I have always liked the ways George kicks up conversation and thinking about important language and the way audiences hear and process campaigns. In this video, he presents his current thinking on the Google campus.
George describes his job "to make the unconscious conscious and give language to it. We start with the understanding that people all want to make sense and our job is to tease out the undelying moral constructions that enable the arguments to make sense. "
It is then possible for the rest of us to find ways to adjust ourt work to transmit across that undelying structure, run new messages with different outcomes across that same mental pathways. It is our job to find competeing and compelling underlying structures that we can use to move progressive issue campaigns more effectively.
I find him very interesting but difficult to listen to (or read). It is really important to filter through the stuff the talks about that he know little about (political process, national power stuggles, the power of the conservative message machine, etc.etc.) However, It is really great to dig in and find the few and powerful lessons all of us can use. There is so much that he really throws at you (his personal opinions non research findings, current political debates, etc) that it hides what he does know. He really knows language and conitive science and explains it better than anyone else.
I find his points about the following most useful and supported by my experience and other folks I respect (like andy goodman's work on stories.)
* Cognitive pathways and linguistic development structure the way all of us process input.
* we process most information unconsciously.
* the universal ability of reason was the foundation of democracy but the view of the mind in the enlightenment was wrong. Thought is emotional, pure logic is not the way people think.
* the way the brain and body are structured influence the very thoughts we have. Structure dictates thoughts.
* We form the key metaphors we use to make sense of the world all start to get formed and circuits in our heads by the age of 7. Example "adding is up" "decline is down" learned from the way we add water to a glass. There really is no reason that adding up arrow but everywhere that metaphor is reinforced in so many ways.
* Hearing messages enough creates a physical change in the brain. Synapses created become a normal path in the brain.
* Looking back in time in literature, history and political discourse ...the really good metaphors have existed forever and across many cultures.
In the last 16 minutes he gets into the Q&A with the Googlers and it really gets interesting and different from his books and other riffs.
Are the right people listening? Ten years of work where are the ideas being picked up. Senate candidates are picking up better frames. Lakoff takes a small bit of the frames for Tester and Webb. The Wolfblitzer ...CNN ..Barac Obama ...attack the questions. The liberals are starting to get that the questions frames possible outcomes.
In the last five minutes he riffs on windows of opportunity to drive environmentalism, social safety nets and penatrate mega churches. It is worth looking more into his work on these subjects if you work on these areas.
It is great stuff. George contributes to the movement in very unique ways and hopefully, more of the distributed voices out there down message work (all of us) can leverage his gifts.
