The political mind pdf

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Salvage 9. The Death of Common Sense. Philip K. But if there is one lesson Lakoff wished to tell throughout it is that the world of political action must transcend the rational man: it must be as large as the human imagination itself. Unfortunately, his analysis fails to reach this height.

His scientific investigation is tainted with bombast while his attempt at metaphorical reconstruction adopts the very structures he wishes to eliminate.

In the end, the political mind of Lakoff seems immutable and his capacity for empathy for those who disagree leaves a lot to be desired.

Sep 15, Abhijit Ray rated it it was amazing. Anyone who is willing to question their views on politics, no matter the country, should read this. Such an eye opener! All scientific, and brilliantly written. I will admit, I did feel that the author was pushing his views on the reader at first, but as one progresses through the book and understand the context and the part of history he is writing from, one does realise his absolute views.

But the best part is one does not have to agree with it. Read it, and form your own views of society in g Anyone who is willing to question their views on politics, no matter the country, should read this. Read it, and form your own views of society in general, as well as politics, while tearing away all the unconscious thoughts that you might have collected over the years.

Jun 06, Hakan Jackson rated it really liked it. The book was a bit dated being written back in We get to read about a simpler time when everyone thought Karl Rove was a genius and America was in disbelief in have George W Bush as president.

It's still relevant with today's politics. Though it would really help if this book got an update in both the politics and the social science.

Jul 10, Ken Horkavy rated it it was amazing. George Lakoff's; The Political Mind. The most important book on politics over the last 20 years. Progressive's unite and read this treatise on how to take back our democracy. View 1 comment. Dec 25, Laura rated it liked it Shelves: psychology , being-human , history , government , politics , civilization. He equates hierarchy, punishment, discipline. I liked it. The idea that metaphors are ultimately physical he suggests we say a loving person is warm because we remember being cuddled; we say prices are rising because we saw water rising is a little beyond my competence.

But the basic notion that 18th century nation building had a certain conception of the human mind that has not stood the test of time — that seems dead on to me.

That the republicans figured out how to take advantage of that before the democrats? Yeah, probably. That the reason some folks freaked out about gay marriage had to do with the threat to their own identity? Is he right in a deep level? Sep 11, Steven Peterson rated it liked it. This is one of those books that sets off conflicting emotions and thoughts. The application of knowledge of the brain sciences to political debate is absolutely fascinating, and much good information is presented.

Another part of the thesis--that "progressives" or liberals use an "Enlightenment" model of discourse emphasizing the use of logic and reason to advance their points whereas conservatives use a more powerful approach, wedding emotion to thought. Hence, conservatives have an advantage This is one of those books that sets off conflicting emotions and thoughts. Hence, conservatives have an advantage over liberals, because their view of "human nature" is more accurate. The book shows that Lakoff is fully able to wed the study of cognition with our knowledge of the brain.

This part of his analysis is very readable and provides lots of information. I must say, though, that the liberal versus conservative thesis is improbable. There are plenty of liberals who use emotional appeals Teddy Kennedy when given a script could raise goose bumps ; there are Republicans who are professorial and more Enlightenment oriented, speaking to logic and reason e. Enlightenment thinkers were not abstract thinkers devoid of passion.

The attack on Enlightenment thinking has been ongoing over a long period of time, and much of this debate is missing from Lakoff's discussion read Derrida, for example, who engaged in a one person Postmodern assault on Enlightenment thought. Still the book is useful by providing entree to a fascinating literature on human cognition and the brain. Mar 31, David Robins added it. This book is a poisonous screed. I felt sick to my stomach reading it. I had hoped to learn something from what the author had to say about how the brain works, but there was so much propaganda, lies, leaps of illogic, and smug assumption of unsupported and unsupportable statist political theories that I couldn't get through it.

It presents the state as the only moral agent and individual rights as worthless except to be subverted. American history is rewritten from whole cloth on every page. Som This book is a poisonous screed.

Some of the few good things are the concepts of framing, some examination of metaphor e. The fact that people don't act rationally, however, is a powerful indictment against democracy or any sort of system where the choices of the masses legitimize violence controlled by the few. A massive false dichotomy permeates the book, itself composed of two straw men: "progressive" morality is about empathy and responsibility, conservative morality is about authority.

Of course, both are about authority, historically "progressives" have authored the most rigidly and disastrously authoritarian regimes, and it is neither empathic nor responsible to bribe the irresponsible with other people's money.

Furthermore, no room at all is left for individual freedom - libertarians, voluntaryists, anarchists, and small Rantings of a flaming liberal. I didn't expect this to be an agenda-driven book. I've finished two chapters, and I guess since he's addressing a liberal readership he doesn't feel much of a need to defend his beliefs.

Plus he doesn't believe in the universality of logic outdated, First Enlightenment assumption he thus doesn't use logic to make his case, he just structures the debate in his own favor.

So he is practicing what he is preaching. He cherry-picks Adam Smith he is the revisionist, no Rantings of a flaming liberal.

He cherry-picks Adam Smith he is the revisionist, not Burke and criticizes the only progressive who hasn't been a wuss, Bill Clinton, incorrectly NAFTA did include labor and environmental standards.

I hope in the remaining chapters I can learn something useful about cognitive science. Dec 10, Katie rated it liked it Shelves: nonfiction , politics , audio-book , My sad and depressing takeaway is that conservatives are much more effective at messaging. I read this book at the exact moment the Democratic speaker of the house has drawn up articles of impeachment on one of the most controversial wasn't that generous of me? I can't argue with it. This book was written a lifet My sad and depressing takeaway is that conservatives are much more effective at messaging.

This book was written a lifetime 11 years ago, juuuuust before the rise of the Tea Party, which likely gave way to our current situation. It's a strange, strange time capsule and quite disorienting for anyone trying to make sense of our current state. Wow, I wish everyone in the country could read this book. Some of it I'll admit got a little Charlie Brown adult voice on me game theory, and Chomsky's linguistics.

But truly, I think this is the key to saving our Democracy. Reframing and not hiding from the progressive values of empathy and empowerment. Amazing stuff. I loved learning a Wow, I wish everyone in the country could read this book. I loved learning about the brain functions, though some of it was pretty complicated. I liked it when he gave examples followed by the "of course, this is greatly oversimplified" apology. Those always made sense.

May 17, Julie rated it it was amazing. You know, I think I lost this book. It's either on an airplane or in my childhood bedroom in MN where I spent a night in April. Oh well, I hope someone else reads it because it was great! It was helpful for understanding how and why people vote the way they do often against their own economic interests. I studied metaphor in professional writing for part of my thesis, and this book helped me understand how metaphor works at t You know, I think I lost this book.

I studied metaphor in professional writing for part of my thesis, and this book helped me understand how metaphor works at the cognitive level in the brain. Fascinating stuff. Oct 16, Martin Smrek rated it it was ok Shelves: communication , campaigning , politics.

There are couple of useful parts dealing with framing, metaphores and naratives, that could basically fit into one or two chapters.

The rest is a neverending rant about conservatives. In the end, the book feels more like a partisan opinion piece. Jan 10, serprex rated it it was ok. Friend suggested I read this. While I disagree with the author's attempts at rebuking the use of game theory in economics, it was otherwise an insightful read Friend suggested I read this.

While I disagree with the author's attempts at rebuking the use of game theory in economics, it was otherwise an insightful read Aug 01, Jonathan Tweet rated it liked it.

Great work connecting modern brain science to human political behavior. Jan 24, Nathan Albright rated it did not like it Shelves: challenge This book is worth reading, if at all, mainly for the way in which it demonstrates the rank hypocrisy of the left and the prostitution of science, history, and everything else for leftist political aims that passes for woke writing.

This book was written in the immediate aftermath of Obama's victory and it reads like the author was of the belief that the victory of Obama heralded a triumph of progressive politics over Enlightenment liberalism or conservatism.

Rarely has a book so demonstrated This book is worth reading, if at all, mainly for the way in which it demonstrates the rank hypocrisy of the left and the prostitution of science, history, and everything else for leftist political aims that passes for woke writing.

Rarely has a book so demonstrated the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of its author and simultaneously discredited the point of view that the author was trying to promote. To be sure, the author was certainly not intending this to be the case. He probably meant the book to be encouraging to fellow Progressive activists in encouraging them to frame political matters for their own political advantage while demonizing supposedly radical conservatives for having the gall to undo progressive gains of the past, as if that was a horrifying thing.

The book though, demonstrates that it is Democrats who deny reality and seek to reframe it away when it does not please them and that all of the accusations that the author makes against conservatives are the regular way that leftists operate, and that all of the restraint and decorum that the author claims for the left is in fact the regular behavior of most conservatives, except perhaps for book reviewers.

This book is almost pages long and is divided into three parts and eighteen chapters along with other material. The author reflects upon the limits of the plasticity of the brain and social change in an introduction after the preface. The first part of the book looks at how the brain shapes the political mind I in four chapters that deal with the various narratives that Anna Nicole Smith could fit 1 , the political unconscious that hinders rationality 2 , the brain's role in family matters 3 , and the brain's role in political ideologies 4.

The third part of the book then discusses the technical as the political III , with chapters on the exploration of the political brain 13 , the problem of self-interest 14 , metaphors and rational action 15 , the success of hawks 16 , the brain's language 17 , and the author's ideas on the new enlightenment 18 and expectations of success, after which there are the usual acknowledgements, notes, and an index.

This book is a fascinating game of opposites. Where the author refers to the leftist family as nurturing and leftist values as life-affirming, one looks in vain for the lack of nurturing that results from the abuse that leftist thinking inflicts on children and the lack of stability that results from leftist models of relationships tied to emotionality, to say nothing of the life-affirming nature of abortion or the gulag or laogai.

The author repeatedly claims that leftists are empathetic of others who are suffering and claims this as an aspect of superiority for leftists over conservatives, forgetting that empathy requires people having experienced what others have, something that is quite notably absent from most of the coercive politics of dependence that leftists demonstrate.

The fact that the author is rampantly biased only makes this particular book all the more entertaining because it shows the way that bias is a bad thing when one is writing books of science.

The author should stick to writing agenda pieces for appreciative leftist hack editorials rather than trying to write books that purport to be nonfiction. Jan 20, Patrick rated it liked it. This book should have gone with a different title. The final three chapters could have easily been extracted and made into a quick pamphlet and nothing would have been lost. As a linguist, Lakoff offers an interesting and fruitful approach to the way in which we cognize our political affiliations and related questions.

However, if you are interested in reading about some of the fundamental neurological underpinnings of political cognition then this is not the book for you.

Lakoff's work with res This book should have gone with a different title. Lakoff's work with respect to the ways in which metaphors shape and color our understanding is of great value, however, in my view, he fails to justify the first one hundred and ninety pages.

While his writing is entertaining and lucid, I was disappointed with his substantive argument as well as his failure to explicate much of scientific evidence he introduces if he even went that far.

The first third of this book reads like a progressive manifesto rather than an explanatory model. Many of the ideas propagated and introduced throughout seem like tautological accounts of well understood psychological phenomenon. And yes, I checked the publication date. For example, while discussing how individuals can hold mutually inconsistent worldviews, a phenomenon he refers to as "biconceptualism" and "mutual inhibition," he fails to even mention Leon Festinger's name much less his well known cognitive dissonance theory.

He then proceeds to "introduce" the idea that progressives can be authoritarian and hierarchical, much like the conservative he not so subtly castigates throughout speaking as a liberal myself. This would be news, if not for Felicia Pratto's work on Social Dominance Orientation and while he does, however briefly, mention Theodor Adorno authoritarian personality in the latter third of the book his cursory mention is easily overlooked.

All in all, I would recommend reading this book because there is some valuable information in it but I must follow this recommendation with a warning that the title is in no way indicative of what is actually written in the book.

Jan 31, Scott rated it it was amazing. This book really exposed me to some interesting and new ideas, which is precisely what I was looking for. And that was mostly designed to impose monogamy, although some societies also allowed polygamy. Thus, instincts and intellect issue two opposite commands and that renders humans as the only species that is sexually confused. This inner contradiction often leads to infidelity that severely affects the committed relationships among many couples.

The same phenomenon also creates a fascinating psychology of its own what is commonly known sexual fantasy. Through this people in the privacy of their mind and in their imagination practice polygamy without committing adultery that partially satisfies both realms of the mind. This is perhaps the leading division within the psychological study of politics today. Political Psychology: Situations, Individuals, and Cases, 2nd edition, provides a concise, readable, and conceptually organized introduction to the topic of political psychology by examining this very question.

Using this situationism--dispositionism framework—which roughly parallels the concerns of social and cognitive psychology—this book focuses on such key explanatory mechanisms as behaviorism, obedience, personality, groupthink, cognition, affect, emotion, and neuroscience to explore topics ranging from voting behavior and racism to terrorism and international relations.

The new edition includes a new chapter on the psychology of the media and communication. Houghton has also updated the text to analyze recent political events such as the election, and to include up-and-coming research in the areas of neuroscience, behavioral economics, and more.

Houghton's clear and engaging examples directly challenge students to place themselves in both real and hypothetical situations which involve intense moral and political dilemmas. This highly readable text will provide students with the conceptual foundation they need to make sense of the rapidly changing and increasingly important field of political psychology. The collapse should also put an end to the principle that we should "Let the market decide"-in other words, that the market is the ultimate arbiter of what is economically right and wrong, and hence of the arbiter of who is worthy of economlc reward and punishment.

These are not just bad ideas about market economics. They are central to radical conservative thought. These ideas have led to disaster. The main battlefield is the brain. At stake is what America is to be. Their goal is to radically change America to fit the conser- vative moral world view. The threat is to democracy and all that goes with it. Not just here, but wherever American influence extends. American values are fundamentally progressive, centered on equality, human rights, social responsibility, and the inclusion of all.

Yet progressives have, without knowing why, given con- servatives an enormous advantage in the culture war. The future of democracy is at stake, now. Social change is material who controls what wealth , insti- tutional who runs what powerful institutions , and political who wins elections. But the main battlefield of the culture war is the brain, especially how the brain functions below the level of consciousness. As the cognitive and brain sciences have been show- ing, this is a false view of reason.

Oddly enough, this matters. It may sound like an academic issue, but this assumption about the nature of reason has stood in the way of an effective progressive defense and advancement of democracy. Progressives have ceded the political mind to radical conservatives. This book addresses the problem in three parts: Part I is an introduction to the basic ideas, about the mind and the brain on the one hand, about largely unconscious modes of political thought on the other, and about how they are inextricably linked.

Part II begins an application of these ideas; it provides ele- ments for using them. Part III turns to technical issues, the role of experts and their effect on our politics. We look at developments in the cognitive and brain sciences, how they are changing our understanding of technical fields like economics, international relations, evolution, and linguistics, and why those changes matter for politics.

How to Use This Book This book has two uses: first, to give the reader a deeper under- standing of our political life, and second, to make progressive political advocacy more effective. Both require utilizing the new knowledge gained over the past thirty years about how the braip. It includes information about yourself that you have no direct access to and don't even know is there, even though it governs how you think, talk, and act.

This book is about modes of thought and how they are carried out. Individuals are complicated, and commonly use more than one mode of thought. Please do not confuse labels with modes of thought. People who call themselves "conservatives" may use progressive modes of thought in certain issue areas. Similarly, do not confuse party identifications with modes of thought.

I am interested in pointing out modes of thought and their consequences, not in putting people in boxes by party affiliation. The science of mind has lit up a vast landscape of unconscious thought-the 98 percent of thinking your brain does that you're not aware of.!

Most of it matters for politics. The mind that we cannot see plays an enormous role in how our country is governed. However, most of us have inherited a theory of mind dating back at least to the Enlightenment, namely, that reason is con- scious, literal, logical, unemotional, disembodied, universal, and functions to serve our interests.

This theory of human reason has been shown to be false in every particular, but it persists. In many aspects of life this may not matter. For this reason it is urgent that we come to understand how the brain and the mind really work, especially when the subject matter is politics.

Cognitive science provides a lens on the political mind that you don't get in the daily papers or on TV or from your friends and neighbors. I hope to bring out into the open invisible aspects of social, and political thought, while giving you some sense of the science of mind that reveals it. In addition to being a cognitive scientist, I am also a con- cerned citizen of the United States, deeply loyal to its progressive democratic ideals.

Those ideals are currently being threatened. To preserve them, we need to understand our politics as well as possible. I hope this book can not only help, but serve as a guide, and not just a guide to understanding politics, but to engaging in it effectively.

Why the Mind? We usually parse politics into economics, power, social organiza- tion-we weigh the history of all these components. As central- as they are to politics, our understanding of them depends on how we think. We have to consider the mind as a factor-or actor-in politics. But that is the academic reason for looking at the political mind. There is an immediate compelling reason. Our democracy is in danger. That danger has its roots in money, power, social structure, and history, but its ultimate source is in the brains of our citizens.

The divide is located in our brains-in the ways Americans understand the world. There we find two competing modes of thought that lead to contradic- tory ways of governing our country, one fundamentally demo- cratic and one fundamentally antidemocratic. But unconscious modes of thought are not visible to the naked eye, and so they have thus far gone undiscussed in public discourse, despite their central role.

Most of us have within us versions of both modes of thought, which we each use differently in various aspects of our lives. But the anti- democratic mode of thought-better funded, better organized, and more thoroughly worked out-has been winning and funda- mentally changing how our lives are governed.

Unfortunately, the full nature of the threat and what we can do about it are not widely understood. What divides them? What do they believe anyway? Why are conservatives so much better at getting their ideas across? Why haven't Democrats been able to accomplish more since they took over control of Congress in ? Why do poor conservatives vote against their interests?

Why hasn't democratic populism worked? Now that the public sees global warming as real; why isn't it given a much higher priority? Why do Democratic candi- dates come out with a list of detailed programs, while Republi- cans don't?

The intention of this book is to answer these and scores of similar questions. I'm looking for a deeper explanation. Why did progressives not build think tanks like conser- vatives or invest in media the same way? They have just as much money. It's been a decade since progressives became aware of the major role of the conservative think tanks, message machine, and media control.

Why has so little been done to build effec- tive progressive institutions in these areas? It is not lack of money or resources. What is missing is least visible: the role of the human brain and the mind. What is it about our minds that led to our recent political his- tory, to the one-sidedness of those institutions, and to the way in which class, race, and gender have functioned? What is it about human brains that have led us to think as we do? And ultimately, how can knowledge about the brain and the mind'help to enact political change?

That is the task of this book. America was formed in the eighteenth century on grand prin- ciples deriving from the Enlightenment.

The central idea was uni- versal reason, the notion that there is one and only one form of rationality and that that is what makes us human.

It is no accident that Al Gore's blistering critique of the Bush administration is called The Assault on Reason and that Robert Reich's criticism of radical conservatism is called Reason.

These ideals were triumphs of the Enlightenment that made American democracy possible in the eighteenth century. We need them more than ever today. There is a problem with the Enlightenment, though, and it lies not in its ideals, but in the eighteenth-century view of reason.

If this were right, politics would be universally rational. If the people are made aware of the facts and figures, they should naturally reason to the right conclusion. Voters should vote their interests; they should calculate which policies and pro- grams are in their best interests, and vote for the candidates who advocate those policies and programs.

But voters don't behave that way. They vote against their obvious self-interest; they allow bias, prejudice, and emotion to guide their decisions; they argue madly about values, priorities, and goals. Or they quietly reach conclusions independent of their interests without consciously knowing why. Enlightenment reason does not account for real political behavior because the Enlightenment view of reason is false. Take the old dichotomy between reason and emotion.

The old view saw reason and emotion as opposites, with emotion getting in the way of reason. Instead, reason requires emotion. People with brain damage that makes them inca- pable of experiencing emotion or detecting it in others simply can- not function rationally. They cannot feel what deCisions will make" them-or anyone else-happy or unhappy, satisfied or anxious. In the political arena, D"rew Westen has shown in The Politi- cal Brain that emotion is both central and legitimate in politi- cal persuasion.

Its use is not an illicit appeal to irrationality, as Enlightenment thought would have it. The proper emotions are rational. It is rational to be outraged by torture, or by corruption, or by character assassination, or by lies that lead to thousands of deaths. But if you stop at conscious reason and emotion, you miss the main event. Most reason is unconscious! It doesn't look anything like Enlightenment reason.

And virtually all of it matters for politics. You think with your brain. You have no other choice. Though we may sometimes wonder what part of their anatomy certain politi- cal leaders think with, the fact is that they too think with their brains.

Thought-all thought-is brain activity. Of course, you have no direct way of inspecting how your hrain works. Direct introspection-just thinking about your brain-will not tell you about synapses and axons and cell bod- ies and dendrites, nor will it tell you what goes on where in your brain, much less how those synapses, axons, and so on give rise to thought.

We know that we do not know our own brains. On the other hand, most of us think we know our own minds. This is because we engage in conscious thought, and it fills much of our waking life. But what most people are not aware of, and are sometimes shocked to discover, is that most of our thought- an estimated 98 percentis not conscious. It is below the level of consciousness. It is what our brains are doing that we cannot see or hear.

It is called'the cognitive unconscious, and the sci- entific' evidence for its existence and for many of its properties is overwhelming. Unconscious thought is reflexive-automatic, uncontrolled. Think of the knee reflex, what your leg does when the doctor taps your knee. Conscious thought is reflective, like looking at yourself in a mirror.

As a result, your brain makes deci- sions for you that you are not consciously aware of. Your brain runs your body. It extends down through the spinal cord and out, via neural coq,nections, spreading through- out your body.

The very structure of your brain has evolved over eons to run your body. It runs your automatic functions-your heart pumps without your commanding it; you train it when you learn to read, play the banjo, or play shortstop. It should come as no surprise then that the ideas that our embodied brains come up with depend in large measure on the peculiarities of human anatomy in general and on the way we; as human beings, function on our planet and with each other.

Morality and politics are embodied ideas, not abstract ones, and they mostly function in the cognitive unconscious-in what your brain is doing that you cannot see. Why does the embodiment of mind matter for politics? There are three reasons, none of them obvious. First, what our embodied brains are doing below the level of consciousness affects our morality and our politics-as well as just about every aspect of oursodal and personal lives-in ways we are all too often not aware of.

Deft politicians as well as savvy marketers take advantage of our ignorance of our own minds to appeal to the subconscious level. Meanwhile, honest and ethical political leaders, journalists, and social activists, usually unaware of the hidden workings of the mind, fail to use what is known about the mind in.

Second, the forms of unconscious reason used in morality aI! We cannot just change our moral and political worldviews at will. It is this that ultimately determines what morality and politics should be about.

This is how reason really works. It is the opposite of what most of us were brought up to believe. We have reached a point where our democracy is in mortal danger-as is the very livability of our planet.

We can no longer put off an understanding of how the brain and the unconscious mind both contribute to these problems and how they may pro- vide solutions. If you believe in the eighteenth-century view of the mind, you will look and act wimpy.

You will think that all you need to do is give people the facts and the figures and they will teach the right con- clusion. You will,think that all you need to do is point out where their interests lie, and they will act politically to maximize them. You will believe in polling and focus groups: you will believe that if YOll ask people what their interests are, they will be aware of them and will tell you, and will vote on it. You will not have any need to appeal to emotion-indeed, to do so would be wrong!

You will not have to speak of values; facts and figt. You will not have to change people's brains; their reason should be enough. You will not have to frame the facts; they will speak for themselves, You just have to get the facts to them: 47 million without health care; top 1 percent receiving tax breaks; no WMDs; ice caps' melting.

Your opponents are not bad people; they just need to see the light. Those who won't vote your way are mostly just ignorant; they need to be told the facts. Or they're greedy, or corrupt, or being duped. If you believe in the eighteenth-century view of the mind, you will believe something Hke this, and you will be dead wrong!

You will be ineffective. In a word, wimpy. Yet those Democrats who believe in Enlightenment reason don't think of themselves as wimpy at all. They see themselves as upholding the Enlightenment democratic ideal as' commit- ted to facts, truth, and logic, and to informing those ignorant of the facts.

They see facts as nonpartisan and the basis for biparti- san agreement. To hold yourself back, from offending those you, need to educate, you will say, takes strength.

To keep stating, the facts and figures over and over takes endurance and it does : it is anything but wimpy from the perspective of Enlightenment reason. Republicans operate under no such constraints and have a better sense of how brains and minds work. That's why they are more effective. Why didn't the Democrats accomplish more right after the elections that gave them control of Congress? It wasn't just that they didn't have votes to override a presidential veto or block a filibuster.

They didn't use their mandate to sub- stantially change how the public-and the media-thought about issues. They just tried to be rational, to devise programs to fit people's interests and the polls. Because there was little under- standing of the brain, there was no campaign to change brains.

Indeed, the very idea of "changing brains" sounds a little sinister to progressives-a kind of Frankenstein image comes to mind.

It sounds Machiavellian to liberals, like what the Republicans do. But "changing minds" in any deep way always requires changing brains. Once you understand a bit more about how brains work, you will understand that politics is very much about changing brains-and that it can be highly moral and not the least bit sin- ister or underhanded.

It's fashionable among progressives to wonder why so many "red state'" voters don't vote in their own economic interests. To ask why John Edwards's economic popu- lism doesn? People are not eighteenth-century reason machines. Real reason works differently. Reason matters, and we have to understand how it really works. A great deal of the political strife in America and elsewhere stems from the cognitive unconscious of individual citizens.

Yet while politics is on the front page of our newspapers, the results of cognitive science tend to be relegated to the weekly science pages, if they are made public at all. In this book, the neuroscience and cognitive science are brought to the front page, where the politics is.

You are about to glimpse the operations of the political mind. The question to ask, as you discover the depths of your own mind, is what to do with this new knowledge. We need a new, updated Enlightenment. The twenty-fIrst-century view of the mind allows one to see what a New Enlightenment would be like. But we know so much more now than in the eighteenth century about what it means to be human, and what challenges.

Our Constitution is in large part based on the intellectual tools and ideas inherited by its framers from Enlight- enment thinkers. Those tools and ideas are no longer adequate. They b. We have new wonders to discover, new dreams to dream. But they require an understanding of what contemporary brain science has taught us about who we are and how we think. We will need to embrace a deep rationality that can. A New Enlightenment would not abandon reason, but rather understand that we are using real reason-embodied reason,.

And as a guide to our own minds, especially in politics, we will need some help from the cognitive sciences-from neuroscience, neural computation, cognitive lin- guistics, cognitive and developmental psychology, and so on.

We will further need a new philosophy-a new understanding of what it means to be a human being; of what morality is and where it comes from; of economics, religion, politics, and nature itself; and even of what science, philosophy, and mathematics really are. We will have to expand our understanding of the great ideas: freedom, equality, fairness, progress, even happiness. And subtlest of all, we in. There is a reality, and we are part of it, and the way we under- stand reality is itself real.

The brain is not neutral; it is not a general-purpose device. It comes with a structure, and our understanding of the world is limited to what our brains can make sense of. Some of our thought is literal-framing our experience directly. But much of it is metaphoric and symbolic, structuring our experience indirectly but no less powerfully.

Some of our mechanisms of understand- ing are the same around the world. But many are not, not even in our own country and culture. Our brains and minds work to impose a specific understand- ing on reality, and coming to grips with that can be scary, that not everyone understands reality in the same way.

That fear has major political consequences. Since the brain mechanisms for understanding reality are mostly unconscious, an understanding of understanding itself becomes a political necessity. Since language is used for communicating thought, Our view of language must also reflect our new understanding of the nature of thought. Language is at once a surface phenomenon and a source of power. Words are defined relative to frames and conceptual metaphors.

Language "fits reality" to the extent that it fits our body-and-brain-based understanding of that reality. Since we all have similar bodies and brains and live in the same world, it will appear in many cases that language just fits reality directly. But when our understandings of reality differ, what language means to us may differ as well, often radically.

In politics that happens so often that we have to pay close attention to the use of language. Language gets its power because it is defined relative to frames, prototypes, metaphors, narratives, images, and emotions. Part of its power comes from its unconscious aspects: we are not con- sciously aware of all that it evokes in us, but it is there, hidden, ahyays at work. If we hear the same language over and over, we will think more and more in terms of the frames and metaphors activated by that language.

And it doesn't matter if you are negat- ing words or questioning them, the same frames and metaphors will be activated and hence strengthened. Language uses symbols. Language is a tool, an instrument- but it is the surface, not the soul, of the brain. I want us to look beneath language. New curtains won't save your house Hthe foundation is cracking.

The Old Enlightenment view of reason is not suffidentf r understanding our politics. Indeed, it gets in the way. The Old Enlightenment has run its course. A New Enlightenment is upon us, ready or not. The first step is understanding and embrac- ing the twenty-first-century mind.

It's the only one we've got. Most of us have very little idea of what scientists have discovered about how our own minds and brains work-especially the. Do we have free will?

Well, I can freely choose to take a sip from the tea in my teacup There, I just took one. Can I freely choose to think just any thought? OI1ly if my brain is structured to make sense of that thought. Can I freely choose not to think certain thoughts when cer- tain words are used and when my brain is tuned to activate those thoughts?

We may have no choice. Cut and run. Can you not think cowardice? This book is devoted to the democratization of knowledge, to bringing to a wide audience those grand new discoveries about our own minds that are crucial in understanding how our 'poli- tics works. What is at stake is the deepest form of freedom, the freedom to control our own minds.

To do that, we must make the unconscious conscious. Part I consists of the basics, enough about the brain and the mind to sketch simply how political thought works. Jlodes of thought arise via widespread commonplace metaphors, and how the meta- phors themselves arise via natural brain processes.