This side has not yet learned something that the repukes have perfected.

[BrklynLiberal]

This article is SEVEN years old!!

Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics


<snip>

How does language influence the terms of political debate?

Language always comes with what is called "framing." Every word is defined relative to a conceptual framework. If you have something like "revolt," that implies a population that is being ruled unfairly, or assumes it is being ruled unfairly, and that they are throwing off their rulers, which would be considered a good thing. That's a frame.
<snip>
Why do conservatives appear to be so much better at framing?

Because they've put billions of dollars into it. Over the last 30 years their think tanks have made a heavy investment in ideas and in language. In 1970, Lewis Powell wrote a fateful memo to the National Chamber of Commerce saying that all of our best students are becoming anti-business because of the Vietnam War, and that we needed to do something about it. Powell's agenda included getting wealthy conservatives to set up professorships, setting up institutes on and off campus where intellectuals would write books from a conservative business perspective, and setting up think tanks. He outlined the whole thing in 1970. They set up the Heritage Foundation in 1973, and the Manhattan Institute after that.

<snip>
Why haven't progressives done the same thing?

There's a systematic reason for that. You can see it in the way that conservative foundations and progressive foundations work. Conservative foundations give large block grants year after year to their think tanks. They say, 'Here's several million dollars, do what you need to do.' And basically, they build infrastructure, they build TV studios, hire intellectuals, set aside money to buy a lot of books to get them on the best-seller lists, hire research assistants for their intellectuals so they do well on TV, and hire agents to put them on TV. They do all of that. Why? Because the conservative moral system, which I analyzed in "Moral Politics," has as its highest value preserving and defending the "strict father" system itself. And that means building infrastructure. As businessmen, they know how to do this very well.

<snip>

[NYC_SKP]

1. I thought you were going to say, "stick together", "don't infight", "vote as a block"...

or, "Make a supermajority mean something"..

but I'll rec your post anyway.

:P

[FSogol]

2. K & R. We need to learn to frame our issues and messages so a six grader can

understand them. Then we will win.

[renegade000]

3. Exactly

Thanks for the link and snips from the George Lakoff article!

I was making the same point in a thread in GD: P, http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x147029.

If our leadership fails to take a top-down approach to reframing the debate, the least we can do is develop a method of linguistic jujitsu that we can practice in our daily interactions with people. Whenever people accuse democrats of being for "big government" and against "free markets", we should spin that right back in their face and accuse republicans of being for "do-nothing government" and for "lawless markets", whereas we're for "working government" and "free and FAIR markets".

[BrklynLiberal]

5. Guess our minds we traveling the same track..

[renegade000]

8. Yup!

You know what they say about great minds... ;-)
Thanks for kicking my thread as well!

But in all seriousness, I wonder how we get a set of progressive friendly memes out there...

[BrklynLiberal]

11. Here is someone else thinking along the same lines today

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7554582&mesg_id=7554582

[Gman2]

4. Draft Chomsky

[BrklynLiberal]

6. Wonder what it is about linguistics professors that make them so smart???

If not actually elected, they should be used as campaign consultants..

[Cetacea]

15. +1 !

K&R

[dajoki]

7. That is it in a nutshell...

and the Heritage Foundation is evil and has been writing laws for 30 years.

[anonymous171]

9. Thanks for posting this as an OP. K&R.

:kick: :hi:

[BrklynLiberal]

12. Now if we could only get some folks in DC to pay attention!!!

:thumbsup: :hi:

[csziggy]

10. I gave the local DEC copies of Lakoff's material in 2004

I think they did a program on it, but that was as far as it went - no communication up stream to the national organization. That was one of the reasons I dropped out of the DEC - they just were not getting anything done.

[BrklynLiberal]

13. That essay was written by Lakoff in 2003!!!!

What is wrong with the people who are in a position to be pushing this stuff??

[csziggy]

14. The group Lakoff was with, the Rockridge Institute announced its closure in April, 2008.

Howard Dean sent out DVDs of Lakoff lectures to DFA groups back in 2004. That is where I first heard of him. But even though Dean tried really hard to push it, nothing really ever came of the Lakoff concepts.

Rockridge had some good information at their website - I hope that is not all lost.

[ClassWarrior]

19. Rockridge was a foundation. Prof. Lakoff is still at UC Berkley, still publishing, still doing...

...good work.

NGU.

[csziggy]

22. There was a separate body of work at Rockridge - I downloaded some of it

But unless the Wayback Machine saved it, it is gone from the internet.

[Cetacea]

16. Psycholinguistics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycholinguistics

I once heard Tucker Carlson say that they used this technique even on the cable news shows and everyone ignored him...I've suspected as much for many years.

[Vincardog]

17. What role does the Corporate Controlled Media play in the Right's wondrous FRAMING ability?

[ClassWarrior]

18. Repetition. Just means we have to work harder.

:shrug:

NGU.

[amborin]

20. agree; but framing only goes so far....people aren't blind to banksters getting $$$$$$ and everyone

else struggling to hang onto their homes, jobs, etc.....

[ClassWarrior]

21. True, but oftentimes they don't know how to interpret it. That's what framing does. Either we...

...interpret what the people see truthfully, or we let the other side interpret it dishonestly.

NGU.

[KittyWampus]

23. Oh, and Grover Norquist is the guy who heads up the weekly meetings where they decide

on what this week's talking points will be.