Lakoff on the Pope's framing

See his article here. The Pope frames the environment as a moral issue. It is our common home to which we should be grateful and accept responsibility for its healthy functioning. We, meaning the entire planet, are a family that should take care of and support each other. When we don't see it this way, when we see the earth as something to be exploited, this also leads to carrying that attitude over to the exploitation of people for our own greed. The right moral frame and enactment is empathy, and the Pope got it right. And he provides the science to back it up, which when framed in moral terms is an integrated approach to coordinating different domains of experience.


This is not an anti-business stance, only anti-greed and dysfuntional self-interest. There is certainly room for the self, but it must be in relation to others and the environment. The current capitalist system is basically me first and the rest can go to hell, preferably in a handbasket. Business done morally right is win-win for all, not just for me. And there's plenty of profit within that framework, as well as merit pay based on individual performance so that not everyone earns the same. But that must take environmental capacity and sustainability into account as a moral business imperative. Again, showing how different domains interact is an integral ecological approach, one Lakoff calls an ecological spirituality.

See Lakoff's piece for much more detail.