NASCAR as an example of a meritocracy with equal opportunity for all. While frequently maligned for it's relatively primitive technology (excluding safety ), the total lack of mechanical resemblance (other than appearance) of the "stock" cars to the brand they represent, soap-opera-slash-professional wrestling story lines, and being ripe political target for both the right and the left as well as marketers, it is a strong cultural force. The entrance of Toyota (likely to surpass GM as #2 US automaker in the near-future) into NASCAR (with the hopes of "winning on Sunday and selling on Monday" in the heartland) and the cheating scandal currently unravelling highlight an important concept woven into NASCAR's culture. [more]
posted on Feb 15, 2007 - View this thread

George Lakoff responds to Steven Pinker’s review of Whose Freedom?. Highlights include charges of deception and incompetence on both sides.
posted on Oct 27, 2006 - View this thread

Lakoff say - mellow frames sooth savage Thanksgiving : The guru of framing offers a handy free excerpt from his all-the-rage book, just in time to defuse tense Thanksgiving dinner situations ( All fall asleep - Lakoff or the turkey ? ). Says Penny Kolb, on the practical magic of Lakoff's approach : "....By last night, the chat room was civil. An amazing (to me) number of posters turned off their capitalization and we were actually having conversations."
posted on Nov 23, 2004 - View this thread

David Neiwert writes a thoughtful piece about how utterly corrupt the press is and adds to the long running mefi discussion about why "framing" works for conservatives: "But even beyond the bias is the way this framing really corrupts and trivializes the national debate, so that we find ourselves constantly arguing about the "morality" or "character" of politicians, an issue that is by nature a product of spin and propagandizing. This has never been more clear than in the current election, when the "character" of a pampered fraternity party boy who couldn't be bothered to serve out his term in the National Guard and who went on to fail miserably at every business venture he touched is successfully depicted as that of a sincere and patriotic regular guy, while that of a three-time Purple Heart winner who voluntarily left Yale to serve in Vietnam, and whose ensuing three decades of public service have been a model of principle and consistency, is somehow depicted as belonging to a spineless elitist."
posted on May 8, 2004 - View this thread

George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics "Why do conservatives appear to be so much better at framing? - Because they've put billions of dollars into it. Over the last 30 years their think tanks have made a heavy investment in ideas and in language. In 1970, [Supreme Court Justice] Lewis Powell wrote a fateful memo to the National Chamber of Commerce....He outlined the whole thing in 1970. They set up the Heritage Foundation in 1973" "So if you go on Fox News....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..."

"George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics and cognitive science at the University of California Berkeley, is a specialist in the technique of "framing," a communication tool that creates a "frame" for a message that defines the terms of the debate." (Interview with Lakoff )
posted on Jan 14, 2004 - View this thread

Conservatives and Liberals obviously think differently. Here's how. George Lakoff, a highly respected linguist and author of Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know and Liberals Don't is tipping. Why? Part of it is that while Lakoff is obviously a Liberal, he's one of the few around to have taken the time to understand that Conservatives, too, have a coherent worldview. He's then added to that, er, insight his neuroscientific understanding of the power of metaphor in human communication. He's getting mad buzz right now, I just heard him lecture, and folks, Conservative or Liberal, this guy's ideas are worth exploring.
posted on Mar 19, 2003 - View this thread