Don't think of an elephant! or our American democracy as built upon mutual care, shared responsibility and trust.

Yesterday I randomly picked up a copy of George Lakoff's book "don't think of an elephant! - know your values and frame the debate, the essential guide for progressives" at the used book sale during my daughter's school faire. I haven't been able to put it down since. What a stroke of ironic luck! (the event at which I happened to pick up the book was a fundraiser for our local public school - more on the Privatization of our "Public" school system in another post.)

Not only did I devour the book, but over the past 24 hours, I've also read, or at least scanned through, a whole bunch of his other writings and blog posts. If you want to get a good taste of his political perspective click here to read his July 2011 article "Why Democracy Is Public: The American Dream Beats the Nightmare" or read his April 2007 article "Progressive Taxation: Some Hidden Truths" or click on the picture of the book or here to read about the book.

The basic idea, from this UC Berkeley Cognitive Science Linguist turned political thought leader, is that progressives are, and will continue to, loose the hearts and minds of the American public if we don't start strategically re-framing the political debate back on our own terms. We must stop defensively arguing against conservative republican frames, since using their language only serves to reinforce their frame, and start creating language to activate political support for core progressive values - mutual care, shared responsibility, and trust.

From his research on metaphor and language he, points out that both parties use the "Family" as metaphor for our nation. Conservative republicans believe in a "Strict Father" model while progressives believe in a "Nurturing Parent" model. All our differences in values, language and public policy derive from these differing world views.

This reading has triggered many ideas and connections to other topics I've been thinking and reading about lately. So stay tuned for more to come on Progressive Taxation, Tragedy of the Commons and Misguided Progressive Philanthropy, In Defense of Personhood, The Privatization of our Public Schools and much much more....