Two years ago George Lakoff published the bestselling Don't Think of an Elephant! Its account of the conservative monopoly on effective framing touched off a national discussion about political language. It also gave rise to a chorus of pleas for more:
* What is the progressive vision of America;
* Why progressive values are America's values;
* How frames are necessary to serve the truth;
* Why sloganeering alone doesn't work;
* How progressives trap themselves and how they can escape those traps; and
* How political arguments and narratives can be put together to counter the Right.
Thinking Points satisfies that call with a bold, concise, and systematic explanation of how conservatives think and use language—and how progressives can fight back . Lakoff and the Rockridge Institute offer a new understanding of the so-called political center and explain why the most effective way to appeal to those who identify themselves as moderates or conservatives is to remain true to progressive values.
This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to participate in shaping an America that serves the common good.
Two years ago George Lakoff published the bestselling Don't Think of an Elephant! Its account of the conservative monopoly on effective framing touched off a national discussion about political language. It also gave rise to a chorus of pleas for more:
* What is the progressive vision of America;
* Why progressive values are America's values;
* How frames are necessary to serve the truth;
* Why sloganeering alone doesn't work;
* How progressives trap themselves and how they can escape those traps; and
* How political arguments and narratives can be put together to counter the Right.
Thinking Points satisfies that call with a bold, concise, and systematic explanation of how conservatives think and use language—and how progressives can fight back . Lakoff and the Rockridge Institute offer a new understanding of the so-called political center and explain why the most effective way to appeal to those who identify themselves as moderates or conservatives is to remain true to progressive values.
This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to participate in shaping an America that serves the common good.
eBookFirst Edition (First Edition)
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Two years ago George Lakoff published the bestselling Don't Think of an Elephant! Its account of the conservative monopoly on effective framing touched off a national discussion about political language. It also gave rise to a chorus of pleas for more:
* What is the progressive vision of America;
* Why progressive values are America's values;
* How frames are necessary to serve the truth;
* Why sloganeering alone doesn't work;
* How progressives trap themselves and how they can escape those traps; and
* How political arguments and narratives can be put together to counter the Right.
Thinking Points satisfies that call with a bold, concise, and systematic explanation of how conservatives think and use language—and how progressives can fight back . Lakoff and the Rockridge Institute offer a new understanding of the so-called political center and explain why the most effective way to appeal to those who identify themselves as moderates or conservatives is to remain true to progressive values.
This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to participate in shaping an America that serves the common good.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781429997621 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| Publication date: | 10/03/2006 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 176 |
| File size: | 198 KB |
About the Author
George Lakoff is a professor of linguistics and cognitive science at the University of California, Berkeley, and a founder of the Rockridge Institute. He is the author of Whose Freedom?, Don't Think of an Elephant!, and Moral Politics, as well as seminal books in linguistics, including Metaphors We Live By (with Mark Johnson).
The Rockridge Institute is a team of scholars and researchers committed to American progressive ideals. It provides intellectual support to the progressive community, partnering with advocates, activists, and policy professionals to articulate the system of American values and ideas and reframe public debate.
George Lakoff is the author of Don't Think of an Elephant and Moral Politics, as well as many seminal books on linguistics. He lives and teaches in Berkeley, California.
Read an Excerpt
Thinking Points
Communicating Our American Values and Vision A Progressive's Handbook
By George Lakoff
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Copyright © 2006 Tides Center/Rockridge InstituteAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-9762-1
CHAPTER 1
WINNING AND LOSING
Richard Wirthlin, chief strategist for former president Ronald Reagan, made a discovery in 1980 that profoundly changed American politics. As a pollster, he was taught that people vote for candidates on the basis of the candidates' positions on issues. But his initial polls for Reagan revealed something fascinating: Voters who didn't agree with Reagan on the issues still wanted to vote for him. Mystified, Wirthlin studied the matter further. He discovered just what made people want to vote for Reagan.
Reagan talked about values rather than issues. Communicating values mattered more than specific policy positions. Reagan connected with people; he communicated well. Reagan also appeared authentic — he seemed to believe what he said. And because he talked about his values, connected with people, and appeared authentic, they felt they could trust him.
For these four reasons — values, connection, authenticity, and trust — voters identified with Reagan; they felt he was one of them. It was not because all of his values matched theirs exactly. It was not because he was from their socioeconomic class or subculture. It was because they believed in the integrity of his connection with them as well as the connection between his worldview and his actions.
Issues are real, as are the facts of the matter. But issues are also symbolic of values and of trustworthiness. Effective campaigns must communicate the candidates' values and use issues symbolically — as indicative of their moral values and their trustworthiness.
Recall Reagan's mythical Cadillac-driving "welfare queen." For Reagan, she represented more than just a case of welfare abuse. She came to symbolize all that was wrong with the government's approach to dealing with poverty, especially a wide array of government "handouts" — programs he thought rewarded laziness, removed the incentive to be disciplined, and promoted immorality.
Whatever we may think of Reagan, this has been a winning formula for conservatives for the past quarter century. Progressives need to learn from it. Politics is about values; it is about communication; it is about voters trusting a candidate to do what is right; it is about believing in, and identifying with, a candidate's worldview. And it is about symbolism.
Issues are secondary — not irrelevant or unimportant, but secondary. A position on issues should follow from one's values, and the choice of issues and policies should symbolize those values.
One misunderstanding, common among progressive circles, is that the Reagan and George W. Bush elections were about "personality" rather than anything substantive. Nothing is more substantive than a candidate's moral worldview — and whether he or she authentically abides by it.
Wirthlin's discovery happened to be about a presidential candidate, but it applies much more broadly. It should be taken to heart by all progressives: Concentrate on values and principles. Be authentic; stand up for what you really believe. Empathize and connect with the people you are talking to, on the basis of identity — their identity and yours.
This book is not about winning and losing elections. It is about winning and losing hearts and minds. This can happen only by helping people discover who they truly are in their heart of hearts.
It is about values and how to communicate them. It is about what a progressive vision is, about what fundamental progressive moral values and principles are, and about how one can articulate them and argue persuasively in favor of them. The secret is effective communication — the use of words and language in the service of our deepest convictions.
Progressives have not only failed to understand Wirthlin's discovery, they have also not understood recent advances in cognitive science, so they continue to fall into a number of traps. These are traps of our own making, however, and we can get out of them without having to change anything about our values.
This is cause for optimism. The purpose of this handbook is to lay out the anatomy of progressive values, ideas, and arguments to free us from traps we have fallen into.
TWELVE TRAPS TO AVOID
1. The Issue Trap. We hear it said all the time: Progressives won't unite behind any set of ideas. We all have different ideas and care about different issues. The truth is that progressives do agree at the level of values and that there is a real basis for progressive unity. Progressive values cut across issues. So do principles and forms of argument. Conservatives argue conservatism, no matter what the issue. Progressives should argue progressivism. We need to get out of issue silos that isolate arguments and keep us from the values and principles that define an overall progressive vision.
2. The Poll Trap. Many progressives slavishly follow polls. The job of leaders is to lead, not follow. Besides, contrary to popular belief, polls in themselves do not present accurate empirical evidence. Polls are only as accurate as the framing of their questions, which is often inadequate. Real leaders don't use polls to find out what positions to take; they lead people to new positions.
3. The Laundry List Trap. Progressives tend to believe that people vote on the basis of lists of programs and policies. In fact, people vote based on values, connection, authenticity, trust, and identity.
4. The Rationalism Trap. There is a commonplace — and false — theory that reason is completely conscious, literal (applies directly to the objective world), logical, universal, and unemotional. Cognitive science has shown that every one of these assumptions is false. These assumptions lead progressives into other traps: assuming that hard facts will persuade voters, that voters are "rational" and vote in their self-interest and on the issues, and that negating a frame is an effective way to argue against it.
5. The No-Framing-Necessary Trap. Progressives often argue that "truth doesn't need to be framed" and that the "facts speak for themselves." People use frames — deep-seated mental structures about how the world works — to understand facts. Frames are in our brains and define our common sense. It is impossible to think or communicate without activating frames, and so which frame is activated is of crucial importance. Truths need to be framed appropriately to be seen as truths. Facts need a context.
6. The Policies-Are-Values Trap. Progressives regularly mistake policies with values, which are ethical ideas like empathy, responsibility, fairness, freedom, justice, and so on. Policies are not themselves values, though they are, or should be, based on values. Thus, Social Security and universal health insurance are not values; they are policies meant to reflect and codify the values of human dignity, the common good, fairness, and equality.
7. The Centrist Trap. There is a common belief that there is an ideological "center" — a large group of voters either with a consistent ideology of their own or lined up left to right on the issues or forming a "mainstream," all with the same positions on issues. In fact, the so-called center is actually made up of biconceptuals, people who are conservative in some aspects of life and progressive in others. Voters who self-identify as "conservative" often have significant progressive values in important areas of life. We should address these "partial progressive" biconceptuals through their progressive identities, which are often systematic and extensive.
A common mistaken ideology has convinced many progressives that they must "move to the right" to get more votes. In reality, this is counterproductive. By moving to the right, progressives actually help activate the right's values and give up on their own. In the process, they also alienate their base.
8. The "Misunderestimating" Trap. Too many progressives think that people who vote conservative are just stupid, especially those who vote against their economic self-interest. Progressives believe that we only have to tell them the real economic facts, and they will change the way they vote. The reality is that those who vote conservative have their reasons, and we had better understand them. Conservative populism is cultural — not economic — in nature. Conservative populists see themselves as oppressed by elitist liberals who look down their noses at them, when they are just ordinary, moral, right-thinking folks. They see liberals as trying to impose an immoral "political correctness" on them, and they are angry about it.
Progressives also paint conservative leaders as incompetent and not very smart, based on a misunderstanding of the conservative agenda. This results from looking at conservative goals through progressive values. Looking at conservative goals through conservative values yields insight and shows just how effective conservatives really are.
9. The Reactive Trap. For the most part, we have been letting conservatives frame the debate. Conservatives are taking the initiative on policy making and getting their ideas out to the public. When progressives react, we echo the conservative frames and values, so our message is not heard or, even worse, reinforces their ideas. Progressives need a collection of proactive policies and communication techniques to get our own values out on our own terms. "War rooms" and "truth squads" must change frames, not reinforce conservative frames. But even then, they are not nearly enough. Progressive leaders, outside of any party, must come together in an ongoing, long-term, organized national campaign that honestly conveys progressive values to the public — day after day, week after week, year after year, no matter what the specific issues of the day are.
10. The Spin Trap. Some progressives believe that winning elections or getting public support is a matter of clever spin and catchy slogans — what we call "surface framing." Surface framing is meaningless without deep framing — our deepest moral convictions and political principles. Framing, used honestly at both the deep and surface levels, is needed to make the truth visible and our values clear.
Spin, on the other hand, is the dishonest use of surface linguistic frames to hide the truth. And progressive values and principles — the deep frames — must be in place before slogans can have an effect; slogans alone accomplish nothing. Conservative slogans work because they have been communicating their deep frames for decades.
11. The Policyspeak Trap. Progressives consistently use legislative jargon and bureaucratic solutions, like "Medicare prescription drug benefits," to speak to the public about their positions. Instead, progressives should speak in terms of the common concerns of voters — for instance, how a policy will let you send your daughter to college, or how it will let you launch your own business.
12. The Blame Game Trap. It is convenient to blame our problems on the media and on conservative lies. Yes, conservative leaders have regularly lied and used Orwellian language to distort the truth, and yes, the media have been lax, repeating the conservatives' frames. But we have little control over that. We can control only how we communicate. Simply correcting a lie with the truth is not enough. We must reframe from our moral perspective so that the truth can be understood. This reframing is needed to get our deep frames into public discourse. If enough people around the country honestly, effectively, and regularly express a progressive vision, the media will be much more likely to adopt our frames.
Looking at these traps, we might think we have dug ourselves in too deep. At Rockridge, we don't think so. Why are we optimistic? Because there is a clear path out of all these traps: understanding the anatomy of the progressive vision and understanding the anatomy of the electorate.
Once we grasp that, helping American voters find their progressive hearts will be a little easier.
CHAPTER 2BICONCEPTUALISM
Understanding whom we are talking to — and whom we want to talk to — is crucial before progressives begin to articulate what it is they have to say and how best to say it. This is true for progressive candidates as well as activists and activist groups. The real challenge in this area is twofold: First, we want to activate our base while reaching swing voters at the same time; second, we want to do so without having to lie, distort, mislead, or pretend to be something we aren't.
The pressure to dissemble comes from certain commonplace myths about swing voters and the "center." So for starters, let's put to rest the notion of the political or ideological "center" — it doesn't exist. Instead, what we have are biconceptuals — of many kinds.
When it comes to progressive and conservative worldviews, we are all biconceptuals. You may live by progressive values in most areas of your life, but if you see Rambo movies and understand them, you have a passive conservative worldview allowing you to make sense of them. Or you may be a conservative, but if you appreciated The Cosby Show, you were using a passive progressive worldview. Movies and television aside, what we are really interested in are active biconceptuals — people who use one moral system in one area and the other moral system in another area of their political thinking.
Biconceptualism makes sense from the perspective of the brain and the mechanism of neural computation. The progressive and conservative worldviews are mutually exclusive. But in a human brain, both can exist side by side, each neurally inhibiting the other and structuring different areas of experience. It is hardly unnatural — or unusual — to be fiscally conservative and socially progressive, or to support a liberal domestic policy and a conservative foreign policy, or to have a conservative view of the market and a progressive view of civil liberties.
Political biconceptuals are commonplace, and they include those who identify themselves as having a single ideology. Biconceptuals are not to be confused with "moderates." There is no moderate worldview, and very few people are genuine moderates. True moderates look for linear scales and take positions in the middle of those scales. How much should we pay to improve schools? A lot? A little? "A moderate amount" is what a true "moderate" would say. Such folks may exist, but moderation is not a political ideology. Nor is the use of two strongly opposed ideologies in different arenas a matter of "moderation." It is biconceptualism.
PARTIAL CONSERVATIVES
Consider Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who describes himself as a moderate. In fact, little about him is moderate. He doesn't typically stake out middle-of-the-road positions on particular issues. Instead, his politics include both liberal and conservative positions, but on different issues. This makes him a biconceptual. His progressive worldview appears in his staunch support of environmental protection, abortion rights, and workers' rights. His conservative worldview emerges in areas like his support of faith-based initiatives, school vouchers, and most notably, the current policy on Iraq. Because he tends to adopt progressive positions more often than conservative ones, we refer to him as a "partial conservative."
Many liberals are biconceptual. The "cold war liberals" were divided between a progressive domestic policy and a conservative foreign policy based on using force — or the threat of it — to further the nation's military, economic, and political strength. Other Democrats may be economic progressives and social conservatives, or vice versa. Unions, for instance, have genuinely progressive goals but are often organized and run in a strict way. "Militant" progressives commonly have strict means and nurturant ends, while courtly, gentlemanly and ladylike conservatives may have nurturant means and strict ends. Such a split between means and ends is not unusual.
PARTIAL PROGRESSIVES
Similarly, within the wide range of those who tend toward a conservative worldview, many are "partial progressives." If we want to communicate with these conservatives, we'd better recognize that they may live by the progressive moral system in extremely important areas of their lives.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Thinking Points by George Lakoff. Copyright © 2006 Tides Center/Rockridge Institute. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,PREFACE,
INTRODUCTION: WHY WE WRITE,
1 - WINNING AND LOSING,
2 - BICONCEPTUALISM,
3 - FRAMES AND BRAINS,
4 - THE NATION AS FAMILY,
5 - MORALITY AND THE MARKET,
6 - FUNDAMENTAL VALUES,
7 - STRATEGIC INITIATIVES,
8 - THE ART OF ARGUMENTS,
EPILOGUE,
CONTRIBUTORS,
ALSO BY GEORGE LAKOFF,
PRAISE FOR THINKING POINTS,
NOTES,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS,
ABOUT THE ROCKRIDGE INSTITUTE,
Copyright Page,