Don’t Think of An Elephant Book Summary
Key quotes and thoughts from Don’t Think of An Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate by George Lakoff.
Systemic issues are not easy to explain, but progressive’s ability to frame them in a way conservatives and progressives alike understand is critical if we are to achieve political change to lead to greater freedom and equality.
Strict Father Morality vs. Nurturing Parent Conservatives believe in “strict father morality” whereas progressives believe in a “nurturing parent.” Think James Dobson and the concept of “spare the rod, spoil the child” who says we should be punished for our transgressions, that people are born evil and need straightening out by a strict father. Conservative women and men tend to see male authority as protective and supportive. Thus, the “war on women” doesn’t resonate with them.
What binds us together Conservatives and progressives believe in freedom. Rather than using a phrase like the War on Women, better to focus on “Freedom, which allows women to decide for themselves, whatever their views on abortion, contraception, and sex education.”
Private depends on the public. We need highways, airports to allow business to travel to and from our businesses, to bring in tourists. We need parks to play in and libraries for education. We need an educated workforce to work in companies. “It is the freedom that public resources afford that make them central to democracy.”
How is freedom achieved? Through the following:
Health = Freedom. Without health, we cannot enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. GOP renamed “Affordable Care Act” to Obamacare to associate it with government takeovers and death panels. We should continue using Affordable Care Act and other names that appropriately label services that give us freedom.
Education = Freedom. “Education tells you about the world and the possibilities in life. If you don’t know what’s possible, you cannot even set goals.” (p. 63). Education teaches you to think, act, be socially engaged, act rationally, get facts for yourself. It gives you access to art, the beauty in life, and the knowledge to be a productive citizen. It helps people be empathetic and understanding to each other.
Public education is publicly accountable and thus, not allowed to narrow the information made available to students (for example, teaching creationism versus science).
Wealth = Freedom. Poverty is a freedom issue. People who are poor send kids to school hungry, have less time to participate in politics, have less access to health and education. Rich people relocate easier, travel easier, eat better food, have more social connections, have access to better jobs.
“Conservatives see being poor as a personal failure, a failure of individual responsibility. But the reality is that poverty curtails freedom. There is a reason people speak of being trapped in poverty. They are.”
Equality = Freedom. All people should be free to marry whoever they love and want to be committed to for life. Also, women are human beings and have the right to control their bodies. When that is denied, they are not free. Sex education is important for women to control their bodies. Women need to control when they produce or not. Forcing a woman to undergo humiliation (forced ultrasounds) in order to exert control over her body is a freedom issue. Hounding women on the way into an abortion clinic is a freedom issue.
“You are not free when you are not treated like other human beings with respect to how you function in an institution.”
“Discrimination is a denial of freedom.”
Unions = Freedom. Workers are profit centers yet conservatives like to speak of “wealthy company owners and investors as ‘job creators,’ that they ‘give’ people jobs, as if they just create jobs as gifts for people who are out of work” (p. 68).
Say, “Workers are profit creators.” It is the truth. Versus conservative rhetoric where they say “job creators” which favors corporations.
A decline in unions is a decline in wealth.
Unions grant freedom from corporate servitude and wage slavery.
The power of many “resources” (as opposed to “asset” workers) is greater than one in ensuring employers do not, for example, steal or misappropriate pensions. Unions create the best deal for “resource” workers.
America is a country of immigrants. It is comprised of refugees fleeing from persecution, poverty, discrimination, death. “The issue is empathy and respect for these refugees as human beings” (p. 73).
Runaway wealth began to accelerate during the 1980s when Reagan cut taxes on the wealthy. Wealthy people and corporations have lobbying power with public officials, own media outlets, sponsor shows, buy massive advertising. They gain control of state legislature and voting rights of poor. They control information. (read, in Nevada, Adelson owns the Las Vegas Review Journal and recently published a favorable spread about Dean Heller’s productivity along with his colleagues in a Republican congress in 2017 when the forced the tax scam on millions).
Runaway wealth is out of control and the way to regain control is to change politics. In 1976 in the US, the top 1% had 19.9% of the wealth of the nation. In 2010, the top 1% had 34% of the wealth, top 5% had 63%, top 20% had 88.9% of the wealth. That leaves 80% of the population with only 11% of the world’s wealth.
As the nation’s wealth to the wealthy rises, the freedom that wealth buys to enjoy life, influence policy, declines for most Americans.
State control is cheaper than national control, which is why it’s critical we ensure control over state politics. As Republicans and the Trump Whitehouse stop federal funding for health care, education and women’s rights, they direct decisions to the states, where they depend on Republican seats to enforce conservative agendas.
Progressives must pay attention to local politics and midterm elections and ensure Democrats are voted in (mission accomplished in Nevada where we have early voting, voting from any poll station rather than only in your jurisdiction, etc!).
We are in a “government by corporation” society now. Corporations have achieved extreme wealth and, by way of Republicans, have been given the rights of human beings and citizens. Corporations govern our lives. Corporations have improved lives by providing pharmaceuticals, computer technology, telecommunications. Their innovations, however, have been made possible, through developments made possible through public resources: computer science, medical research, satellites.
The wealthier corporations get, the more power they have to avoid regulations and to pass the cost of doing business onto consumers. It’s called the “externalization of costs” - an example being waste clean up. Pollution dumped into water sources from fracking are cleaned up by the government; global warming caused by a chemical release from companies is paid for by consumers who pay higher insurance premiums in areas now frequently hit by disasters, for example.
Will the government by corporation afford us the greatest life, liberty, happiness?
A nurturant morality views ethical behavior centered on empathy and responsibility (for yourself and others needing your help). Many things follow from this: fairness, minimal violence (for example, justice without vengeance). Conservatives follow a policy of self-interest, using strict father morality as the guide, such as when Bush went ahead with the Gulf War, where a million civilians died of the affects of our war against them and the embargos - we destroyed water treatment plants, hospitals, etc.
The second Bush led the war in Iraq, which was supposed to cost $40 billion dollars; it cost us $3 trillion so far and counting, if you consider the cost of veterans getting injured. This war was paid for through, at the time, our social security surplus.
Money spent on war drains public resources at home.
