A new way of thinking

The political mind: Why you can’t understand 21st-century American politics with an 18th century brain, by George Lakoff

Book review by Kathie Malley-Morrison and Sarah Bleicher, student of linguistics and international studies at Boston College. (Sarah took Psychology of War and Peace with Kathie Malley-Morrison at Boston University this summer.)

Upon reading the introduction of George Lakoff’s The Political Mind, one may feel that brainwashing will ensue. Lakoff calls for a “New Enlightenment,” a new way of thinking, and for “changing minds.”

He explains how the brain shapes the political mind, how politics challenge the 21st century mind, and how old ways of thinking left over from the Enlightenment era are used—ineffectively—by neoliberals who think you can change people’s thinking by presenting them with facts.

In this book, Lakoff cites a number of  studies in support of his argument that human beings are emotional in ways that affect how they think about issues of values and morality. He argues that the combination of particular emotions with particular ideas can create synaptic bonds in the brain that in turn shape responses to those ideas and similar ideas.

According to Lakoff, human beings are not completely rational, and ideas with a strong emotional component (e.g., the extent to which wars are necessary and can be won) are influenced not just by information but by how they are framed, the language in which they are embedded, and the effects of that language on the brain.

This book provides a rich perspective on how cognitive science, politics, language, and experiences in the family and the broader society all work together in ways that can have a fundamental influence on political thought. Lakoff’s theories are mostly directed at helping progressives argue and debate more effectively in trying to counter the messages of conservatives; however, I think many of Lakoff’s ideas can be used to promote peace and a better world.

Specifically, I think we should consider the applications of his theories to peace building and peace education. Lakoff is quite convincing in his arguments concerning the tactics used by conservatives to influence political thinking; why shouldn’t peace educators use similar principles in framing the values of peace in a way that will energize people to work for peace?

Kathie Malley-Morrison and Sarah Bleicher

Ecological approach to studying peace and war

It is unlikely that the human capacity for inhumanity can ever be adequately explained by any one theory. We believe that all behavior is multi-determined—that is, many forces at a variety of levels contribute to any one type of behavior, including aggression.

We subscribe to what has been called an ecological approach to understanding complex behaviors. This approach involves constructs reflecting different contexts that influence individuals and are in turn influenced by those individuals. That set of constructs includes: the macrosystem, the exosystem, the microsystem, and the individual.

For example, an individual’s concerns about “national security” are influenced by:

  • The values and mass media positions of the society at large (the macrosystem)
  • The views expressed in places of worship, neighborhood, and more local media (the exosystem)
  • Lessons promulgated within the home and family (the microsystem)

Moreover, individuals bring to all of their interactions their own genetic heritage and the results of their personal experiences, beginning in the womb. Sometimes that heritage and those experiences can lead individuals to behave in ways that change the microsystem, or the exosystem, or the macrosystem. Think of Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King.

Consider also your own views on national security, on torture, on terrorism. How many influences on those views, at what levels of experience, can you identify?

In our next post, we start considering psychological theories that focus on thoughts and emotions that individuals bring to their interactions, as well as the thoughts and emotions they carry away from those interactions.

Individuals’ tendencies to incorporate ideas from the different environments in which they grow and to which they adapt can lead to a great deal of ingroup and outgroup thinking that can provide a basis for enduring conflict.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology