I’ve just started — and about halfway through; it isn’t long — George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. Get two, read one twice and give the other to a friend.
Listening to some people, Lakoff’s presentation at General Assembly would have made attending worthwhile, but $10 for the book seems an extraordinary value.
I should note that one of my lifespan missions is to help habilitate a vital and comprehensive Christianity for the United States. The dominant authoritarian and diluted versions are neither appealing nor, I think, faithful. This gets back to Lakoff’s drumbeat about framing.
The issue of framing a la Lakoff helps me understand what the UUA’s up to, and ultimately how futile the frame of “we’re too political” and “we’re not political enough” is. But I know talk about values is going to unsettle some people, but that’s probably a necessary tonic.
Lakoff has given me a word — hypocognition — to descibed the want of ideas to descibe a situation. No words, no frames, no solutions. I think that’s why we’ve become so sectarian: we can push each other around, after having despaired of being any influence or use in the larger world.
Lastly, I want some energy and words and ideas to share with other liberals because I hate the sons of bitches that think that Hubby and I some kind of anomaly, free to be trifled with, and that our nation is the playground for tinpot dictators and robber barons. I’m ready to fight, and this slog will take decades. Just so you know where I’m coming from.
Now you may comment.
Being a firm believer in Lakoff’s concept of framing, I’m slogging through his Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. I understand that is a condensed version.
In this article, Lakoff gives several examples of framing, and emphasizes who complex it is to frame your message over time. On taxes being framed as an issue of patriotism:
We need to this very carefully about every word and phrase we use, and develop a consistant language.