Framing the Debate: What is a Dem.

[douginmarshall]

In Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate: Lakoff wants us to think of how we frame the debate. I have read some other threads and was wondering what the reaction would be to framing all issues and have people think of the issues in terms of what would you want for your children, siblings, spouse, parents, grand parents, etc. Make all issues personal. If your child were gay would you give them fewer rights? If your daughter were raped and became pregnant would you say she had to carry that baby to term? Should your grandmother not have good quality health care? Would you want your kids/grandkids living next to a hazardous waist site? I think this can be applied to any issue.

What do others think?

[ClassWarrior]

1. That's a great tactic...

Framing is the strategy. The personal touch you suggest would be used to advance broad Progressive values areas, like opportunity - which includes gender neutral rights, healthy environments and health care, freedom from an unwanted pregnancy. Another is responsibility - which means companies need to clean up their pollution, government has a responsibility to care for our health, etc...

Others are caring and hope. They are "big ideas" with which nearly anyone can identify, and they nicely hold all things Progressive.

NGU.

[Democrat Dragon]

24. It's good cause many * voters only think about themselves.

[Clarkie1]

2. Add a high-quality education for your children to that list. n/t

[Sparkly]

3. Yes, I think distilling it to the family even as an analogy makes sense

In face, Lakoff points out that conservatives have done that successfully with their "strict father" model. I don't know why Democrats can't use it to articulate economic policy better. Voters do not seem to understand the cost of debt to the country, because they don't see it the same way they see their credit card bills. "Would you run your household budget this way?" is a way to bring it home, I think. ("Would you max out your credit cards and saddle your kids with the bill after you're gone?")

[ClassWarrior]

4. Excellent.

NGU.

[izzybeans]

6. I think this is important but...

it assumes that people's sentiments for their own family are actually stronger than the hold their political ideologies has over them. Here's a personal example (for instance): Just before the election at a family gathering, my wife's family got together. They are from all over the U.S. and are split pretty evenly in terms of who they were voting for. During this get together a sister and a brother got into pushing and shouting match over the issue of gay marriage. The sister is a lesbian with children. The comment made about how he was voting against his own nephews was the climax of the whole ordeal. Guess which side of the family thought the sister was out of line? No one even paid attention to the comment even though the boys were just in the room not one hour prior sitting on their laps as they proclaimed their love to them. Not so when these members went to vote. My wife and I skipped on the past holiday get together in disgust.

I hope this personalized framing works in the long term, but this is was not an isolated example of a family divided.

[douginmarshall]

9. Strict father vs. nurturant parent

remember that Lakoff says that some of us view the world in the strict father model, some in the nurturant parent, and many have both views. In framing the debate those that are solely in the strict father model will not relate to this frame. The idea is to have your frames resonate with enough voters to move past the 50% level. Does my idea get us there or close?

[AP]

14. Lakoff says that more than 50% of Americans already...

...think of the world in terms of the nurturant parent value system, which is why RW'ers have to use the Orwellian terminology to sell some of their programs.

He says that Republicans win even though a majority of Americans don't see the world the way they do partly because of the Orwellian terminology which Democrats don't counter effectively, but mostly because the Democrats don't bother to do what Republicans do which is argue their policies withing a moral framework.

He says that Republicans start with the big picture value system, then articulate policies as fitting withing that paradigm. Democrats, on the other hand, like to ignore the moral system framework and start with statistics. He says they also don't spend any time explaining how their laundry lists of policy proposals fit together as a coherent world view.

He says people can't make any sense of laundry lists unless you explain to them first what the bigger picture is.

You don't need to conced your big picture falue system and start talking like a strict father moralist to win more than 50% of the vote. You need to explain to the voters what your progressive value system is and then start plugging in your policy proposals so that people can make sense of it.

[merbex]

22. Excellent analysis and summing up of his book

your's is the best by far that I've seen

[AP]

31. Why thank you.

I wish I had proof-read it a little more closely! Ugh, what awful spelling errors!

[izzybeans]

23. Isn't this typology a bit...

simplistic? I understand the argument about the structure of language and constructing narratives that frame issues in understandable ways but typecasting millions of people into two or a combination of two universal worldviews sounds like a bunch of psycho-babble. Type A and Type B or whatever. It seems on the surface to be totally constricting.

I think this sort of typcasting, strict father vs. nurturing parent (a frame in itself) seems unneccessary for understanding the powers of framing. We could create an endless typology of the ways people recieve and give info. We have at our disposal an infinite combination of words.

But start with Goffman, who kick started frame analysis with his book "Frame Analysis", frames are a way of patterning the world perceptively via language (verbal and non verbal), visual and auditory stimuli, etc. They shift into the background all sorts of possible sensory information by foregrounding particular aspects of a subject, scene, or situation. Thus creating relationships between symbols and the things they are meant to symbolize-both the syntax and semantics-the signified and their opposite. It was a fusion of Sassurian linguistics and sociology. Goffman made the semiotician move by studying interactions --pointing out that most of what we do in them is ritualized. Lakoff extends this by pointing out wonderfully what republicans have done to coopt their opponents' messages. however, limiting our strategies within a framework of two social actors one nurturant and one not might be a recipe for further failure. They've learned how to sneak into the ritual perceptions of the masses and steal our morality.

I say keep the possibilities for who you are in dialogue with more open, but do what Lakoff says about constructing a moral worldview. However, the question of action does not end there because this must be done in a sustained, collective and most publically visible way. The republican frame is built into the machine, with corporate marketing strategists writing scripts, doing framing research, designing web pages, writing speeches, apparently even framing the news itself and doing so continually. I think a more adequate arsenal is needed to do battle with such a machine. We need more than a nururing parent, we need money and professional narrative writers, we need both protest on the streets and people on the inside. Lakoff points that out in this interview.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml#framing

[AP]

30. Well...

...what Lakoff is trying to describe is why people categorize themselves as being either Type A (Dem) or Type B (Rep).

I'll admit that when I was reading Moral Politics one of the most overwhelming impressions II had was that the explanation is very basic and very simple. However, considering what he's trying to describe, that the explanation is simple isn't neccessarily a criticism.

I think I said in another post that people might be confusing Lakoff's arguments about how Republicans are broadly successful and his argument about why Republicans are successful when popular opinion isn't on their side.

He says their broad success is because they fit their policies into a moral framework whereas Democrats like to talk statistics and Democrats ignore the framework. My interpretation of that is that Republican voters really feel something about voting that is stronger, and a lot of people in the middle don't hear a sufficiently compelling message. I suppose that helps with GOP GOTV -- it forces Democrats to have to work harder on the ground.

When Lakoff talks about coopting the language of the left he's talking about the few areas where Republicans know that a majority of Americans don't agree with their positions. Basically, the Orwellian language is just used to tell lies about their positions.

The Orwellian language stuff that Lakoff talks about doesn't seem to be the whole argument. It doesn't even seem to be more than 15% of his argument. His bigger argument is not about using langugage to tell lies about the other side. His bigger argument is simply about having a moral framework for policy (regardless of the terminology you use to explain it).

If you look at DU you can see this confusion. 90% of the posts about Lakoff here are basically, "what kind of language should we use to describe what Republicans do?"

But then you see in another post asking people what they think being a Democrat means, or what they think the most important issue is and people can barely articulate what it means to be a democrat and they think war is the most important issue. To me that's a sign that the Republicans are way far ahead of Democrats and we have a lot of work to do.

[izzybeans]

32. True on all counts.

I was just not wanting to get caught up in the framework when the butter was in the details. Thanks.

I see what you are saying about some threads on the DU. What do you think about attempts such as creating slogans such as "war is not moral"? I've seen this a lot after "the argument" of this book started getting disseminated.

Morality is the best consensus maker. Being clear on what that term means is necessarily important. How best to do it "creating a consensus" seems to be where we are most at a loss, however. In my opinion, a wonderfully articulated narrative could be constructed that caste progressive politics in moral terms without great impact outside of the progressive "community". It's a morality most of us share already. We've been deligitimate as ammoral/immoral on a wider scale. This new narrative must be transmitted continually to the culture and become embedded within everyday consciousness for it to become truly impactful.

[me b zola]

8. How about

The strict mother model.

Strong mothers usually manage their households. This means economic as well as the well-being of the members of the household.

[AP]

16. What are the elements of a strict mother value system?

If they're the same as strict father, then you're talking about a framework that helps conservatives.

[me b zola]

20. Hmm. Yeah, the word strict does bother me.

Strong is closer to the model I have in mind.

The concept is built upon the nurturing archetype of motherhood.
A mother sees the needs of the family, and the individuals within the family in a holistic manner. It is the mother who considers all of the children's needs--health care, education, social, etc.

A mother tends to remove obstacles when the playing field is unlevel. She would never divvy the family resources in a manner that would favor the *strongest* members leaving a child with more needs to 'make due or suffer'.



A mother would never cut the strings to a safety net that is in place to catch her children if they fall.



note: I think in terms of concepts, but am not very good at articulating them. Please bare with me.

[AP]

21. Progressives tend not to gender-type parenting roles.

What you expect of the mother you expect of the father too.

Which is probably why Lakoff calls the two models "strict father" and "nurturant parent."

[meow2u3]

17. How about a Strong Mother model of morality?

The Strong Mother model would be the middle ground between the Strict Father and the Nurturant Parent extremes. The Strong Mother is wise, allowing enough room for her kids to grow and as much freedom as they can handle. At the same time, she doesn't allow the children to take over, knowing when to lay down the law.
In short, the Strong Mother model would translate into freedom without license; protectiveness without overprotectiveness; authority without authoritarianism.

[AP]

19. People have so little faith in progressive values...

...that they think they need to find middle grounds?

The Republicans don't care about middle grounds. They have their framework, and they fit everything into it.

And the problem for democrats is that they believe in all the nurturant parent policies. They simply don't fit them within the right framework.

Trying to fit nurturant parent policies into some middle ground framework makes as little sense as trying to fit them into a strict father framework (or not trying to fit them into any framework at all).

Democrats need to present a logical, coherent framework for what they believe -- one that makes sense of all their policy aims so that people see the bigger picture. It would be illogical and incoherent to try to fit nurturant parent policies into a middle-ground framework.

In any event, "freedom without license" etc are all parts of the nurturant parent value system anyway. (Nurturan parent values aren't "wolf boy" values!)

[lonestarnot]

5. Oh yes...Now we're getting it....Words Powerful, Not one fucking response

to that post yet. People too lazy to read, how they going to learn how to frame a debate?

[forgethell]

7. I think the conservatives

have already "framed" the debate. I think they already think in personal terms, the selfish greedy corporate war-mongers.

[pstans]

10. Add this to the list

"Would you want your teenage son to get drafted once we invade Iran?"

[AP]

11. Yes, but remember this:

A big difference between conservatives and progressives is that conservatives believe that all problems are family-based and government has no place fixing them.

If people can't get their lives together, Republicans believe it is because of personal failings (that's what a strict father would say).

Democrats believe that you have to help people out when it's in the governments capacity to help people because, as John Edwards said in the primaries, we're all better off when we're all better off.

So, yes, frame issues in terms of the progressive family, but remember that the argument isn't that all issues must be dealt with withing the family social structure. The argument is that the government should behave exactly the way that a caring family would behave -- that successful families look after their members and they don't throw them to the wolves in a survival of the fittest sort of way.

And remember that you're always arguing that people should think of society as its family. Just because you're not related to someone doesn't mean that you shouldn't care whether that person lives in misery.

[ClassWarrior]

13. I guess that speaks to the power of the now-famous adage...

"It takes a village to raise a child."

NGU.

[AP]

15. Lakoff calls Hillary the archetypal nurturant parent...

...and Newt Gingrich the archetypal strict parent (in Moral Politics, which was published in 1996).

[NAO]

12. Dems are the party of taxation, legislation, and regulation (re-framed)

Someone posted this criticism of the Democratic Party a while back at DU.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1490438

To me, this seemed like a postive statement that was just begging to be framed. So I responded:

Dems are the Party of Community, Civilization, and Protection!...And the institutions that mankind has established to promote community, civilization, and protection are respectively taxation, legislation, and regulation.

Taxation is the institution that facilitates community. It makes things like paved roads, public schools, clean water at the tap, police, firefighters, and the military possible.

Legislation is the institution that establishes civilization. Men pass laws to enable them to live together harmoniously in communities. Plato wrote the story with extended analysis on this one a few hundred years before Christ. See Plato's "The Laws".

Regulation is the institution that civilized communities enact to protect their members from reckless behavior that may not be overtly violent (such as those things forbidden by the laws) but that may still be harmful to individuals or to the community.

So in that sense, I guess Dems ARE the part of taxation, legislation, and regulation.

[robbedvoter]

18. What I thought a Dem was: someone representing ALL people

by furthering their economical and civil rights interests while demanding responsibility from corporations, givernment. Someone who thinks governments's function is to serve the people. As such, someone who wouldn't use it for personal gain or world domination.

[Senator Lamb]

25. for me its simple

get a bunch of tough guys, perferbelly those who fought in a war, no nonsense, common man vibe, who is not afraid to swear once and awhile and can appeal to our old white male worker base who is being screwed by wingnut policies, and make the GOP out to be a bunch of rich corporate elite. Wes Clark is one of example of a person we need to frame the debate. keep in mind, im not a clarkie on these boards, its just my own analysis.

[AP]

26. Lakoff might say that unless you present a progressive value system

that makes sense of the world to the white male worker, you're probably not going to win his vote.

The white male worker knows on some level that he's not getting richer from having a Republican president. But he's still willing to vote against his best economic interests because he still believes in the conservative moral framework: survival of the fittest, we need to sacrifice happiness in exchange for protection from external threats, self-interest is best for the community, etc.

Unless you give voters an alternative value system which they find more compelling, swing voters are just going to vote for Republicans.

[Senator Lamb]

27. maybe we need

a modern day Truman. my feeling is that two people can be liberal, but if one comes across as an elitist or intellectual no matter how unfair the label is, your not going to win. if your considered one of the guys i think you can appeal to the common white guy who feels hes getting screwed but doesnt like "sissy liberals" either.

[AP]

28. Regarding class, Blumenthal's book The Clinton Wars talks about JFK

Blumenthal said that even though JFK was rich, people say him as an outsider to the Brahmin world he grew up so close to because of his Catholicism.

Even if you weren't Catholic, blue collar workers saw JFK as an outsider like they were.

LBJ was 10 times wealthier than JFK, but because he grew up so poor, people didn't see class as a problem.

So, there are all sorts of permutations. But I generally agree. If the Democrats don't run someone who is somehow a symbol of economic opportunity and who speaks to the working class, the Democrats are crazy.

[jab105]

29. Link for those that want to discuss the family frame more in the framing

group...

I thought this was a great idea and started a discussion in the framing forum...if interested...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=252x1165

:)