Human Rights Empathy Framing
Human rights framing is the work of pro-empathy progressive bloggers. You are invited and encouraged to concentrate on the following books by cognitive scientists and linguists George Lakoff and Elisabeth Wehling in framing your human rights message. Non-Lakoff books have been cited by Dr. Lakoff or are helpful in understanding the importance of commitment to empathy for and responsibility to human beings as core progressive governing values.
Your Brain's Politics: How the Science of Mind Explains the Political Divide (Societas) (Paperback)
Recommended Reading
By George Lakoff, Elisabeth Wehling
$12.00
ISBN: 9781845409210
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Societas – November 1st, 2016
“At first glance, issues like economic inequality, healthcare, climate change, and abortion seem unrelated. However, when thinking and talking about them, people reliably fall into two camps: conservative and liberal. What explains this divide? Why do conservatives and liberals hold the positions they do? And what is the conceptual nature of those who decide elections, commonly called the “political middle”?
Email info@empathysurplus.com for more information on human rights thought leaders continuing education.
Caring citizens and pro-empathy voters are the solution.
The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic (Paperback)
Recommended Reading
By George Lakoff, Elisabeth Wehling
$12.00
ISBN: 9781476700014
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Free Press – June 26th, 2012
“Most people are morally complex; that is, they have complex combinations of conservative and liberal moral values. Moral complexity matters because it determines elections. The repeated use of conservative or liberal moral language is often the decisive factor in whether an independent uses a liberal or conservative moral system for a given election.” – George Lakoff, cognitive scientist and linguist, Chapter 1, “The Basics”
Email info@empathysurplus.com for more information on human rights thought leaders continuing education.
Caring citizens and pro-empathy voters are the solution.
The Political Mind: A Cognitive Scientist's Guide to Your Brain and Its Politics (Paperback)
Recommended Reading
By George Lakoff
$18.00
ISBN: 9780143115687
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Penguin Books – June 2nd, 2009
“The left-to-right scale that political pundits love is an inaccurate metaphor – and a dangerous one, for two reasons. First, it posits a political “mainstream,” a population with a unified political worldview, which does not exist now, nor has it ever. The very use of the left-to-right scale metaphor serves to empower radical conservatives and marginalize progressives.” – George Lakoff, cognitive scientist and linguist, Chapter 2, “The Political Unconscious”
Email info@empathysurplus.com for more information on human rights thought leaders continuing education.
Caring citizens and pro-empathy voters are the solution.
Whose Freedom? The Battle of America's Most Important Idea (Paperback)
Recommended Reading
By George Lakoff
$23.00
ISBN: 9780312426477
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Picador – May 15th, 2007
“Free will can operate only on ideas in your brain; it cannot operate on ideas you do not have. Free will is thus not totally free. It is radically constrained by the frames and metaphors shaping your brain and limiting how you see the world. Those frames and metaphors get there, to a remarkable extent, through the repetition of the media. If this sounds a bit scary, it should.” – George Lakoff, Cognitive Scientist and Linguist, “Introduction”
Email info@empathysurplus.com for more information on human rights thought leaders continuing education.
Caring citizens and pro-empathy voters are the solution.
Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, Second Edition (Paperback)
Recommended Reading
By George Lakoff
Email or call 937-383-7323 for price for a used book.
ISBN: 9780226467719
Availability: Temporarily Out of Print
Published: University of Chicago Press – 1996
“One of the things most studied in cognitive science is common sense. Common sense cannot be taken for granted. Whenever a cognitve scientist hears the words ‘It’s just comcmon sense,’ his ears perk up and he knows there something to be studied in detail and depth – something that needs to be understood. Nothing is ‘just’ common sense. Common sense has a conceptual structure that is usually unconscious. That’s what makes it ‘common sense.’ It is the common sensical quality of political discourse that makes it imperative that we study it.” – George Lakoff, cognitive scientist and linguist, Chapter 1, “The Mind and Politics”
Email info@empathysurplus.com for more information on human rights thought leaders continuing education.
Caring citizens and pro-empathy voters are the solution.
The All New Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate (Paperback)
Recommended Reading
By George Lakoff
$15.00
ISBN: 9781603585941
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Chelsea Green Publishing Company – 2nd edition, September 23rd, 2014 – Updated and expanded from 1st edition, 2004
“At this point we have to ask The Reflexivity Question for Personhood: Can linguistic framing change the kind of person someone is? (Change common sense?) The answer seems to be yes, though possibly not in extreme cases. But such changes do appear to have happened over the years . . .” – George Lakoff, cognitive scientist and linguist, Chapter 5, “Politics and Personhood”
Email info@empathysurplus.com for more information on human rights thought leaders continuing education.
Caring citizens and pro-empathy voters are the solution.
Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision (Paperback)
Recommended Reading
By George Lakoff and the Rockridge Institute
$13.00
ISBN-13: 9780374530907
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published, Straus and Giroux, October 3rd, 2006
“We hope this handbook begins a process of creating a language of a renewed liberalism. In its online version, it will form the basis of the Rockridge Progressive Manual Project, designed to extend this handbook, step-by-step, to all issue areas, and to do so interactively, with an ongoing dialogue, a national conversation, with grassroots progressives. This handbook is also the seed of the Rockridge Action Network, a network of activists – individuals and groups – who want to speak out on issues and place progressive ideas and values before the public.” – George Lakoff, cognitive scientist and linguist, “Preface”
NOTE: The Rockridge Nation was an on-line community of the Rockridge Institute. Our founder served on the Rockridge Nation’s board of directors from 2005-2008. And with Dr. Lakoff’s encouragement the Empathy Surplus Network USA is providing an infrastructure to carry on the work of collective learning in communities of practice. We especially encourage cognitive scientists and linguists, who support Dr. Lakoff’s work, to consider joining our on-line community.
Email info@empathysurplus.com for more information on human rights thought leaders continuing education.
Caring citizens and pro-empathy voters are the solution.
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Caring Thought Leaders Core Values
Empathy
the soul of democracy
Responsibility
both personal and social
Commitment
to govern with empathy and responsibility
Pro-Empathy Freedom Voters
Cultivate Empathy with
Culture Diplomacy S.H.O.E.S.
S - Show up at public and private meetings to cultivate empathy
H - Help elected officials cultivate empathy in civic tasks
O - Organize to cultivate empathy in civic tasks
E - Educate about human rights empathy, the soul of democracy
S - Start each day to publicly cultivate empathy
George Lakoff's Resources
The basic idea is this: Dr. Lakoff's resources are free and open to all. He will provide framing suggestions regularly over social media, and whoever receives them can decide how to use them, and whether to share them or retweet them. Dr. Lakoff's process is bottom-up.
Dr. Lakoff also offers this framing service to activist organizations, media folks, and elected officials and their staff.
Pro-Empathy Pledge to the People of the World
(Recited while holding a neighbor's hand. People from other countries may insert the name of their country.)
I pledge my care to the people of the world
and to my neighbors in the United States of America
and to our human rights, which I defend and promote,
one world governed with empathy and responsibility,
with liberty and justice for all.
Empathy Surplus Network USA is a 501c3 local human rights empathy education community of practice that applies the latest brain insights of George Lakoff to moral and political discourse to protect human rights with the rule of law. To reverse our national empathy deficit, we invite you to join our culture diplomacy initiative to make empathy, the soul of democracy and ethical business, the center of public and private debate. Donations are exempt from federal income taxation under section 501(a) and described in section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code.