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5 de Marzo, 2008
The Cognitive and The Material
Categorized under Corazón , Derechos Humanos , Frontera , Raza | Tags: borders, Clinton, FEMA, Format, Hope, Immigration, Material and Cognitive, migra, Migrant farmers, Obama, Wiretapping
INTERESTING and insightful article on messaging, power, voters, public discourse, and political agendas.
There are two kinds of policy: cognitive and material. Material policies are familiar: they outline what is to be done in the world. For example, the details of a health care plan, or a plan for getting out of Iraq. Material policies each have a cognitive dimension, often unconscious and implicit. This includes the ideas, frames, values, and modes of thought that inform the political understanding of the material policy. For example, consider the following questions: Do all Americans, just by their very existence, deserve health care, just as they deserve police protection? How does health care differ from health insurance? How these questions are answered plays a crucial role in what the material details of health care policy should be. [...]But there is a deeper aspect to cognitive policy—general cognitive policy: strategies for getting high-level ideas—values, frames and principles—to dominate public discourse and shape public understanding so that future material policies will be natural and win public support with ease.
Conservative think tanks, over the past three decades, have been extremely successful in pure cognitive policy, that is, in shaping public discourse to lead the public to accept basic conservative values and principles. That long-term investment has paid off in making material conservative policies seem natural, for example, massive tax cuts for the wealthy, the pre-emptive invasion of a country that hadn’t threatened us, defunding such federal agencies as FEMA and the FDA, and government spying on US citizens. [...]
This can be seen in the Endangered Species Act (ESA). It was based on the fundamental progressive values of empathy and responsibility: empathy with all forms of life, a sense of their inherent worth, and a responsibility for maintaining them and the habitats they depend on. The material policy had specific cognitive dimensions: (1) an understanding of the human activities that place species in jeopardy and of the role of habitat protection in species protection, (2) an understanding of how government agencies could play an effective role, and (3) a legal strategy based on the Constitution’s interstate commerce clause to give the federal government not only the authority, but the responsibility, for protecting endangered species and their habitats.
—Why Voters Aren't Motivated by a Laundry List of Positions on Issues
As we've had made painfully clear to us for too long now, the Left is running around reacting and no longer trusts progressive visions enough to forward them boldly and unapologetically and borne on their own volition and timing. While the Right has had the patience and vision and tenacity and fearlessness (I'm being generous) to build (often preposterous) Cognitive landscapes in which to forward their (Material) agendas, the Left oddly remains caught up in parrying the burrs and low-flying shrapnel and bark peeling off of those landscapes. It's been noted online in many places before, and it still baffles the mind. However, the mind is not baffled (or ought not be) when someone like Barack Obama comes along and does some Cognitive work, and people RESPOND.
(And what does the Old Clinton Machine do? It takes up the Right's weapons, the Conservative Cognitive scaffolding already erected against the Left, and resurrects it to slam Obama's new Cognitive-heavy platforms...because its been effective at winning. Sigh. And who loses? Because in doing this, the Clintons are working against the Left actually being progressive. Eh. But enough of the stinking and sweating horses for now!)
This Cognitive/Material paradigm that Joe Brewer and George Lakoff use can be applied to a topic I approach often, the "Immigration Issue" and partially explain why I (and many others) feel it is so important to remember and underline the humane imperative. There are definitely times that require the recitation of much of the material information (i.e., data, stats) but we need to bring the conversation back, time and time again, to the idea that the human rights, the kindness, the empathy and the chances we would want for ourselves and our children should also be given to other people. We call migrants names to paint them as criminals and thus view them through the lens of our general judicial and punitive ethnofrantic lens, but they are suffering and hoping, just like you and me. If we do not recognize such hunger and ambition and need, then there is no such thing as America, and there never was. The choice is ours, and we still have time and opportunity to be a great and generous People acting on vision, not reacting to fear.
I feel it is in these earthy and immediate and rather obvious truths that we can find the peace for which our strained and tense nation yearns. It is in these small, still, cognitive spaces that our core American values can again take root and bloom, if at all.
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Comentarios (11)
Katie dijo:
For you, Nezua. One witty-word-spinning Obama-supporting foreign policy blogger for another.
A link to a link, sort of, but also perhaps quoting the best of the meat.
(I'd avoid clicking on Lynch's link to the Washington Post so they don't think they get a lot of site hits on that editorial.)
Palabras por Katie spat forth on el 5 de Marzo, 2008 at 08:17 AM
nezua
dijo:
thank you! funny stuff.
when was it these people got so scared of obama? when they saw he was not a joke, and that massive amounts of people were mobilizing to support him? somewhere around there. suddenly its obama the muslim america hating manchurian from all these wierdos. you want to know where i have little hope? in those types of people ever contributing anything worthy to our political condition.
Palabras por nezua
spat forth on el 5 de Marzo, 2008 at 08:32 AM
M
dijo:
Thank you for sharing this article. I'm counting it among a few other great articles that have cropped up from this political climate that I've enjoyed.
Transforming the Liberal Checklist
Why Latinos and Asians Went for Hillary (namely the political analysis of emergent and insurgent voting)
But I like when political analysis...actually analyzes politics and not what people wear, etc. Y'know?
Palabras por M
spat forth on el 5 de Marzo, 2008 at 09:15 AM
Pat Logan dijo:
Great article, Nez.
I still think you should run for something in 2012. Assuming whatever transitions the Aztecs had in mind go well, that is. LOL
Palabras por Pat Logan spat forth on el 5 de Marzo, 2008 at 12:04 PM
yeeeaaahhhh dijo:
Awesome post. Without passing judgement on whether it's a "good" tactic (I can appreciate the outcome without blessing the method), you've certainly hit the nail on the head vis-a-vis Obama's appeal.
Palabras por yeeeaaahhhh spat forth on el 5 de Marzo, 2008 at 08:50 PM
servetus dijo:
excellent post. May I elaborate? That I sense that while the Left no longer trusts progressive vision, it is equally hampered by its worries about what it thinks of as an acceptable solution to any problem even in those rare moments when it trusts its progressivism? This is what makes it so hard to vote for the Democratic Party at the moment for anyone who wants to change things but hesitates to vote for any of the third party options because they are out of government. So we have proposals to solve the health care problem that emphasize more strongly how they will not harm people who don't want them over the fact that they will improve the quality of life for millions. Why has the left been so afraid just to come out and say, "your America is not fair"? Or that the Left has moved so closely to the center on cultural issues that a sort of weak libertarianism ("leave people to do what they want") predominates over an honest, open defense of liberty?
Palabras por servetus spat forth on el 6 de Marzo, 2008 at 02:12 AM
Elizabeth dijo:
THANK YOU! Thank you so much. I get it now. I must be the thickest skulled person out there. I come from a family of those New York Latinos that voted for Clinton for many reasons - but I will support Obama if he wins the nomination. I spent all of last night chatting with my friends who are supporting Obama trying to "get it." Because I really, really didn't. I'm a huge wonk. I studied public policy in grad school and I wish some of the material had been more like that article. I needed to read this today. Gracias.
Palabras por Elizabeth spat forth on el 6 de Marzo, 2008 at 04:03 AM
nezua
dijo:
thanks pat. it is the system of calenders the Mayans used, actually. and i'll keep it in mind. :)
--
i hear you, servetus. that's what i'm saying. there is a vision, and we sketch it out in anthems and high school social studies classes, but who is standing up and saying "HEY we are falling way short on this vision! and its not acceptable." ?
--
gracias, elizabeth. i feel good that you found the post.
Palabras por nezua
spat forth on el 6 de Marzo, 2008 at 06:18 AM
Joanna dijo:
Cutting through the brush and thickets to help us get to the clearing in the woods where some light can penetrate: thank you! Yesterday I was observing a blog comment discussion on the Minnesota Dream Act, and despairing of the brutality of the discourse, and this helps sharpen the focus on what the dynamic was between the folks who were arguing about who gets to use tax dollars and the folks who were talking about compassion toward children and young people.
Palabras por Joanna spat forth on el 6 de Marzo, 2008 at 11:49 AM
nezua
dijo:
yes. "despairing of the brutality of the discourse." great line.
Palabras por nezua
spat forth on el 6 de Marzo, 2008 at 01:06 PM
Pat Logan dijo:
/bonk self
Palabras por Pat Logan spat forth on el 6 de Marzo, 2008 at 02:40 PM