We could lose our freedoms because of rationalism.
Putin's GOP uses science-based communication to undermine democracy. Progressives must use it to save democracy.
Welcome back, Pro-Empathy Freedom Voters are the Solution subscribers. Our Empathy Surplus Network USA Zoom Forums are applying the framing recommendations from cognitive scientists, linguists, and progressive activists George Lakoff and Elisabeth Wehling’s bestselling book Your Brain’s Politics: How the Science of Mind Explains the Political Divide and retired progressive public relations guru David Fenton’s memoir The Activist’s Media Handbook. Here’s the schedule and enrollment link. Also, consider becoming a co-proposer of the Empathy Surplus Network USA’s first model legislation for state legislators at the CARE Education Bill link. We want to make the cultivation of empathy and learning about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for all students in grades K through 12 mandatory in every state.
We could lose our freedoms because of rationalism. Rationalism’s problem is why Lakoff and Wehling devoted Chapter 5 of Your Brain’s Politics to “Why People Vote Values.” Too many well-meaning progressives get degrees in fields like political science and law so that they can defend freedom against Putin’s GOP. However, our nation’s political and legal systems are based on the Enlightenment theory of rationalism. This theory embraces several assumptions about human thought that are false, according to cognitive science, namely, says Lakoff, “thought is conscious; thought is literal and mirrors the world per se, as it objectively exists; and thought is universal, and we all reason the same way.”
Science can be used for bad or good. Progressives must embrace it.
We could lose our freedoms because of rationalism. Dr. Lakoff has pleaded and cajoled Democrats to embrace the latest brain science-backed communication, which Putin’s GOP and other billionaires use. Science can be used for good or bad. Lakoff must feel a little bit like Galileo pleading with the Church to recognize that the earth is round and not flat. Or maybe he feels like First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who helped write the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which called for protecting human rights with the rule of law. But nevertheless, it’s been 76 years and the USA still has not done so.
Pro-Empathy Freedom over Putin’s GOP
We could lose our freedoms because of rationalism. You would think that progressives would have been the first ones to embrace cognitive science in political and moral thought because we’re, well, progressive. But not so. It was conservatives who embraced cognitive science in 1971 with Lewis Powell’s memo to CEO members of the US Chamber of Commerce. Powell launched a movement of more than six dozen million-dollar-budget conservative think tanks like ALEC that are successfully applying the latest insights of the brain to bring us to the brink of fascism.
CARE Education Model Legislation
In fact, if we don’t embrace 21st-century real rationality quickly enough, Putin’s GOP could rob us of our freedoms. But even thinking about thinking differently is scary. Moreover, I’ve lost count of how many people read my emails and tell me Dr. Lakoff’s ideas are interesting but don’t change their language. Our CARE Education model legislation can help citizen proposers turn things around. Proposers don’t have to go into long, eye-glazing, and mind-numbing explanations of why rationalism is a problem.
Pro-empathy freedom is the solution for a caring society.
We have it easier because we have a plan. We simply need to engage our neighbors with the simple message behind the CARE Education model legislation. It’s short and sweet. Let’s encourage each other to engage our neighbors and lawmakers about requiring K-12 students to learn to cultivate empathy and learn about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It’s a caring message worth repeating.