George Lakoff.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth
• Position: THE PROGRESSIVE INTERVIEW - Interview

George Lakoff is the nation's leading expert on linguistic "framing" in politics. The author of Don't Think of an Elephant! The Political Mind, and Whose Freedom? he advises Democrats and progressives on how to recapture the rhetorical high ground by speaking in the emotionally resonant language of values.

I spoke with Lakoff while he was in Wisconsin in March to help progressives here create what he calls the Wisconsin Progressive Freedom Project.

Lakoff followed the Wisconsin uprising from his home in Berkeley, where he is a distinguished professor of cognitive science and linguistics.

"I was really inspired by the protest movement at the capitol," he says. "I wrote a piece about it on my blog, and apparently it was printed out and posted on the capitol wall, which won my heart."

In Wisconsin and around the globe, progressives are up against what Lakoff calls "the conservative communication system."

"I've been fighting that system for fifteen years," Lakoff says. "Most people don't even know that it exists."

"When Republicans went to college and studied business, they took a course in marketing and found out how people really think," he adds.

Progressives need to take a lesson from that, he says. So when a group of Wisconsinites from labor, environmental, and civil rights groups approached Lakoff, he happily began working with them to try to help frame a cohesive, winning message.

I spoke with him while he was in the midst of a series of workshops and lectures. We sat down for more than an hour at a lunch table in the cafeteria at Wisconsin Heights High School in Mazomanie, where the Wisconsin Grassroots Network was holding its annual festival. He talked about his theories, about Democratic "wimpiness," about his classic idea that the conservative "strict father" family values clash with the progressive "nurturing parent" worldview, and, with tears in his eyes, about his own father and how his parents shaped his view of life.

Lakoff exudes warmth. He cracks jokes, listens deeply, and answers questions thoughtfully and with respect. I watched him handle agitated questioners gently and with great good humor. In that way, he seems to embody his own political philosophy--that by thinking about our common values, which are progressive, optimistic, and humane, we can bring out the best in each other and forge a more hopeful future.

Q: Listening to you I hear this very appealing message about a less harsh view of the world. It seems a lot of people might be open to that, particularly as they imagine themselves falling on hard times.

George Lakoff: Well it's not just as they imagine themselves falling on hard times. Right now, people are afraid of a lot of things, if not for themselves then for their kids, and for the world, and for their communities. The fears are real. Fear is a huge motivator.

But hope is a stronger motivator than fear. Obama understood that. So the question is, where do you give the hope? The answer is you explain what the other side has done, and that you can do it better.

See, people think it's all the Koch Brothers. It's not all the Koch Brothers. The Koch Brothers could have all the money they want. If they don't have their spokespeople, they've got nothing. Right?

You've got tens of thousands of people going into the Kochs' leadership institute every year, and then going out and being spokespeople. They do it through individual people. Progressives don't appreciate how much conservatives have used individual people.

Q: How do you think your work in Wisconsin is going?

Lakoff: It is wonderful, first of all, to see people getting it. It is so much better here than in Congress. Look, I mean, I love the people in Congress. But a lot of them don't get it. They're educated with Enlightenment reason. They want to talk about the facts. They're very good at it. They are good at it every day of their lives. And they just don't get the problem with it.

Q: There's almost a snowball effect as the Right sets the terms of debate, in that the worse the problem is, the more people hesitate...