Oh boy. Let's start with the big one. Let's get it out of the way.
Let's talk about how environmental communication is largely politicized and how that politicization makes everything worse for everyone.
Lakoff is very right in his theory of 'framing' in his article Why it Matters How We Frame the Environment (2010). Human cognition works by making links between concepts present in the mind. You can teach someone to associate words with certain feelings, thoughts, or memories by repetitive enforcement. He also rightly points that partisan politics are very strong frames, especially in the US with their [sarcasm]oh-so-efficient two party system [/sarcasm].
Yep, those darn Republicans and their cognitive framing. They immediately shut out any idea that might help the environment because of years of indoctrination. Yep, damn them and their ideology for sure.
To Lakoff's credit, he's not wrong. American Republicans have this bad habit of mentally shutting out anyone from the other party has to say on principal. However, Lakoff conveniently ignores that Democrats DO THE SAME THING. Every political piece that one reads can be reduced to "damn those [insert party name here] and their stupid [insert political ideology here]-ism."
This sense of tribalism prevents anything from getting done. Good ideas barely survive because one party wants to shut it down because the other party thought of it. Just look at the social healthcare, which still remains inexplicably controversial due to Republican interference (ok, I admit, that's a bit of an over simplification). Look at the abolition of slavery, which certain democrats started a civil war over(ditto here too)!
I do like where he laments over environmentalism being turned into a 'political issue,' but by-and-large Lakoff just plays into the trap of politics. Some people labour over their contention with 'gender binaries,' I find issue with 'political binaries'. Lakoff over uses that Conservative-Liberal binary, labelling those he likes as Liberal, and those he's trying to counter as Conservative. The truth is...nobody on this earth can be boxed into either of those categories (or even shoehorned into a 'political spectrum,' but that's a discussion for another time). People can think for themselves. Framing is an observable phenomena, but I feel as though Lakoff sees it as the end-all and be-all of human communication
Call me an anarchist, call me a libertarian, call me whatever. Environmental change starts with you, not with some politician who's face you only see during election time or publicity events. I am apolitical for the simple reason that politics don't work all that well. I know that I can't be simply slotted in somewhere along a political spectrum. No one ideology can represent my thoughts on anything, let alone the environment. Indeed, no one political party should represent the environment. In the end, if you make the environment a matter of politics, it's just going to be lost and forgotten in the gridlock.
