Frame Wars,....the fight over reality and political

[Rose Siding]

snip>
The most important resource that politicians have, they both argue, is the ways in which people understand the world. Their values. Their worldviews. (Lakoff adds to this: their brains.) If you tap into those values, inform them, tweak them, focus and reflect those values back at an electorate—that’s the way to win power.

In this struggle to control political reality through language, you don’t dispute specific words or rebut the facts; you don’t even attack your opponents’ frames. What you do is assert your side’s frame, making it so big, so omnipresent, so unavoidable that it’s as natural as talking about the roundness of the Earth. Disputing such a fact seems counterintuitive. Even heretical.

A prime example in this election season is the phrase “war on terror,” which evokes a tangible, winnable conflict. Done right, the framings should be invisible, not the product of human hands. They should give the impression that the world actually is that simple and hasn’t merely been simplified. For conservatives, this is easy because they have invested decades into creating their frames. Liberals, meanwhile, have so much catching up to do that they have to be taught how to frame explicitly. Enter George Lakoff, who over the last year has boiled conservative language down to its bare bones in books, numerous interviews, and presentations. (In 2003, the Rockridge Institute finally received funding to start building a response to conservative frames.) Until now, the left hasn’t had anything like Lakoff or Rockridge, partly because of liberal pride. To some people, Lakoff’s ideas smack of propaganda and spin, which they find morally objectionable. Still others suffer from a sort of intellectual arrogance.

“The people on our side have been brought up to think from an Enlightenment perspective, to think that the facts will set you free, that you can just negate the other guy’s frame,” Lakoff says. “But that’s not how it works.”

http://www.mollyivins.com/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=1790

[DontTreadOnMe]

1. great reading...

"As long as liberals and progressives insist that having the facts on their side is all that matters, they are doomed to impotence."

This guy is dead on... a must read!

[rndmprsn]

2. i just bought the book...

dont think of an elephant and read almost half of it in one sitting...amazing read, should be required readin for any democrat!