control of popular mass media, state propaganda, and devious marketing, the capitalists made the proletarians frame their interests in the favored terms of the enemy—to develop a “false consciousness” that kept them complacent, commodified cogs in the machine, unable to see and unwilling to fight for their true good. Likewise, Nunberg and Lakoff argue that if it wasn’t for the malign right-wing mental framework so many of us somehow got stuck with, voters would be falling over themselves to pull the lever for Democrats.
[...]
Lakoff and Nunberg’s projects are largely animated by smug confidence that their university-issue leftism delivers the hard truth about the American system. “True, people aren’t compelled by law to accept the jobs Wal-Mart offers them—they’re legally free to take a couple of weeks in Gstaad or go sleep under a culvert, ” Nunberg writes, ridiculing the freedom of contract. Both assume that unless Washington guarantees the worth of our freedoms through large-scale regulation and aggressive redistribution, the liberal ideal of equal freedom will be empty—a cruel joke. Setting aside his aspirational cognitive science, that’s the tired philosophical core of Lakoff’s attempt to recapture the concept of “freedom” for the left.
And in an yet earlier version, I expanded on the the essentially anti-empirical character of Lakoff and Nunberg’s politics. (Sorry for redundancy from bits that carried over between drafts.)
Nunberg and Lakoff are wholehearted adherents to what Brown political theorist John Tomasi calls the “myth of modern liberalism”: since classical market liberalism does not include government guarantees of material sufficiency, freedoms of contract and secure property are merely formal; unless Washington ensures the fair value of our freedoms through regulation and redistribution, the liberal ideal of equal freedom will be empty—a cruel joke.
Yet whether government attempts to guarantee sufficiency do more than relatively unfettered markets for the value of our freedoms is an empirical question about the best institutional means to shared liberal ends. Classical liberals (and that dying breed, the classical liberal conservative) have almost always defended the market on those terms, in reference to its benefits for everyone, including the least advantaged. Lakoff and Nunberg don’t even engage that debate; their dogma precludes the existence of a question. But the same fight over the best means to liberals occurs in miniature among welfare-liberals, as illustrated by the recent Slate punch-up over the effects of Wal-Mart on the working poor between NYU economist Jason Furman and Nickel & Dimed author Barbara Ehrenreich. Furman, defending Wal-Mart, calmly devastated Ehrenreich because he actually knew something about markets in general and Wal-Mart’s impact in particular. Lakoff and Nunberg don’t engage the intramural welfare-liberal debate, either. They’re basically pop-socialist Ehrenriechs with linguistics Ph.Ds. Perhaps it is worth pointing out that bad social science is not exactly a problem of framing, rhetoric, or narrative.
Clearly, I was not impressed by the books.
Excellent rebuttal. I’m not good at that sort of thing, as the leftist argument that historically conceived, negative freedoms are not freedoms at all, and massive state regulating and structuring of every private moment is the only way to achieve “real” freedoms always just sets off my 1984-doublespeak button, and I turn as twitchy and incoherent as if someone punched me in the face and told me that by doing so they were expressing friendship.
It’s good to see that someone else can remain calm and point out crisply just details of how the argument is defective.
Excellent rebuttal. I’m not good at that sort of thing, as the leftist argument that historically conceived, negative freedoms are not freedoms at all, and massive state regulating and structuring of every private moment is the only way to achieve “real” freedoms always just sets off my 1984-doublespeak button, and I turn as twitchy and incoherent as if someone punched me in the face and told me that by doing so they were expressing friendship.
It’s good to see that someone else can remain calm and point out crisply just details of how the argument is defective.
I’ll be looking forward to the piece on Haidt’s work. I’ve actually been developing some experiments on moral psychology that were influenced by Haidt’s work (and that of others doing similar stuff), so I’ve been really into the literature lately. It’s nice to see people outside of the field taking it seriously.
I’ll be looking forward to the piece on Haidt’s work. I’ve actually been developing some experiments on moral psychology that were influenced by Haidt’s work (and that of others doing similar stuff), so I’ve been really into the literature lately. It’s nice to see people outside of the field taking it seriously.
I’ve often wondered whether the rise of Lakoff had more to do with his ‘tactics’ or just the desperate need of the Democratic Party establishment to glom on to a strategy that doesn’t involve facing the reality that so many of their ideas are dated, tired, and wrong in the eyes of a critical mass of the American electorate, with their only hopes of power coming from the Republicans behaving so badly that the vital center feels obliged to vote contra.
In Pinker’s review he sounds less like a libertarian to me and more like a Clintoninte Democrat, reflecting the usual exasperation of Democratic centrists with a graying establishment that can’t see past their own 60s nostalgia and accept the empirical results of the last 30 years.
Lakoff’s original set of theories are awfully good, and supported heavily by those who advocate a selectionist view of neuroembrology, neurodevelopment, and consciousness. In fact, if one were to take Gerald Edelman’s TNGS and ask, what would our concepts be like in practice if his and, to pick one other, Esther Thelen’s ideas were true, one would basically bump into Lakoff and Johnson’s theories. In my opinion the smart money for the neurological future is on the selectionists — I’ve certainly based my on method of therapy on it, as well as presentations I give on the subject.
Unfortunately Lakoff has taken a hazy, armchair approach to applying these ideas to political theory and made a “run for the end zone” of glory that sells his original insights short and will probably ultimately discredit him. On the other hand, I’m sure Paul Krugman, who pulled the same trick, still gets to go to all the best cocktail parties.
I’ve often wondered whether the rise of Lakoff had more to do with his ‘tactics’ or just the desperate need of the Democratic Party establishment to glom on to a strategy that doesn’t involve facing the reality that so many of their ideas are dated, tired, and wrong in the eyes of a critical mass of the American electorate, with their only hopes of power coming from the Republicans behaving so badly that the vital center feels obliged to vote contra.
In Pinker’s review he sounds less like a libertarian to me and more like a Clintoninte Democrat, reflecting the usual exasperation of Democratic centrists with a graying establishment that can’t see past their own 60s nostalgia and accept the empirical results of the last 30 years.
Lakoff’s original set of theories are awfully good, and supported heavily by those who advocate a selectionist view of neuroembrology, neurodevelopment, and consciousness. In fact, if one were to take Gerald Edelman’s TNGS and ask, what would our concepts be like in practice if his and, to pick one other, Esther Thelen’s ideas were true, one would basically bump into Lakoff and Johnson’s theories. In my opinion the smart money for the neurological future is on the selectionists — I’ve certainly based my on method of therapy on it, as well as presentations I give on the subject.
Unfortunately Lakoff has taken a hazy, armchair approach to applying these ideas to political theory and made a “run for the end zone” of glory that sells his original insights short and will probably ultimately discredit him. On the other hand, I’m sure Paul Krugman, who pulled the same trick, still gets to go to all the best cocktail parties.
At first glance of your commentary, I was solidly impressed with your rebuttal. However, after reviewing Lakoff’s rebuttal to Pinker’s criticisms, I find myself less impressed with your commentary.
Let’s dissect what you have to say:
“Lakoff’s argument builds on yet another exposition of his intriguingly comprehensive armchair theory of a metaphor-saturated mind”
I do believe that what you say hear rings a bit shrill at best. Lakoff’s arguments stand on atleast well respected premises in terms of the two schools of thought of cognitive science theory. He mentions this in his rebuttal about classifying the old school of thought like Descartes’ 17th Century rationalism to the newer school, …”The new view is that reason is embodied in a nontrivial way. The brain gives rise to thought in the form of conceptual frames, image-schemas, prototypes, conceptual metaphors, and conceptual blends. The process of thinking is not algorithmic symbol manipulation, but rather neural computation, using brain mechanisms.”
Certainly there is disagreement in the cognitive science school of thought, but it doesn’t necessarily weaken his premise, nor does it make it “empirically ill-supported”. This is a theoretical discussion that atleast merits a bit more cogent criticism.
Later in your criticism, you compare Lakoff and Nunberg to “low-octane liberal versions of communist philosophers Georg Lukacs and Antonio Gramsci”.
Again, this seems pretty shrill. I would argue that your criticism hear is a better example of “empirically ill-supported” logic than is Lakoff’s extrapolation of his own theories.
Not very impressive.
At first glance of your commentary, I was solidly impressed with your rebuttal. However, after reviewing Lakoff’s rebuttal to Pinker’s criticisms, I find myself less impressed with your commentary.
Let’s dissect what you have to say:
“Lakoff’s argument builds on yet another exposition of his intriguingly comprehensive armchair theory of a metaphor-saturated mind”
I do believe that what you say hear rings a bit shrill at best. Lakoff’s arguments stand on atleast well respected premises in terms of the two schools of thought of cognitive science theory. He mentions this in his rebuttal about classifying the old school of thought like Descartes’ 17th Century rationalism to the newer school, …”The new view is that reason is embodied in a nontrivial way. The brain gives rise to thought in the form of conceptual frames, image-schemas, prototypes, conceptual metaphors, and conceptual blends. The process of thinking is not algorithmic symbol manipulation, but rather neural computation, using brain mechanisms.”
Certainly there is disagreement in the cognitive science school of thought, but it doesn’t necessarily weaken his premise, nor does it make it “empirically ill-supported”. This is a theoretical discussion that atleast merits a bit more cogent criticism.
Later in your criticism, you compare Lakoff and Nunberg to “low-octane liberal versions of communist philosophers Georg Lukacs and Antonio Gramsci”.
Again, this seems pretty shrill. I would argue that your criticism hear is a better example of “empirically ill-supported” logic than is Lakoff’s extrapolation of his own theories.
Not very impressive.
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