What does 'cut and run' mean to you?
The Lone Star Iconoclast's Myspace page (progressive newspapers need internet love, too) just sent out a bulletin with a link to a very good interview with George Lakoff on tort reform and conservative linguistic framing. The man's a genius, not the least in the way he's able to center his own profession in a legitimate and respectable frame of academia. Nobody wants to sound like they're in a B movie when they discuss this sort of thing, so nobody calls framing what it actually is: brainwashing. What other term is there for the constant repetition of words or phrases with the intent of limiting or directing the individual thought of the listener? Lakoff clarifies:
Q: How have conservatives mounted their attack?
Lakoff: They have very cleverly framed the public discussion and have repeated these frames so often and for so long that they have become ingrained in the public’s mind, which means that those frames have become realized physically in the brains of many members of the public.
Q: What are some of those frames?
Lakoff: To begin, the very phrase "tort reform" evokes a frame. In two words, it communicates that something is the matter with the tort system, which requires reform or correction. In this respect, the phrase is similar to another effective conservative phrase, "tax relief." Once the public accepts these phrases, they have bought into the idea that they need to be relieved from the affliction of taxes and that they need to fix the tort system. The debate then turns to the question of how and how much. At that point, progressives can’t win the debate; the best we can do is limit the losses.
Q: What other frames have the conservatives employed?
Lakoff: They repeat the phrases "lawsuit abuse" and "frivolous lawsuits." They refer to "greedy" and "out of control" lawyers. These words suggest that the speaker is a good, honorable, hard-working, God-fearing person. Opposition to abuse communicates reverence. Being against something frivolous is to be prudent and serious. Opposition to things out-of-control implies being orderly and law abiding.
Boy-howdy, that's a fun realization. The language you use about an issue, for people who get all their information from you, does all their thinking for them! Shit, before I did my own research, I agreed with the spokespeople for this movement that there were too many frivolous lawsuits, and that lawsuit abuse was a real problem. No one brought up the fact that civil courts are basically the last bastions of corporate accountability.
Q: How have conservatives mounted their attack?
Lakoff: They have very cleverly framed the public discussion and have repeated these frames so often and for so long that they have become ingrained in the public’s mind, which means that those frames have become realized physically in the brains of many members of the public.
Q: What are some of those frames?
Lakoff: To begin, the very phrase "tort reform" evokes a frame. In two words, it communicates that something is the matter with the tort system, which requires reform or correction. In this respect, the phrase is similar to another effective conservative phrase, "tax relief." Once the public accepts these phrases, they have bought into the idea that they need to be relieved from the affliction of taxes and that they need to fix the tort system. The debate then turns to the question of how and how much. At that point, progressives can’t win the debate; the best we can do is limit the losses.
Q: What other frames have the conservatives employed?
Lakoff: They repeat the phrases "lawsuit abuse" and "frivolous lawsuits." They refer to "greedy" and "out of control" lawyers. These words suggest that the speaker is a good, honorable, hard-working, God-fearing person. Opposition to abuse communicates reverence. Being against something frivolous is to be prudent and serious. Opposition to things out-of-control implies being orderly and law abiding.
Boy-howdy, that's a fun realization. The language you use about an issue, for people who get all their information from you, does all their thinking for them! Shit, before I did my own research, I agreed with the spokespeople for this movement that there were too many frivolous lawsuits, and that lawsuit abuse was a real problem. No one brought up the fact that civil courts are basically the last bastions of corporate accountability.
We should watch out. It scares me that every conservative radio talk show host seems to have taken an invisible cue at once and stopped referring to the other side as the Democratic party. I guess it makes your fight harder when you're battling democracy itself. Now Hannity, Savage, and all the rest call them "the Democrat party," and the venom in their voices is fast-acting and paralytic. However, it also scares me that Lakoff and others for the left should, now, get so interested in language, narrative, and metaphor. I'm bothered that Lakoff wants to start calling trial lawyers "public protection attorneys." I'm bothered that he rightly understands the mental life of a person as an ongoing storytelling process, full of archetype and symbolism, and has immediately delivered up this knowledge into the hands of people who want us to think a certain way.
Forms and imitations of forms. Now taking your votes on whether it actually was a good idea to banish poets from The Republic.
posted by Kate at 11:59:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home