An Exclusive Interview with Dr. George Lakoff

[The Bastard1]

On July 14th I had the honor of interviewing Dr. George Lakoff about his new book, Whose Freedom?: The Battle over America’s Most Important Idea. A follow up to his last book, Don’t Think of an Elephant, Dr. Lakoff’s new book offers insights into why progressives seem to be losing their version of America. The book also suggests ways to fight back and reclaim the notion of freedom, and the country as a whole, for traditional American values.

It was clear that Dr. Lakoff was excited to get his message out to the blogs. When I told him I was nervous he immediately rejected my claim to be “only a blogger.” We discussed the role of language and ideas in forming our ideologies, his favorite Democrat Barak Obama, and the role of blogs in our national identity. Dr. Lakoff has an important contribution to make to the progressive movement and his ideas should inform the progressive blogosphere as it struggles to protect America from the regressive conservativism of today’s Republicans.

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[NewJeffCT]

1. thanks

replying now so I can read when I get home from work tonight.

[The Bastard1]

2. No problem

This is our first attempt at "citizen journalism" so I'm hoping people will recommend it.

[rock]

3. Everything is metaphor

Metaphorically speaking. Is that the same Dr. Lakoff?

[Laotra]

4. It's semantics ;)

I think that is a metaphor of Dr. Lakoff.

Seriously speaking, he is in fact brillian linguist and philosopher, "Woman, Fire and Dangerous Things" is a classic. IMO in their shared academic field Lakoff beats Chomsky, easily. And it is interesting to note that the two leading "leftist" intellectuals in US are linguists.

[Laotra]

5. Thanks

Great interview! I liked especially this part:

"GL: Actually, Don’t Think of an Elephant has a whole chapter at the end of the book about how to do this. Imagine your uncle who is very conservative is coming to dinner. What do you say to him? The first thing to do is to avoid getting into a big argument. Instead, ask him what he cares about. The reason you do this is that progressive thought is based on empathy. That is, caring about things. And when he tells you, because there probably are things that he cares about, ask him how he expresses his responsibility for acting on that care. How does he do it? What does he do? If he has any progressive values then he cares about things and is responsible. Ask him whether he’s proud of that, whether there are other friends who do the same thing, and what else he cares about. Get him talking about what he cares about. Get him talking in terms of your value system. Find the nurturant part of him and get him talking about it. And stop.

Don’t try and make the jump . Try and get an understanding that on those issues you’re just as moral a person as he is or she is and that you respect them in those areas. And if they want to talk about the ways you differ, say that you want to talk about the ways that we’re the same. I’d rather talk about the ways that we both share American values."


Words of wisdom also for the Israel-Palestine debates...

[cally]

6. K R