I <3 eggheads.
i just read this article from the nytimes magazine about the use of framing in politics as outlined by linguist george lakoff. parts of it blew my fragile little mind. language, metaphor, narrative... poetry and politics.
i am a little bit in love. maybe it's the groupie in me.
"In a seminal 1996 book, ''Moral Politics,'' he asserted that people relate to political ideologies, on an unconscious level, through the metaphorical frame of a family. Conservative politicians, Lakoff suggests, operate under the frame of a strict father, who lays down inflexible rules and imbues his family with a strong moral order. Liberals, on the other hand, are best understood through a frame of the nurturant parent, who teaches his child to pursue personal happiness and care for those around him. (The two models, Lakoff has said, are personified by Arnold Schwarzenegger on one side and Oprah Winfrey on the other.) Most voters, Lakoff suggests, carry some part of both parental frames in the synapses of their brains; which model is ''activated'' -- that is, which they can better relate to -- depends on the language that politicians use and the story that they tell."
there were some gross parts in the article too, esp. where it described the focus groups and polling and shit. this stuff makes me crazy. if everyone just said what they thought instead of what we want to hear, we'd have a better basis for voting, right? poor naive me. in the immortal words of the elegant poet and gentleman dr. bruce cockburn, "And they call it democracy."
i am a little bit in love. maybe it's the groupie in me.
"In a seminal 1996 book, ''Moral Politics,'' he asserted that people relate to political ideologies, on an unconscious level, through the metaphorical frame of a family. Conservative politicians, Lakoff suggests, operate under the frame of a strict father, who lays down inflexible rules and imbues his family with a strong moral order. Liberals, on the other hand, are best understood through a frame of the nurturant parent, who teaches his child to pursue personal happiness and care for those around him. (The two models, Lakoff has said, are personified by Arnold Schwarzenegger on one side and Oprah Winfrey on the other.) Most voters, Lakoff suggests, carry some part of both parental frames in the synapses of their brains; which model is ''activated'' -- that is, which they can better relate to -- depends on the language that politicians use and the story that they tell."
there were some gross parts in the article too, esp. where it described the focus groups and polling and shit. this stuff makes me crazy. if everyone just said what they thought instead of what we want to hear, we'd have a better basis for voting, right? poor naive me. in the immortal words of the elegant poet and gentleman dr. bruce cockburn, "And they call it democracy."
posted by mo | 2:24 p.m.
2 Comments:
that interesting, and seems obvious on the one hand because conservatives certainly espouse "traditional" family values, so it makes sense that that's their preferred mode of governance, but then, it's also interesting that they generally favour an arms-length involvement of government in many areas -- you know, regarding taxation and privatisation and so on. i guess it's still part of the notion of small, autocratic, heirarchical groups negotiating amongst themselves, as opposed to everyone trying to figure something out together.
(hey!! the crows are eating all my plums!! shoo!!!)
i think that "conservative" governments are notoriously hypocritical about big government. government spending and taxes tend to increase when a reagan or a mulroney comes to power. conservative gov's just tend to spend money differently (on military, on corporate tax cuts, on highways, instead of daycare and housing and living wages), not less.
what i have trouble wrapping my head around is how anyone can see george w. as a father figure. maybe an annoying little brother, or a perverted uncle, or a nosepicking ex-boyfriend, but a father? really?!
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