Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Words That Don’t Work
Progressives had some fun last week with Frank Luntz, who told the Republican Governors’ Association that he was scared to death of the Occupy movement and recommended language to combat what the movement had achieved. But the progressive critics mostly just laughed, said his language wouldn’t work, and assumed that if Luntz was scared, everything was hunky-dory. Just keep on saying the words Luntz doesn’t like: capitalism, tax the rich, etc.
It’s a trap.
When Luntz says he is “scared to death,” he means that the Republicans who hire him are scared to death and he can profit from that fear by offering them new language. Luntz is clever. Yes, Republicans are scared. But there needs to be a serious discussion of both Luntz’s remarks and the progressive non-response.
What has been learned from the brain and cognitive sciences is that words are defined by fixed frames we use in thinking, frames come in hierarchical systems, and political frames are defined in moral terms, where “morality” is very different for conservatives and progressives. What lies behind the Occupy movement is moral view of democracy: Democracy is about citizens caring about each other and acting responsibly both socially and personally. This requires a robust Public empowering and protecting everyone equally. Both private success and personal freedom depend on such a Public. Every critique and proposal of the Occupy movement fits this moral view, which happens to be the progressive moral view.
What the Occupy movement can’t stand is the opposite “moral” view, that Democracy provides the freedom to seek one’s self-interest and ignore what is good for other Americans and others in the world. That view lies behind the Wall Street ethic of the Greedy Market, as opposed to a Market for All, a market that should maximize the well-being of most Americans. This view leads to a hierarchical view of society, where success is always deserved and lack of success is moral failure. The rich are the moral, and they not only deserve their wealth, they also deserve the power it brings. This is the view that Luntz is defending.
Referring to the rich as “hardworking taxpayers” ignores the fact that a great percentage of the rich do not get their wealth from making things, but rather from investments in other people’s labor, and that most of the 1% are managers, not people who make things or directly provide services. The hardworking taxpayers are the 99%. That is not the frame that Luntz wants activated.
But Luntz is not just addressing his remarks to Republicans. He is also looking to take Democrats for suckers. How? By choosing his frames carefully, and getting Democrats to do the opposite of what he tells Republicans. There is a basic truth about framing. If you accept the other guy’s frame, you lose.
Take “capitalism.” It arises these days in socialist discourse, and is seen as the opposite of socialism. To attack “capitalism” in this frame is to accept “socialism.” Conservatives are trying to cast Progressives, who mostly have businesses or work for businesses or are looking for good business jobs, as socialists. If you take the Luntz bait, you will be sucked into sounding like a socialist. Whatever one thinks of socialism, most Americans falsely identify it with communism, and will reject it out of hand.
Luntz would love to get Democrats using the word “tax” in the conservative sense of taking money from the pockets of hardworking folks and wasting it on people who don’t deserve it. Luntz doesn’t want Democrats pointing out how private success depends on public investment – in infrastructure, education, health, transportation, research, economic stability, protections of all sorts, and so on. He doesn’t want progressives talking about “revenue” which is defined in a business frame to mean money needed for any institution to function and flourish. He doesn’t want Democrats talking about the rich paying their fair share for the massive amount they have gotten from prior investments in a robust Public. Luntz would love to lure progressives into talking about government “spending” rather than investments in education, health, and infrastructure that will benefit most Americans.
He doesn’t want progressives pointing out that corporations govern our lives far more than any government does — and for their profit, not ours. He doesn’t want any discussion of corporate waste, or military waste, which is huge.
Luntz would love to have Democrats talking about “entrepreneurs,” which evokes a Republican view of the market as a tool for self-interest. His proposal to discuss “job creators” instead hides the fact that the business community has not been hiring despite record profits. He certainly does not want discussion of outsourcing and minimizing pay for work, which leads corporations to eliminate or downgrade jobs and hence keep wages low when profits are high.
Hidden behind his proposal to substitute “careers” for “jobs” is his attempt to appeal to young people just out of college and grad school who expect more — a profession — not just a mere “job.” But of course, corporations are downgrading positions away from professional careers and more toward interchangeable McJobs requiring minimal ability and with minimal pay and benefits.
Luntz is right about not saying “sacrifice.” He is right that most Americans are already hurting more than enough. They want a viable present and a future for themselves and their children and grandchildren. He is right to suggest “talking about how 'we're all in this together.' We either succeed together or we fail together." But that is the opposite of conservative morality. It is the progressive view of a moral democracy that all of Luntz’s conservative framings contradict. It is an attempt at co-opting the progressive moral system, because the Occupy movement is showing that it is an idea of Democracy that makes sense to most Americans. And it is an attempt to take Obama’s strongest moral appeal away from him.
Unfortunately, Luntz is still ahead of most progressives responding to him. Progressives need to learn how framing works. Bashing Luntz, bashing Fox News, bashing the right-wing pundits and leaders using their frames and arguing against their positions just keeps their frames in play.
Progressives have a basic morality, which is largely unspoken. It has to be spoken, over and over, in every corner of our country. Progressives need to be both thinking and talking about their view of a moral Democracy, about how a robust Public is necessary for private success, about all that the Public gives us, about the benefits of health, about a Market for All not a Greed Market, about regulation as protection, about revenue and investment, about corporations that keep wages low when profits are high, about how most of the rich earn a lot of their money without making anything or serving anyone, about how corporations govern your life for their profit not yours, about real food, about corporate and military waste, about the moral and social role of unions, about how global warming causes the increasingly monstrous effects of weather disasters, about how to save and preserve nature.
Progressives have magnificent stories of their own to tell. They need to be telling them nonstop.
Let’s lure the right into using OUR frames in public discourse.
139 Comments so far
Show AllDon't be fooled by this smooth talker. Lakoff and Luntz are two sides of the same coin. Lakoff is an Obamakin to the core and a hack for the Democratic Party. He's laying the ground work here for a co-optation of the Occupy Movement by the Democrats. Clever boy. He'll glad-hand whomever he needs to in order to keep his seat on the gravy train of the status quo. Be careful not to accept his "framing" of anything. It will only get us more of Obama and his ilk, which has nothing to do with "democracy."
And what would you suggest people do? Let Luntz and his cronies structure the debate? How would you deal with the miasma of lies we are subjected to? At least Lakoff has something to say: "Don't do what Luntz wants you to do."
Ignore Luntz, and frame George with a toilet seat on his neck.
Focus on this and ignore all else: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Anderson
The following quote comes from your reference on Rocky Anderson:
Formerly a member of the Democratic Party, Anderson expressed his disappointment with that Party in 2011,[16] stating “(t)he Constitution has been eviscerated while Democrats have stood by with nary a whimper. It is a gutless, unprincipled party, bought and paid for by the same interests that buy and pay for the Republican Party."
Most people on this site would agree with that statement. But it has nothing to do with Lakoff's critique of what Luntz is doing for the Republicans.
I don't live in Salt Lake or Utah, and I wasn't aware Mr. Anerson was running for national office.
George who?
It's true Luntz has something to say that's worth hearing. His whole shtick is framing, and there's something to it. But the trouble with his message is that it never gets a millimeter outside the framing of "conservative/progressive" and Democrat/Republican. Even here, he makes it clear that to frame anything as remotely "socialist" is a non-starter for Americans. As far as he'll ever go is progressive framing.
This means he simply cannot go any further left than the Democratic Party. To him, that's the only place to find true progressives. In this respect he's right in the camp of Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell and other MSNBC pundits, who never stray beyond rallying for Obama and progressive Democrats. None of these people, including Lakoff, will even so much as acknowledge that a vibrant left exists, except on the meaningless margins. That's toxic territory to Lakoff, because in his mind the left is forbidden ground to "most Americans."
This is the limitation of his thinking. And it keeps him firmly within the bounds of the Democratic Party. He's good about seeing what creeps like Luntz are really up to, and what "progressives" like those at MoveOn and Daily Kos should do to make end runs around the likes of Luntz, but he has nothing to say to those of us who don't consider Chris Matthews or Obama to be progressives. Lakoff wants to lure anyone really on the left back into the sheltering arms of the Democratic Party. He's interesting, but his core message is conventional as hell.
I think you're missing a chance of using his words to reiterate a message that needs to be delivered. That marketing is being used against all of us.
Well said.
I understand what he's saying. I've understood it pretty well for a long a time. But this whole thing is about more than marketing, though it's not what one finds in Lakoff's work. To him it seems to be about nothing but marketing, which he calls framing.
He wants progressives not to use words like capitalism in a negative context, because that implies we favor socialism. So say the infallible cognitive scientists. And the correlative to that is, we like communism. This is simplistic nonsense.
Most OWSers have a very stinging critique of capitalism (not that they all do), but Lakoff would have them keep quiet about it because most Merkins don't have a favorable view of its opposite, socialism. Don't frame issues that way, keep it all well within the safe boundaries of what polite Democrats and rigid Republicans feel comfortable with. In other words, don't stray beyond the rules of the duopoly. The only way to be effective or relevant, according to Lakoff's subtext, is to assume capitalism must merely be reformed, and that's the real business of Democrats, what he calls "progressives." This is not a message that's going to get much traction among OWSers.
FWIW, Ephraim, I have pretty much the same opinion of Lakoff as you do.
He does make some worthwhile points, but he's one of those theorists (for lack of a better term) that seems to elicit strongly polarized, i.e. hot or cold, reactions.
True believers impute a depth of comprehensive wisdom and importance to his ideas that (we) relative skeptics don't see. Thus, skeptical commenters are prone to elicit rebuttals that superciliously presume that Lakoff's deep analyses are simply over our heads.
For instance, I agree with your observation (slightly paraphrased) that the applied "framing" Lakoff discusses is tantamount to "marketing"-- I'm tempted to say it's a presentation of marketing theory glorified by framing it with a gloss of academic abstruseness.
I offer a synonymous description: as myth and folklore sometimes divide magic into "white magic" (good) and "black magic" (evil), I conclude that Lakoff's use of his "framing" concept amounts to a kind of "white demagoguery".
As noted, one person's demystification is another person's exasperatingly fallacious reductionism. So my skepticism may simply be the artifact of shallow, narrow perception and a feeble intellect. So be it; I'll just have to muddle through as best I can.
The marketing of both parties, of both the conservative and liberal factions, is being used against us.
Yes, Lakoff wants us to deliver the message that "Democrats are better then Republicans," and he wants is to become better liars on behalf of that message so we can compete with the liars on the Republican side.
But the ruling class message does not win because they are better at framing, it wins because they control the media - and the guns to back their message up.
Wise analysis, Ephraim. I sought to make a similar case having posted before reading others' comments. I'm glad to see that some see through (or should I say beyond) Lakoff's narrow frames.
My imagination just conjured a scene for a Saturday Night Live episode where one comedian would imitate Lakoff, and another one impersonate Luntz with the subject being how best to frame the events of 911... now THAT would be an interesting satire, especially since it's often (and only) the Fool who tells the king(dom) the truth.
Sheephearder -- You have some reasonable questions.
A lot of what Lakoff writes is helpful analysis. Jmowrey goes off the deep end by claiming that Lakoff is precisely the equivalent of Luntz in terms of manipulation & dishonesty. Lakoff is hardly riding along in the gilded carriage {"gravy train"} with the .1% that own the country. Most of his values appear to be moderately progressive and he is hardly writing his articles on framing and language in order to get rich.
That said, however, Jmowrey has seized on a kernel of indigestible reality: Lakoff is an apologist for the Democratic Party and most particularly he is an embarrassing shill for Obama.
The bizarre contradiction in Lakoff is most apparent in these two cheek by jowl sentences:
"It [Luntz's effort] is an attempt at co-opting the progressive moral system, because the Occupy movement is showing that it is an idea of Democracy that makes sense to most Americans. And it is an attempt to take Obama’s strongest moral appeal away from him."
Lakoff seems to appreciate what the OWS movement is all about but doesn't seem to get what Obama is all about -- which is to represent the same plutocracy that Luntz represents but with a 'kinder, gentler' face.
Why doesn't Lakoff get it? I suppose Jmowrey thinks he does 'get it' and that he is simply a Machiavellian member of the Luntz team.
It seems that many older liberal intellectuals such as as Lakoff & Robert Reich, et al. have been life long members of the Democratic Party, and they still harbor the illusion that it is the party of the grand FDR.
Perhaps it is too depressing, too bleak for them to come to terms with the new reality of the Democratic Party -- and the quintessence of Barack Obama in particular.
Obama has far more in common with Ronald Reagan -- and Dick Cheney for that matter -- than he does with FDR, once you strip away his florid campaign speeches, and look at the stark reality of his values and policies.
It would be a disaster to allow Obama and the Democratic Party to suck the life out of the OWS movement for their own political gain.
RANDY G: As usual, exceptionally keen and fair-minded analysis.
Structure the debate indeed.
What we need to do is ignore the 'debate' and talk about what affects us , talk about our lives , talk about our issues, not the issues presented to us by any side.
CD is guilty of this too. Even refutation is playing the game of arguing within someone else's framework. That's why rebels are not vilified, they are black to the opposition white, they do not challenge the framework.
So I say, throw out frameworks and be REAL.
Luntz and his cronies structure the debate because they work for those who own and control the media. Those who insist that all we need to do is change our slogans and terminology - our sales and marketing pitch - are the ones who are letting Luntz and his cronies structure the debate, by ignoring why and how they structure. Those of us calling for overthrowing those in power, including their power over the media, are the ones who are refusing to let Luntz and his cronies structure the debate.
So long as your opponent owns the podium, it does not matter how eloquent your speech may be.
Frankly I'd classify this as horse-hockey. Lakoff has been pushing the Dumbocrats to return to their liberal, compassionate roots, and to understand how large a part framing plays in the conversations, but he isn't about the Dems, he's about framing, and he's about being a "leftie". What he soundly is against is the Republican's success in framing all issues in their Darwinian "survival of the most sociopathic" worldview.
I've followed Lakoff's work from the beginning of its publicity and I happen to know it's about the science of framing and how only one group seems to be using it to their own clear advantage, and that one group has assiduously worked to discredit Lakoff and paint him as you do because they know that their power is threatened by an understanding of how they control the frames in common use.
Glad for the heads up. But in this article he never mentioned Obama. I am well aware Obama and family are part of the one percent. If he helps to bring light to the marketing schemes of the republicans, I am happy of that and rest assured I will require the same of the democrats.
For me a perfect world would be one in which congress was not allowed to insider trade. There was a time when it was illegal. Anyone study the Teapot Dome Scandal in school anymore? Graft and collusion by public officials used to be illegal, now it's just illegal for a common citizen to sue for grievances or damages. They like to call that "tort reform".
http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/07/news/congress_insider_trading/
Re-read the article. He did, in fact, mention Obama as others have noted.
I think Lakoff is a far greater threat to us than Luntz could ever be. (By "us" I mean the working class.)
Please expand on this idea...
Luntz is a wolf. Lakoff is a wolf in sheep's clothing. The disguised wolf is far more dangerous, because it can get in closer for the kill. The wolf units the flock in solidarity. The wolf in sheep's clothing divides the flock.
A pragmatist, realist is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Seeking to help progressive's rhetorical skills is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Lakoff does not make the ultra super purity test cut!
False. It is the other way around. It is you who rejects anything and everything that does not meet your "ultra super purity test cut."
Only that which will not in any way rock the boat or challenge the ruling class and the system that operates for their benefit passes your test. Anything and everything outside of those very narrow parameters is attacked and ridiculed by you.
This post of yours, and the many similar posts attacking the Left, are pure projection. You claim that it is you, and all of those who like you are trapped in the narrow world of defending the existing social arrangements and conventions, are the one who is open to all possibilities and ideas, and that all who challenge the existing social arrangements and conventions - no matter what they say - who are narrow minded and dogmatic.
This is a perfect example of the "reversal of reality" propaganda technique.
Two Americas: Thanks for your very astute observation! I agree with you.
RE: Lakoff and Luntz are two sides of the same coin.
Yup, the capitalist coin with its heads-or-tails Dems and GOP!
"Referring to the rich as “hardworking taxpayers” ignores the fact that a great percentage of the rich do not get their wealth from making things, but rather from investments in other people’s labor, and that most of the 1% are managers, not people who make things or directly provide services. "
Hard to be seen as a "hardworking taxpayer" when you invest so much money in avoiding paying any taxes, isn't it?
""Big Business is getting away with taxation murder," said Frank Knapp, vice chairman of the American Sustainable Business Council, a progressive business coalition.
"They pay little or no taxes on massive U.S. profits and then have the gall to lobby for ... a tax holiday to 'repatriate' profits they have stashed offshore.""
http://goo.gl/ccol3
And "career" and "entrepreneur" over job??? Those words are meaningless today as the terms "hero" and "terrorist". I know junk pickers who now class themselves as "entreprenuers" and "hairdressers" and "bank clerks" who claim they have careers. Besides isn't "entreprenuer" a French term? Isn't everything "French" considered unpatriotic. I think these marketers get paid much more than they are worth.
jmowrey, I'm sure you are right about the point of Lakoff's article: "Progressives have magnificent stories of their own to tell. They need to be telling them nonstop." I'm sure it is best to stay quiet and not risk upsetting conservatives. I assume that is what you were getting at, jmowrey, or were you merely nitpicking? I think Lakoff did make the unforgivable mistake of not denigrating Obama. Lakoff's lack of 'purity' is so off-putting. jmowrey, I think we both feel 'dirty' from simply reading this man's words. I know I promise to never tell "magnificent stories." I hope you'll take the promise too.
Yes, let's talk about FRAMING.
Lakoff, in his typical game of deception, here is trying to polish the frame which hold the painting called "The democrats as the opposing force of republicans."
The painting is a delusion.
The frame is used ensure that we don't see that the image is one of complicity, blood, and sadism.
It's in a private collection and Lakoff is one of their favored gallery owners.
Let's make sure we remain a part of the 1% PURE leftists. It's an exclusive club and we know we're better than all the rest. Some may call us haughty, but we know we are the visionary elites. We despise the fools who make up the democratic party hangers-on. We pity those who believe anything the MSM says. We know that everything republicans and democrats say is totally scripted and their goals are exactly the same. Nearly everything is a conspiracy. Only we can see the Matrix.
Well said. And framed perfectly.
All of the different political philosophies are promoted by a small number of people, around 1%, including yours.
Your philosophy seems to have a bigger following because you are aligned with the wealthy and powerful, and they control the media and the national political discussion.
Your post is pure projection, as it describes your stance more so than that of anyone else.
Your hostility toward and contempt for anything and anyone on the Left destroys any and all claims you may have once had for being kinda sorta "on our side."
I am thinking you are one of those people that thinks frames are more important than pictures. I am not one of them. I'll staple a magazine picture of something on my wall before I purchase a painting from a gallery any day. I didn't get any of what you are saying from this article. I am thinking you have a past reference of Mr.Lakoff, I don't.
"gardenernorcal" "leftoff", and "Greg R"
When Lakoff writes about "the right," "conservatives", and "republicans," he uses the words interchangeably.
When Lakoff writes about "the left," "progressives," and "democrats," he uses these words interchangeably.
He deliberately tries to manipulate people to associate the democrats and the republicans with different agendas when there is abundant evidence that there is little in the way of leftist progressive thinking in the democrat's party.
This article is an excellent example of his deviousness.
"Luntz is right about not saying “sacrifice.” "
So we call it "austerity" and it isn't supposed to hurt as much? But thing is it hurts even worse because it's not voluntary and it leads to even more erosion of individual rights.
"And it is an attempt to take Obama’s strongest moral appeal away from him."
What has this guy been smoking?
Right, this is a clue that Lakoff is a Democrat and beneficiary of the status quo.
Exactly!!
We can ridicule and ignore luntz all we want on the left but he has consistently kicked the lefts asses over and over again.
The right steals the language untl democrats simply argue the facts Within the framework luntz et al setup.
It's a losing proposition -
OWS should learn a few things about the use of language from this sociopath.
It seems to me right now watching the rethugs presidential campaign that the pro lefties on tv and radio are all a gaga at the coming Victory of obama and what a bunch of nutcases the rethugs have running.
Luntz's victory over the meaning of Words and Language is a large part of the lesser evils BS the dems use as a strategy.
The problem is No president has ever won with the economic conditions we have right now except FDR and conditions Improved to those numbers and FDR was loved by the majority of Americans.
Most Americans can hardly stand to even hear Obama speak his forked tongue BS anymore - and in fact Obama has the lowest Approval numbers of any post WW2 president.
Ridicule luntz all you want - but scoreboard sucks when you're getting your ass kicked. And in the recent past luntz has unfortunately kicked the dems asses.(of course it helps when the dems sabatoge themselves over and over again like the good little corporatists they are).
And I might ad what's the difference between this sociopath and Obama and his BS speech yesterday promising a New progressive era - Sounds good IF you ignore his Free Trade Agreement he JUST signed!
"OWS should learn a few things about the use of language from this sociopath."
They should have been smarter than to link the entire movement on one concept: "Occupy". Fail to "occupy" and the movement fails. Wonder why so much has been spent on dispersing the campsites? It's well spent. This movement exists on a single concept: "occupation". Disrupt that occupation and the movement no longer exists. The civil rights movement wasn't about occupying lunch counters or buses, it was more than that. It was about "civil rights". "We are the 99%" was a much stonger meme. One they would have had a much harder time countering. How exactly do non taxpaying elitist counter the call of the 99% that do? They never had to. We made it easy for them to discount our pain, and offer us nothing but austerity in return for their new annual bonuses. Words and framing do matter.
As to the trade treaties (the PPT) not even the republicans objected. How rich is that they've stymied this president on everything else accept the Bush tax cuts haven't they? Funny thing the PPT website and SPP website are based on the same programming. But then we're not supposed to remember the SPP ever existed are we? And both are overseen by the commerce department, so why should they modify their web site? Hell Rumsfield is probably selling his flu vaccine through this trade treaty as well. Hey, the inner circule has to make their buck, don't they?
I agree. The 99ers theme is much stronger. The 99ers make the stuff and grow the food we need. Some of these 99ers have a hand in organizing the work processes in which the stuuf gets made & the food gets grown & processed. Other of the 99ers are creative/inventive types with a science & tech background, who start with a dream or vision of stuff-to-be-made and designs the stuff & the tools/machines that'll make it, which other of the 99ers will then proceed to make it. In hardly ANY of this process are 99ers daydreaming about "getting rich". They are usually just wanting some comfort & security for themselves & their families, and don't begrudge other 99ers having same. In all of this process, the guy who owns the building (usually a 1%er) or the guy who gives out the money (NOT his own, god forbid) to get this process started (invariably a 1%er), has the LEAST important part of the work involved in making stuff & growing food, and yet THEY are the "job creators"?!? This is how to counter luntz' framing IMO, and Michael Moore is just the guy to polish up this idea & "knock it outta the ballpark".
gnore Luntz at your peril. Lakoff is correct. Words do matter. How you attack does matter.
If people don't wake up to the fact that pure leftists as opposed to progressives or liberals amount to about one half of 1% of the population and can do absolutely nothing without the other 99% on the left, there is going to be another real ass kinking in the coming election.
If they don't wake up to the fact that elections do matter, they are the only way to effect change, that power to effect change is contained in elections, then there will be a great deal to sit around and bitch about again.
This is simply not true. All politics is driven by several small factions competing for the attention of the public. That has always been the case. "Pure leftists" are no smaller a group than corporate Dems and liberal apologists for the system. People who are aligned with money and power can appear to be larger than they are, that is all.
The worse ass kicking the working class has gotten in recent times was from the Democrats. If elections mattered as much as you claim they do, that would not have been possible, because the ass kicking came independently from the elections - the Dems got elected by saying one thing, and then in office they did the opposite. I call that an ass kicking, and I call that evidence that the elections did not matter.
For those that never "got" Lakoff's (and the Rockridge Institute's) message (for whatever reason), his "frames" have nothing to do with artwork. Frames are the context within which we see and assimilate new information, as an example do we view universal medical care as 1) a compassionate response to the problem of the widespread lack of medical care that would benefit society -or- as 2) being forced to pay for someone else's care and allowing the government to kill Granny because her medical care is too expensive?
The frame you use to see universal healthcare determines which of these two directions you will go in, the two points are (simplistically) two different frames. Considering this particular subject, consider which side of the message became the predominant frame for those in power and was by far most strongly promoted.
Again, I've followed Lakoff's work for several years, and it took me a LONG time to wrap my head around it and it wasn't until I "stepped back" and tried to see the framing separately from the message that I finally "got it". In the meantime, rather than simply discounting the theory and making jokes about it, I tried to understand it, and now I do "have a clue". The frame is the context within which you assimilate new information, and with the exception of one prominent "organization" (being the Occupy movement) all the prominent framing in public discourse is strongly right-wing. This is also one of the greatest strengths of the Occupy movement, and the predominant reason that it has those in power shaking in fear- Occupy has it's own frames, based on compassion and a society that works together, and those frames have gained a great deal of traction.
This is a huge threat, because power depends on managing the frames to keep the population from being a cohesive 99%, and the Occupy frames are in complete opposition to those frames they depend on for control of society.
So Lakoff has worked within the existing structure to try to create positive change? So what? Don't we all do what we can do within the existing structure? Is Bernie Sanders a "bad guy" because he doesn't simply leave the legislative branch and strike out on his own? And how does pointing out the right-wing framing being used against both Occupy and Obama prove that Lakoff is trying to get the movement co-opted by the Democrats? We should reject the message, no matter how valid, because the messinger doesn't behave in a sufficiently radical left-wing manner for our satisfaction?
Luntz is irrelevant...so is Lakoff...
Luntz wouldn't kick anyone's ass if Kennedy hadn't taken bullets to the head...
make no mistake about what runs this place: murder, slavery and resource control...
you pay to play, or you go away...
the rest is framing...even the concept of framing is framing...
look down, take off your shoes, listen to the birds...
the land is the key...the air, the water...the other animals...
politics will not win this day...this struggle will be physical...
I'm with you all the way till the end there. Surely the struggle involves physical elements, like the birds, the land, the water and other animals. But didn't you mention those 'things' to implicate a more sublime reality, to ground us in that reality, and to compel us to free ourselves from the boxes that ideological framing constructs?
Neither religion nor politics can win this awareness, because they divide truth into personalized frames. (divide and conquer)
I'm struggling to understand the struggle. The 'things' you mentioned exist apart from political and religious intent, and neither politics nor religion contribute. That may ground me, but the greater struggle is more than that, and would seem to require a greater awakening, which would be of consciousness beyond physical, no?
Well I guess "science" has proven that Democrats are better than Republicans, that the two parties represent the full range of political thought, that choosing between two electoral parties is the only imaginable form of political expression, and that the only meaningful thing any of us can do is to become better sales people for the Democratic party.
"Science" has spoken.
Hi TA. I'm interested in hearing your reply to the luntz schtick. Really.
Luntz is interested in getting Republicans elected rather than Democrats.
Lakoff is interested in getting Democrats elected rather than Republicans.
Lakoff insists on playing on the partisan electoral playing field, and that playing field is defined and controlled by the ruling class. Luntz will always win that battle against Lakoff, as the filed is tilted in his favor,
Lakoff insists that the Republican versus Democrat drama is important and meaningful - he give it credence and solidity with his pseudo-science support for it.
When Luntz speaks we can harbor no illusions about the program of the ruling class. When Lakoff speaks, the truth is obscured and mitigated.
Progressives and liberals are seduced by Lakoff's appeals, because Lakoff makes them feel good about themselves. Progressives and liberals always go for feeling good about themselves rather than going for results. Luntz is going for results.
Sorry, but I think your way out in left field. Just because things are tilted in Luntz' favor is absolutely no reason to haughtily dismiss progressive 'framing.' Progress is more likely to be attained if we learn how to talk to conservatives and moderates. A bad choice of word or phrase will often turn off the listener. (I have no doubt I am guilty of that in this forum). "Luntz is going for results." But Lakoff is not? He only wants people like us to feel good? Your mind reading abilities leave something to be desired I think.