The ALL NEW Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate by George Lakoff Page B
Authors: George Lakoff
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would undermine the idea promulgated by pundits on the right that pensions are pay for not working.
So why can people perceive an important truth on a topic crucial to them, a truth that needs to be out in public, and not say it, not make it part of their everyday discourse?
The reason is that just telling someone something usually does not make it a neural circuit that they use every day or even a neural circuit that fits easily into their pre-existing brain circuitry—the neural circuits that define their previous understandings and forms of discourse.
It is difficult to say things that you are not sure the public is ready to hear, to say things that have not been said hundreds of times before.
As noted in chapter 1, this problem has a name—hypocognition—the lack of the overall neural circuitry that makes common sense of the idea and that fits the forms of communication that one normally engages in, the things you are ready to say and that the people you speak to are ready to hear.
Slogans can’t overcome hypocognition. Only sustained public discussion has a chance. And that takes knowledge of the problem and a large-scale serious commitment to work for a change.
Several important issues that confront us right now—from global warming to the wealth gap and beyond—demand this kind of sustained discussion and commitment. I am offering this section of the book in the hope that various readers will take on the various tasks of working to provide frames—that is, automatic, effortless, everyday modes of understanding that we desperately need.
★ 3 ★
Reflexivity: The Brain and the World
Y ou might think that the world exists independently of how we understand it. You would be mistaken.
Our understanding of the world is part of the world—a physical part of the world. Our conceptual framings exist in physical neural circuitry in our brains, largely below the level of conscious awareness, and they define and limit how we understand the world, and so they affect our actions in the world. The world is thus, in many ways, a reflection of how we frame it and act on those frames, creating a world in significant part framed by our actions. Accordingly, the frame-inherent world, structured by our framed actions, reinforces those frames and recreates those frames in others as they are born, grow, and mature in such a world.
This phenomenon is called reflexivity. The world reflects our understandings through our actions, and our understandings reflect the world shaped by the frame-informed actions of ourselves and others.
To function effectively in the world it helps to be aware of reflexivity. It helps to be aware of what frames have shaped and are still shaping reality if you are going to intervene to make the world a better place.
Reflexivity just is. In itself, it is neither a good nor bad thing. It can be either.
Framing 102 is about how reflexivity can be used for the good, at least for the good of most people, most living things, and for the beauty and bounty of the physical world that supports all life.
In all too many cases, new frames—new forms of understanding—are required to comprehend the world so as to take advantage of reflexivity and make it a better place. This is especially true when the issues confronting us, and needing framing, are complex and systemic—like global warming, the wealth gap, and many other issues that have risen to great importance over the last decade.
Let us proceed.
★ 4 ★
Systemic Causation
S tudying cognitive linguistics has its uses.
Every language in the world has in its grammar a way to express direct causation. No language in the world has in its grammar a way to express systemic causation.
What’s the difference between direct and systemic causation?
From infanthood on we experience simple, direct causation. We see direct causation all around us: if we push a toy, it topples over; if our mother turns a knob on the oven, flames emerge. Picking up a
So why can people perceive an important truth on a topic crucial to them, a truth that needs to be out in public, and not say it, not make it part of their everyday discourse?
The reason is that just telling someone something usually does not make it a neural circuit that they use every day or even a neural circuit that fits easily into their pre-existing brain circuitry—the neural circuits that define their previous understandings and forms of discourse.
It is difficult to say things that you are not sure the public is ready to hear, to say things that have not been said hundreds of times before.
As noted in chapter 1, this problem has a name—hypocognition—the lack of the overall neural circuitry that makes common sense of the idea and that fits the forms of communication that one normally engages in, the things you are ready to say and that the people you speak to are ready to hear.
Slogans can’t overcome hypocognition. Only sustained public discussion has a chance. And that takes knowledge of the problem and a large-scale serious commitment to work for a change.
Several important issues that confront us right now—from global warming to the wealth gap and beyond—demand this kind of sustained discussion and commitment. I am offering this section of the book in the hope that various readers will take on the various tasks of working to provide frames—that is, automatic, effortless, everyday modes of understanding that we desperately need.
★ 3 ★
Reflexivity: The Brain and the World
Y ou might think that the world exists independently of how we understand it. You would be mistaken.
Our understanding of the world is part of the world—a physical part of the world. Our conceptual framings exist in physical neural circuitry in our brains, largely below the level of conscious awareness, and they define and limit how we understand the world, and so they affect our actions in the world. The world is thus, in many ways, a reflection of how we frame it and act on those frames, creating a world in significant part framed by our actions. Accordingly, the frame-inherent world, structured by our framed actions, reinforces those frames and recreates those frames in others as they are born, grow, and mature in such a world.
This phenomenon is called reflexivity. The world reflects our understandings through our actions, and our understandings reflect the world shaped by the frame-informed actions of ourselves and others.
To function effectively in the world it helps to be aware of reflexivity. It helps to be aware of what frames have shaped and are still shaping reality if you are going to intervene to make the world a better place.
Reflexivity just is. In itself, it is neither a good nor bad thing. It can be either.
Framing 102 is about how reflexivity can be used for the good, at least for the good of most people, most living things, and for the beauty and bounty of the physical world that supports all life.
In all too many cases, new frames—new forms of understanding—are required to comprehend the world so as to take advantage of reflexivity and make it a better place. This is especially true when the issues confronting us, and needing framing, are complex and systemic—like global warming, the wealth gap, and many other issues that have risen to great importance over the last decade.
Let us proceed.
★ 4 ★
Systemic Causation
S tudying cognitive linguistics has its uses.
Every language in the world has in its grammar a way to express direct causation. No language in the world has in its grammar a way to express systemic causation.
What’s the difference between direct and systemic causation?
From infanthood on we experience simple, direct causation. We see direct causation all around us: if we push a toy, it topples over; if our mother turns a knob on the oven, flames emerge. Picking up a
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