Said to Myself

As of late I have been taken with George Lakoff’s writing. Recently I read his The Political Mind. There he discusses the nexus between brain science, linguistics, and politics. There he writes:

One of the things cognitive science teaches us is that when people define their very identity by a worldview, or a narrative, or a mode of thought, they are unlikely to change-for the simple reason that it is physically part of their brain, and so many other aspects of their brain structure would also have to change; that change is highly unlikely. ( The Political Mind p.45)

Or simply put, when people get set in their thought patterns they are unlikely to change them. In this way the frame of the debate is the debate.

I was thinking about this today Asarah B’Tevet, the 10^th of Tevet which commemorates when Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, began the siege of Jerusalem (588 BCE). 18 months later, on the 17th of Tammuz his troops broke through the city walls. The siege ended with the destruction of the Temple three weeks later, on the 9th of Av (Tisha B’Av), the end of the first Kingdoms and the exile of the Jewish people to Babylon. The Tenth of Tevet is thus considered to be the beginning of the end of the Jewish world as it was known during the First Temple period.

While anything that points to Tisha B’Av gets us thinking about one of my favorite topics being camp, I actually am much more interested in the ideas around what it means to be besieged. Seeing that the conclusion of this story is the end of Jewish sovereignty on Tisha B’Av, what is the significance to of starting with our people being pent-up, confined, and the subject of other people’s aggression. The end of our autonomy started with shutting us in and limiting our mobility. This day marks the shift in narrative from us writing our own story to us being the subjects on other empires’ stories.

To bring us back to George Lakoff, “Unless you frame yourself, others will frame you — the media, your enemies, your competitors, your well-meaning friends.” (How to Frame Yourself: A Framing Memo for Occupy Wall Street by George Lakoff, http://www.huffingtonpost.com. October 19, 2011.) Today Asarah B’Tevet is a sad day.