Why I Haven't Been Posting, and a Request for Help
16 Jul 2008 2:25am GMT UPDATE: A few things. First, Kelly's c-section has been moved up to tomorrow again. It's not for health reasons. One of her doctor's c-sections scheduled for tomorow ended up happening last night, so a slot opened up. Kelly told me to express thanks to everyone who's sent her messages or money. She's collecting email addresses, and she's going to send out thank you notes with pictures of the new baby when she's able. Next up, in case you're curious, she knows that the baby's a boy, and she's...
Fart Spray (And Disgust) Makes Moral Judgments More Severe
9 Jul 2008 2:05pm GMT I've been meaning to post about this set of studies for a while, but because it's relevant to Chapter 4 of Lakoff's The Political Mind, I figured I'd better get around to it before I write the review of that chapter. It's been a while, but in the past, I've talked a lot about new theories of moral judgment, and Jonathan Haidt's social intuitionist model in particular. Under Haidt's view, moral judgments are largely intuitive (that is, unconscious, automatic, and non-deliberative), and instead...
I Can't Understand Your Accent, So Keep Talking
8 Jul 2008 9:54pm GMT I have this friend from New York who, most of the time, speaks in a normal (that is to say, southern) accent that she's acquired as a result of being surrounded for so long by people who speak the King's English ('cause Elvis was a southerner). Occasionally, though, usually after she's been talking to someone back home, she slips into her old Jamaica Queens accent, and when she does, I spend the first thirty seconds or so just trying to figure out whether she's speaking English, and I don't...
The Political Mind, Part IV (Chapter 3)
7 Jul 2008 11:51pm GMT In Chapter 3, we finally get to read all about the Strict Father and Nurturant Parent. I knew this was coming, of course, but for some reason, when I finally got to this chapter, I still felt surprised. I mean, at some point, you'd think he'd give up metaphors that even his own epigones can't find evidence for. But no, he clings to them even more desperately in this book, writing (I wish I could parody him this well, but he really wrote this): It should be noted that these models [the "Strict...
The Political Mind, Part III (Chapter 2)
2 Jul 2008 10:43pm GMT Chapter 2 of Lakoff's new book is titled "The Political Unconscious, and it's absolutely terrible. It's also the first chapter likely to really piss off conservatives, or really anyone who might approach the chapter critically. Oh, and it has plenty of gratuitous neuroscience to top it all off. First, let's look at what will inevitably piss conservatives off. Lakoff writes that there are "thoroughgoing progressives" who "hold to American democratic ideals on just about all issues," and that...