Your Brain's Politics

George Lakoff is well known for his work on metaphors, and in this seminal dialogue he explains his ideas with great clarity, forging important links between neuroscience and politics in the process. His starting point is that we necessarily reason in metaphors and that metaphoric thought is unconscious as well as being culturally conditioned: 'metaphors structure our everyday cognition, our perception of reality.' For instance, we associate more with up this with down, sometimes also using North and South in the same way. There are also many metaphors associated with love: partnership, becoming one, love or affection as warmth. As one reads, one becomes increasingly aware of the power of metaphor and hence of Lakoff's argument.

One of his central contentions is that two idealised family models are translated into politics: the strict disciplinarian father associated with Republican conservatism, and the nurturing and empathetic parent linked to Democratic liberalism. These frames have very different political implications and sometimes we waver between the two. Those strongly committed to one side or the other are unlikely to appreciate the strengths of the other position and it seems that conservatives are better at communicating their moral values than liberals. For conservatives, toleration might be interpreted as moral weakness. The psychology of gun control also makes perfect sense within this metaphorical understanding. Interestingly, Reagan's emphasis on values was much more persuasive than his policies. These metaphors can also be used to frame political debate and appeal to the pre-existing frames within ourselves. Frames are defined as cognitive configurations that structure our world knowledge and make sense of information. In the context of science and parapsychology, the materialist frame is unable to accommodate these phenomena. In addition, negating a frame activates that frame. Sometimes, frames have very different implications as with the word contested concept of freedom, often used in inaugural speeches. This book is a very accessible introduction to these important ideas.