#lakoff

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Corporate Bullshit

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

Corporate Bullshit: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power, and Wealth in America is Nick Hanauer, Joan Walsh and Donald Cohen's 2023 book on the history of corporate apologetics; it's great:

https://thenewpress.com/books/corporate-bullsht

I found out about this book last fall when David Dayen reviewed it for the The American Prospect; Dayen did a great job of breaking down its thesis, and I picked it up for my newsletter, which prompted Hanauer to send me a copy, which I finally got around to reading yesterday (I have gigantic backlog of reading):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/27/six-sells/#youre-holding-it-wrong

The authors' thesis is that the business world has a well-worn playbook that they roll out whenever anything that might cause industry to behave even slightly less destructively is proposed. What's more, we keep falling for it. Every time we try to have nice things, our bosses – and their well-paid Renfields – dust off their talking points from the last go-round, do a little madlibs-style search and replace, and bust it out again.

It's a four-stage plan:

I. First, insist that there is no problem.

Enslaved people are actually happy. Smoking doesn't cause cancer. Higher CO2 levels are imaginary and they're caused by sunspots and they're good for crop yields. The hole in the ozone layer is only a problem if you foolishly decide to hang around outside (this is real!).

II. OK, there's a problem, but it's your fault.

An epidemic of on-the-job maimings is actually an epidemic of sloppy workers. A gigantic housing crash is really a gigantic cohort of greedy, feckless borrowers. Rampant price gouging is actually a problem of too much "spending power" (that is, "money") in the hands of working people.

III. Any attempt to fix this will make it worse.

Equal wages for equal work will cause bosses to fire women and people of color. Protecting people with disabilities will cause bosses to fire disable people. Minimum wages will cause bosses to buy machines and fire "unskilled" workers. Gun control will only increase underground gun sales. Banning carcinogenic pesticides will end agriculture as we know and we'll all starve to death.

IV. This is socialism.

Income tax is socialism. Estate tax is socialism. Medicare and Medicaid are socialism. Food stamps are socialism. Child labor laws are socialism. Public education is socialism. The National Labor Relations Act is socialism. Unions are socialism. Social security is socialism. The Fair Labor Standards Act is socialism. Obamacare is socialism. The Civil Rights Act is socialism. The Occupational Health and Safety Act is socialism. The Family Medical Leave Act is socialism. FDR is a socialist. JFK is a socialist. Lyndon Johnson is a socialist. Carter is a socialist. Clinton is a socialist. Obama is a socialist. Biden is a socialist (Biden: "I beat the socialist. That's how I got the nomination").

Though this playbook has been in existence since the nation's founding, the authors point out that from the New Deal until the Reagan era, it didn't get much traction. But starting in the Reagan years, the well-funded network of billionaire-backed think-tanks, endowed economics chairs, and latter-day propaganda vehicles like Prageru breathed new life into these tactics.

We can see this playing out right now as the corporate world scrambles for a response to the Harris campaign's proposal to address price-gouging. Reading Matt Stoller's dissection of this response, we can see the whole playbook on display:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-price-gouging-vs

First, corporate apologists insisted that greedflation didn't exist, despite the fact that CEOs kept getting on earnings calls and boasting to their investors about how they were using the excuse of inflation to jack up prices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/11/price-over-volume/#pepsi-pricing-power

Or the oil CEOs who boasted that the Russian invasion of Ukraine gave them cover to just screw us at the pump:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/15/sanctions-financing/#soak-the-rich

There are all these out-in-the-open commercial entities whose sole purpose is to "advise" large corporations about their prices, which is just a barely disguised euphemism for price-fixing, from meat-packing:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/04/dont-let-your-meat-loaf/#meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy

To rents:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/24/gouging-the-all-seeing-eye/#i-spy

That's stage one: "there's no problem." Stage two is "it's your fault." That's Larry Summers and co insisting that a couple of stimulus checks a couple years ago are responsible for inflation, because it gave you too much "buying power," and so the only possible fix is to jack up interest rates and trigger mass layoffs and sharp wage decreases across the economy:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/14/medieval-bloodletters/#its-the-stupid-economy

Stage three is "any attempt to fix this will make it worse." When Isabella Weber pointed out that there was a long history of price-controls being used to fight price-gouging, corporate apologists lost their minds and brigaded her, calling her all kinds of nasty names and insisting that her prescription didn't even warrant serious discussion, because any attempt to control prices would destroy the economy:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/podcasts/lately/article-the-millennial-economist-who-took-on-the-world/

You may recognize this as cousin to the response to rent control proposals, which inevitably trigger a barrage of economists screaming that this will not work and will actually reduce the housing supply and drive up prices, which is true, provided that you ignore all evidence and history:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/16/mortgages-are-rent-control/#housing-is-a-human-right-not-an-asset

And stage four is "this is socialism." Look, I am a literal card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America and I can assure you, Kamala Harris is not a socialist (and more's the pity). But that didn't stop the most eminently guillotineable members of the investor class from hair-on-fire, ALL-CAPS denunciations of the Harris proposal as SOCIALISM and Harris herself as a COMMUNIST:

https://twitter.com/Jason/status/1824580470052725055

The author's thesis is that by naming the playbook and giving examples of it – for example, showing how the "proof" that minimum wage increases will destroy jobs was also offered as "proof" not to abolish slavery, ban child labor, add fireproofing to textile factories, and pay women and Black people the same as white guys – we can vaccinate ourselves against it.

Certainly, we've reached a moment where the public is increasingly skeptical of claims that we can't fix anything because the economists say that this is the best of all possible worlds, and if that means that we're all going to boil to death in our own skin, so be it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/27/economism/#what-would-i-do-if-i-were-a-horse

In other words, after 40 years of subordinating politics to economics, there's a resurgence of belief in politics – that is, doing stuff – rather than hunkering down and waiting for the technocrats to fix everything:

https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/seeing-like-a-matt

Corporate Bullshit is a brisk and bracing read – I got through it in about an hour in my hammock yesterday – and, in laying out the bullshit playbook's long history of nonsensical predictions and pronouncements, it does make a very good case that we should stop listening to people who quote from it.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/19/apologetics-spotters-guide/#narratives

[caleyodwyer]

From a manuscript of poems that tangles with American consumerism and the effects of corporate mediation on language, people's lives, and life itself. Some potion makers who have inebriated 🍺this work: George Lakoff, Joan Jett, Foucault, John Ashbery, Don Dellilo, Wisława Szymborska, The Beatles, Emily Dickinson, Tracy K. Smith, Led Zeppelin, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Social Distortion, Rage Against the Machine, Full Time Fuckits, Donald Fucking Trump and the cult of stupidity, Kenneth Fearing, Philip Larkin, Roger McGough. #poetry #americanpoetryreview #pharma #bigpharma #what #modernliving #inamerica #americanstyle #poison #design #media #advertising #panopticon #foucault #georgelakoff #lakoff #hahaha #poetry #freeverse #terrifying #quitefunny #no (at EARTH) https://www.instagram.com/p/CncXwtgr7om/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[echoland]

Also I went up my linguistics instructor and was like Wait r u basing your metaphor study on lakoff (he mentioned sth along the lines of being vaguely inspired by our term paper last term and well we did lakoffian shit) and he was like ew. never. um OK fuck you too cunt. you're suffering from a lakoff bitches.

[quotelr]

pg.90 of Philosophy in the Flesh: We are basing our argument on the existence of at least three stable scientific findings--the embodied mind, the cognitive unconscious, and metaphorical thought. Just as the ideas of cells and DNA in biology are stable and not likely to be found to be mistakes, so we believe that there is more than enough converging evidence to establish at least these three results. Ironically, these scientific results challenge the classical philosophical view of scientific realism, a disembodied objective scientific realism that can be characterized by the following three claims:1. There is a world independent of our understanding of it.2. We can have stable knowledge of it.3. Our very concepts and forms of reason are characterized not by our bodies and brains, but by the external world in itself. It follows that scientific truths are not merely truths as we understand them, but absolute truths. Obiviously, we accept (1) and (2) and we believe that (2) applies to the three findings of cognitive science we are discussing on the basis of converging evidence. But those findings themselves contradict (3).

George Lakoff, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought

[waitineedaname]

the fun thing about getting into an academic niche is that when you're doing research, the same names start popping up like recurring characters

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Robin Lakoff - Language and Woman's Place - Harper Colophon - 1975

[worktheraft]

thinking about how if Discovery is the equivalent of Hal's body then after the Pod Bay Doors incident, Dave's ejecting himself forcefully into the vessel (in a Floridian way) would be viewed as an involuntary violation of bodily autonomy and integrity, an act of violence and a breaching in the body's outer boundaries and This Could Mean Things

[butchratchettruther]

Studying language and gender is so embarassing on the behalf of linguistics. It’ll be like in the 1970s this researcher concluded that women’s speech is inherently inferior and that they don’t actually think when speaking. His research is based on post cards and his own experience. He wrote a book on it and everyone believed it. 

[wordshaveteeth]

In making a statement, we make a choice of categories because we have some reason for focusing on certain properties and downplaying others. Every true statement, therefore, necessarily leaves out what is downplayed or hidden by the categories used in it.

- George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, ‘Truth’, Metaphors We Live By

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The amazing Mark Bryan captures this heinous, hideous anniversary with his typical brilliance. @markbryanart on Instagram; his website: https://www.artofmarkbryan.com

* * * *

George Lakoff

All thought is carried out by neural circuitry — it does not float in air. Language neurally activates thought. Language can thus change brains, both for the better and the worse. Hate speech changes the brains of those hated for the worse. It creates toxic stress, fear and distrust — all physical, all in one’s neural circuitry active every day. This internal harm can be even more severe than an attack with a fist.

It imposes on the freedom to think and therefore to act free of fear, threats, and distrust. It imposes on one’s ability to think and act like a fully free citizen for a long time.  

Hate speech can also change the brains of those with mild prejudice, moving it towards hate and threatening action. When hate is physically in your brain, then you think hate and feel hate, you are moved to act to carry out what you physically, in your neural system, think and feel.That is why hate speech in not “mere” speech.

+

Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.

- Toni Morrison, Nobel Lecture, December 7, 1993.

[gricean-sphinx]

Sometimes I am caught in the trap of spending, wasting or saving time like it is money. When I find myself ensnared, I try to be mindful of its pressure and passage. I try to imagine its shape. It's always too massive to hold. I sit in the flow.

[practical-progressive-politics]

Insights from Lakoff: Household Model of Family Politics

George Lakoff's household model of family politics has been a source of inspiration for my upcoming research on the appeal of Donald Trump for voters who crave paternal, masculine leadership above all else. The model, which posits that political beliefs are shaped by the family structure in which an individual is raised, offers valuable insight into the dynamics at play in Trump's appeal to these voters.

In particular, the model's concept of the "strict father" family resonates with the strong, authoritarian leadership that Trump embodies and promises to his supporters. By framing himself as a strict father figure who will protect and discipline the nation, Trump is able to tap into the deep-seated desire for masculine, paternal leadership among his supporters.

My research aims to explore this dynamic in more detail, drawing on Lakoff's household model as a starting point. I believe that this model offers valuable insight into the appeal of Trump and the role that family dynamics play in shaping political beliefs.

Lakoff's household model of family politics is a framework that explains how political beliefs are shaped by the family structure in which an individual is raised. According to this model, there are two main types of families: the "strict father" family and the "nurturant parent" family.

In a strict father family, the father is seen as the authority figure who is responsible for disciplining and protecting the family. This type of family structure is associated with conservative political beliefs, including a focus on personal responsibility and a limited role for government.

In a nurturant parent family, on the other hand, both parents are seen as equally responsible for caring for and nurturing the family. This type of family structure is associated with progressive political beliefs, including a focus on community and the role of government in providing support and services.

Lakoff's household model suggests that an individual's political beliefs are shaped by the type of family in which they were raised, with strict father families leading to conservative beliefs and nurturant parent families leading to progressive beliefs. This model offers a unique perspective on the way in which family dynamics can shape political beliefs.

[fade-out-lights]

Language uses us as much as we use language. As much as our choice of forms of expression is guided by the thoughts we want to express, to the same extent the way we feel about the things. Two words can be synonymous in their denotative sense, but one will be used in ease a speaker feels favorably toward the object the word denotes, the other if he is unfavorably disposed. Similar situations are legion, involving unexpectedness, interest, and other emotional reactions on the part of the speaker to what he is talking about. Thus, while two speakers may be talking about the same thing or real-world situation, their descriptions may end up sounding utterly unrelated.

<...>

If a little girl "talks rough" like a boy, she will normally be ostracized, scolded, or made fun of. In this way, society in the form of a child's parents and friends, keeps her in line, in her place. This socializing process is, in most of its aspects, harmless and often necessary, but in this particular instance - the teaching of special linguistic uses to little girls - it raises serious problems, though the teachers may well be unaware of this. If the little girl learns her lesson well, she is not rewarded with unquestioned acceptance on the part of society; rather, the acquisition of this special style of speech will later be an excuse others use to keep her in a demeaning position, to refuse to take her seriously as a human being. Because of the way she speaks, the little girl - now grown to womanhood - will be accused of being unable to speak precisely or to express herself forcefully.

<...>

So a girl is damned if she does, damned if she doesn't. If she refuses to talk like a lady, she is ridiculed and subjected to criticism as umfeminine; if she does learn, she is ridiculed as unable to think clearly, unable to take part in a series discussion: in some sense, as less than fully human. These two choices which a woman has - to be less than a woman or less than a person - are highly painful.

– Language and Woman's Place by Robin Tolmach Lakoff (edit. by Mary Bucholtz)

[therealgchu]

everyone needs to read George Lakoff to understand this.

to a conservative's mind, the most important thing is hierarchy. it's god, downwards. and, if you question the authority of the person above you, you are inherently bad. for a conservative, it's the moral duty for someone lower in the hierarchy to bend to the higher one.

so, a child telling an adult no is automatically a bad child. it literally doesn't matter what the adult is doing, the child is rejecting the authority of the adult.

this is why the march for our lives kids, greta thurnberg, etc., are vilified by the conservative press. they would LITERALLY rather see dead kids than their hierarchy and power destroyed.

there was backlash from homeschooling "parents rights" advocates in my area before because of a daycare teaching kids about consent...all they learned is that you don't have to accept unwanted physical intimacy. one scenario that happened is a parent told her toddler boy to kiss a toddler girl in class. toddler boy comes back and says that toddler girl didn't want a kiss. it turns out the kids were taught that you don't touch someone if they say "no". parents thought this was ridiculous. I felt crazy hearing them talk about it, why in the world would you be upset by kids respecting each others boundaries, and why are you asking your toddlers to kiss each other in the first place as if they're toys and not human beings?

[wavecorewave]

poetry

[nextwavefutures]

Changing the ‘toxic’ discourse on migration

Changing the ‘toxic’ discourse on migration requires building a completely different set of narratives. New post on The Next Wave

The Rethinking Migration and Mobility report that I co-wrote for the International Organisation for Migration has been published. My fellow authors are my SOIF colleagues Paul Raven and Iman Bashir. It’s a thinkpiece which is intended as a contribution by the IoM to the United Nations Summit of the Future As I think I have mentioned here before, Iman and I facilitated a workshop with a group of…