Lakoff's 11 Recommendations For Progressive Strategy

[vet_against_Bush]

Lakoff's 11 Recommendations For Progressive Strategy

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org---Jeff>

First, recognize what conservatives have done right and where progrssives have missed the boat. It is more than just control of the media, though that is far from trivial. What they have done right is to successfully frame the issues from their perspective. Acknowledge their successes and our failures.

Second, remember "Don't think of an elephant." If you keep their language and their framing and just argue against it, you lose because you are reinforcing their frame.

Third, the truth alone will not set you free. Just speaking truth to power doesn't work. You need to frame the truths effectively from your perspective.

Fourth, you need to speak from your moral perspective at all times. Progressive policies follow from progressive values. Get clear on your values and use the language of values. Drop the language of policy wonks.

Fifth, understand where conservatives are coming from. Get their strict father morality and its consequences clear. Know what you are arguing against. Be able to explain why they believe what they believe. Try to predict what they will say.

Sixth, think strategically, across issue areas. Think in terms of large moral goals, not in terms of programs for their own sake.

Seventh, think about the consequences of proposals. Form progressive slippery slope initiatives.

Eighth, remember that voters vote their identity and their values, which need not coincide with their self-interest.

Ninth, unite! And cooperate! Here's how: Remember the six modes of progressive thought: (1) socioeconomic, (2) identity politics, (3) environmentalists, (4) civil libertarian, (5) spiritual, and (6) antiauthoritarian. Notice which of these modes of thought you use most often---where you fall on the spectrum and where the people you talk to fall on the spectrum. Then rise above your own mode of thought and start thinking and talking from shared progressive values.

Tenth, be proactive, not reactive. Play offense, not defense. Practice reframing, every day, on every issue. Don't just say what you believe. Use your frames, not their frames. Use them because they fit the values you believe in.

Eleventh, speak to the progressive base in order to activate the nurturant model of "swing voters." Don't move to the right. Rightward movement hurts in two ways. It alienates the progressive base and it helps conservatives by activating their model in swing voters.

http://thecommons4change.blogspot.com/

[vet_against_Bush]

1. Let me post it again because it is damn important!

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/

[vet_against_Bush]

2. To donate to RI

https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=2299

[vet_against_Bush]

3. Get the newsletter! nt

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/newsletter/

[Maat]

6. Loved it. Thanks for the link.

I saved it. Is Lakoff affiliated with this org?

[vet_against_Bush]

8. Yes. He is a "Fellow"

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/people/

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/people/lakoff/main_photo

George Lakoff is Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. He previously taught at Harvard University and the University of Michigan. He has been a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and a Visiting Professor at the Ècole des Hautes Ètudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris (1995) and at the Linguistics Society of America Summer Institute at the University of New Mexico (Summer, 1995).

He has been a member of the Governing Board of the Cognitive Science Society (1989-1995), a Senior Fellow at the Townsend Center for the Humanities (1995-1996), and President of the International Cognitive Linguistics Association (1989-1993). He is currently on the Science Board of the Santa Fe Institute (1995-01) and is co-director with Jerome Feldman of the Neural Theory of Language Project at the International Computer Science Institute at Berkeley.

Dr. Lakoff has published a multitude of articles in major scholarly journals and edited volumes. He is the author of the influential book, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, Second Edition, (2002). He is also the author of Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About The Mind (1987) and co-author of Metaphors We Live By (1980) , More Than Cool Reason (1989) , Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge To The Western Tradition (1999) , Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics Into Being (2000) and, most recently, Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values, Frame the Debate (2004).

In addition to his teaching and research commitments, Dr. Lakoff has been on the editorial board of Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, Journal of Pragmatics, Cognitive Linguistics, Philosophical Psychology, Connection Science, and the University of Chicago Press Cognitive Linguistics Book Series. He is regularly interviewed in the public media and has appeared on such radio shows as Talk of the Nation (with Ray Suarez), Bridges (with Larry Josephson), To the Best of Our Knowledge, and Forum (with Michael Krasny).

[vet_against_Bush]

4. Is everyone already aware of RI or do I have to pm all of you?

"Reframing is everybody's job."

[JohnOneillsMemory]

5. Great. Post this in the Frame the Debate Group thread.

Maybe it's already there but this 'wallet-size' version of Lakoff's wisdom is very useful for word-mongering.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. This is a totally accurate perception of what the Dems have been doing

wrong.

For twenty years, they have acted as if they accept the Republicanites' characterizations of them, beginning with their refusal to defend the word "liberal."

As the saying goes, "If you don't respect yourself, no one else will."

[sangh0]

11. I think you may have misunderstood one of Lakoff's points

"Don't think of an elephant" is about NOT using the words that repukes use. IMO, "Liberal" is a word that is now a part of their frame, not ours. Though you're right that we should have defended it, I beleive that it is now too late, and using the word "liberal" in a conservative's presence only reinforces THEIR frame, instead of ours.

[vet_against_Bush]

12. Is Lakoff supportive of this dumping of the label liberal? nt

[sangh0]

15. He doesn't specify what we shouldn't say

but he does talk about what we SHOULD say, and the word liberal is not be found there.

[blondeatlast]

29. I don't believe Lakoff has said one way or the other, but

I know others have said the word has lost any of its true definition.

[AP]

23. Probably not, but arguing over whether Liberal is a bad word, like...

"Communist" or "pedophile" rather than arguing about the issues is probably a framework the Republicans have constructed and are happy to see Democrats react to.

Arguing, "but "liberal" is a good word" presupposes that you accept that even debating the word Liberal is a worthwhile discussion, which might be a conservative contruction of reality.

[blondeatlast]

30. Excellent point.

As Lakoff suggests, it's another way to put us on the defensive.

[Walt Starr]

18. Well said!

If only people got this stuff!

Better yet, if only Democratic Leaders got this stuff!

[auburngrad82]

27. True, when it looked like Shrub was gonna lose the L-word came out

"The liberal Senator from Massechussetts."

How many times did we hear that over the last two weeks of the election?

I think we need to start referring to it as progressive.

Another point along these lines: Have you noticed the GOP uses "Democrat Party" when referring to the DemocratIC Party? The word Democrat has become a label that they use to motivate their base. Not much we can do about that but I suggest we start calling them "radical conservatives" or "extremist conservatives." Paint them with terms that are negative in the minds of most Americans.

[many a good man]

33. Lakoff has recommended dropping Liberal, using Progressive instead

Sorry I don't have a link. Its on the RI website, I think.

Progressive moral values are American moral values-- with a twist of tolerance...

[sangh0]

34. Thanks

.

[forgethell]

26. There are some good things in that

post. but if we think the reason we have lost votes is because the conservatives have taken ownership of the "good" words, and stuck us with the "bad" ones, we will never win another election.

Rather than defend the word "liberal", we must defend the ideas that it represents. The election was about ideas, and the conservative's idea won. We tried to pin "Nazi" and "fascist" and "racist" on them, but they didn't stick. They tried to pin "liberal" and other words on us, and evidently they did.

What we need to do is ask ourselves, "why?". Our ideas aren't selling. We can't just assume the conservative electorate is stupid, because they are not. Somehow our ideas are not meeting their needs, and saying they do is not convincing them.

I don't know what the answer is, but I do know we didn't find it in November.

[Paradise]

9. kick. n/t

[vet_against_Bush]

10. He has a book too! Must Read! See below...

buy it here cheap: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1931498717/qid=1100805812/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/103-2066583-5156668

or here:

http://www.codysbooks.com/product/info.jsp?isbn=1931498717&affiliateCode=Rockridge

[auburngrad82]

28. I'm reading Moral Politics by Lakoff. It's much more detailed.

I've already read DTOAE and I really think that this is the way we need to go if we are going to survive as a political force in this country.

[RafterMan]

13. Great stuff.

I'd add "drop the language of academia" as well to number four.

Getting Dems to listen to this will be an interesting test of the doctrine itself.

[madfloridian]

14. Love Lakoff and progressives...but if you use that word...

You have to keep kicking your own post. People here often avoid it.
I have one going on progressive groups, and it drops 2 pages in no time at all.

:evilgrin:

[Blue_Tires]

16. ttt n/t

[vet_against_Bush]

17. kick, nt

[JohnOneillsMemory]

19. NPR nat'l call-in show s/b inundated by US USING THIS ADVIC E.

I got on 'Talk of the Nation' and spewed all the info that is in Moore's Farenheit911 back in summer of 2002.

I got lots of info out before they shut me down for "being off topic" but they let me go on for 3 minutes because I was fast, articulate, and knew what I was talking about.

Go for OUR airwaves whenever a chance opens up and take back the 'values' issue from the Orwellian machine.

"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.
If that is granted, all else follows."
-George Orwell in 1984

"We have not journeyed all this way across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains,
across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy"
– Winston Churchill

[vet_against_Bush]

20. kick, nt

[AP]

21. Numbers Two & Five capture why I think Clark was not the best candidate.

To me, running Clark against Bush is like saying "my strict father can beat up your strict father." (However, that would have made a great Clark bumper sticker.)

Maybe Clark could have broken down some of the coalition on the right that is looking for the stricktest father, but I think that running liberal strict father vs conservative strict father would have left the frame in place that America needs a strict father.

I don't think Democrats win by working within that frame. It just conflicts with too much of the rest of the Democratic identities set out in number 9 (ie, being anti-authoritarian -- believing that power needs to be deconcentrated rather than concentrated -- and being libertarian). I'd rather convince people through framing reality through appeals to Democratic principles that not having strict father presidents is better for the economy, democracy, freedom, the environment, etc.).

As Lakoff says in number Two, don't think of the elephant. Don't let them frame reality -- you lose when you reinforce their version reality.

[Larkspur]

22. The DLC will ignore #1

They want to more right of fasism.

[Selatius]

24. The DLC takes corporate cash; they'd dump it all if the money says so

[AP]

25. Not sure how powerful the DLC is these days. The NYT quotes them, but

I don't think they got a platform, a public debate, or the candidates they wanted on the ticket this year.

[Larkspur]

31. Oops! I actually meant #11, the DLC would ignore #11

The DLC hates the base.

[sangh0]

32. I suggest ignoring those on the left who also use a "Strict Daddy" model

Lakoff speaks of a "Morality is Wholesomeness" metaphor that is supported by the Strict Daddy model, and this metaphor prohibits the slightest deviation from the Moral Code. There are people on the left who also feel that any deviation from the Moral Code (but in this case, it's a Liberal Moral Code) makes one "evil"

[southlandshari]

35. kick!

n/t

[natureman]

36. We must promote our common "frames"

From "Don't think of an elephant":

Back in the 1950s conservatives hated each other. The financial conservatives hated the social conservatives. The libertarians did not get along with the social conservatives or the religious conservatives. And many social conservatives were not religious. A group of conservative leaders got around William F. Buckeley jr. and others started asking what the different groups of conservatives had in common and whether they could agree to disagree in order to promote a general conservative cause.

Folks, this is the only way that we are going to promote our progressive cause. You see, I don't believe abortion should be legal, but I am adamant about environmental causes. Therefore, I vote for Democrats not Republicans. I know that my chances of a Pro-Choice person agreeing with my environmental views is much greater than a Pro-Life person. We have got to frame our similarities and stick together. This third part talk will only hurt our chances.

[newyawker99]

37. Hi natureman!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast: