Reading Guide
The questions and discussion topics that follow are designed to enhance your reading of George Lakoff’s Whose Freedom? We hope they will enrich your experience as you explore Lakoff’s provocative exposé of the rhetoric that empowers America’s conservatives.
Questions for Discussion
- How did you define freedom before reading Whose Freedom? Did you consider your definition to be progressive? Were you surprised to discover that the progressive definition is also the more traditional one, as George Lakoff maintains in the book’s opening pages?
- What “frames” or cultural influences have shaped your political opinions throughout your life? In an enlightened society marked by considerable scientific discovery, why do frames still trump facts in shaping opinions?
- In what way can the contested nature of language be an advantage for progressives?
- Using Chapter 2 as a reference point, identify the folk theories that prevail in your community. Which folk theories have been the most difficult for you to reject?
- Applying the author’s logic of simple freedom, which cornerstones of freedom seem to be most in jeopardy today? How would you counter an argument that said equality and fairness are not inextricably linked to the definition of freedom?
One of the most influential political thinkers of the progressive movement.
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