Thanks to Cenk for doing this interview. It's very enlightening and I will pick up Lakoff's new book at the first opportunity.

Interesting to me that Cenk brought up Chomsky's name at the end. Personally, my impression of Chomsky is that he thinks he knows things that he does not - about politics, that is, not linguistics. That makes me wonder whether one of the differences between these two linguists is that Chomsky reasons deductively - that is, he has theories about the world and reasons from them. Lakoff is inductive - he observes the world and derives theories to explain his observations.

I would be very interested to know if Lakoff himself thinks this is a distinction that makes sense.

Induction is certainly the way the business world and advertising work. You want to make money and you try to persuade people that your product/service is what they need and want. But if either your product or your pitch is ineffective, either you change or a competitor pushes you out.

Politically, the Democrats (and I don't except myself) are so sure that they know what's right that they're not paying attention to what the people think. And even between Clinton and Obama - Clinton was all about "I" "I" "I" - "I have a plan for this and a plan for that." Obama's appeal is more visceral and less specific. Maybe progressives are making a mistake trying to get him to agree to this policy and that policy. We should trust his instincts and trust that he will do his best to implement progressive policies but not by 18th century reasoning.

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