Essay on Lakoff’s “Using a Reading as a Lens”

Essay on Lakoff’s “Using a Reading as a Lens”

Instructions
write an essay about George Lakoff’s theories discussed in “Anna Nicole on the Brain” (an excerpt from his 2008 book The Political Mind).
Excerpt

 In “Anna Nicole on the Brain,” George Lakoff illustrates the relevance of the rhetoric of Anna Nicole Smith’s life and death in understanding politics. The massive media coverage and public attention that Anna Nicole received after her death shows how “narratives” or “frames” composed of different roles or characters operate to influence how we think, act and react. Lakoff calls this process “neural binding” which “bring together neural activation in different parts of the brain to form single integrated wholes” (25). This process of neural binding accomplished by neurons and connections help us make sense of our everyday experiences. It occurs in the following stages: precondition or prior context; build-up or the events leading to main event; the main event; the purpose; the wind-down or the ending; the result or final context; and the consequences. Moreover, Lakoff also argues that neural binding is not just an intellectual process, it also leads to the creation and integration of emotions through somatic markers.” According to Lakoff, “narratives and frames are not just brain structures with intellectual content, but rather with integrated intellectual-emotional content. Neural binding circuitry provides this integration” (28). In sum, neural binding allows us to analyze, comprehend, and feel the narratives that we sense.

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