Beyond Framing: The Trouble With Lakoff

Steven Menashi attacks progressive metaphor-maven George Lakoff in today's New York Sun.  Further discussion here by Ross Douthat at Andrew Sullivan. Key insight:

The public fills a strikingly passive role in Mr. Lakoff’s view of politics. Politics is really a rhetorical battle between different elites, each seeking to stimulate different synapses in voters’ brains — and have them vote almost by instinct. This may be a compelling view to some people, but it’s scarcely progressive.

Dead on.  Yeah, I know -- I'm interested in metaphor and politics, so I'm supposed to admire Lakoff.  But I don't.  Sure, he did important work on the central role of metaphor in our lives.  Worth a look.  But even there, you run up against the problem -- which is that at the end of the day, he's a linguist.  That means he's all caught up in the superficial mechanics of language, and has no handle at all on deeper, darker, messier stuff -- such as, for example, values, beliefs, core myths -- the things that drive actions and power movements.

To Lakoff it's all a matter of "framing" -- frame better, and the human sheep will follow.  Because, you know, enlightenment has failed, and the best manipulator wins.  Being a progressive, Lakoff is angry at the way Republicans frame.  But, in despair over the need to frame -- and operating far from the emotional core -- the best he can come up with are tinny alternative phrases.  Call trial lawyers "public protection attorneys."  Campaign for "poison-free communities."  And you've solved it.

No, you haven't.  If you want to motivate people, you have to start by respecting them, and respecting what they believe.  And, while you're at it, you have to know what they believe.  Example: Democrats want to appeal to values voters, yes?  Well, why are values important to those voters?  Ah, because you feel threatened by change! Things are moving too fast, spinning out of control.  We need to slow down before we change everything.  Hmmm.  Well, sounds to me like what you're really talking about is security.  And security is important to all Americans.  But the way to create security is to unite, not to divide.  To draw on the best that everyone has to offer.  To exclude no one.  To recognize that government isn't an enemy of the people, it's the expression of the people.  To find the right way for government to participate in the lives of the people...

Now -- was that "framing?"  I don't think so.  I think it was better.  I think it represents what the Democrats might be able to accomplish if they stopped relying on Lakoff, stopped envying the Republicans their so-called manipulative skills, and tried to build a campaign out of a deeper understanding of what people actually care about.  Please note -- so far, we've been able to build that campaign -- and appeal to values voters -- without for a minute betraying what the Democratic party wants to stand for.

It will take more work than that, of course.  That was just a sketch.  But at least now we're working where we ought to be -- on the picture, not on the frame.

UPDATE: Welcome, Andrew Sullivan readers (and thanks to Steven Menashi for the link).  If you want to get a handle on what the site is about, have a look here.

AND STILL MORE: Greg's Opinion links to this rather disturbing piece -- disturbing if, like me, you think that we need military operations against the Islamists as well as broader political and cultural engagement in the Islamic world.  See my Greg's Opinion comment for more. 

A couple of additional thoughts, based Greg's commentary and the comments posted below.  One, "framing" threatens to become the same kind of trap that "spin" is -- that is, a neat-sounding, superficial quick fix that's no substitute for the hard work of actually engaging in a conversation, and a relationship, with your audience.  Two, Lakoff seems to fall into a dualistic trap -- not only is there framing, but there always have to be two frames in opposition.  That's nonsense.  Between "War on Terror" and "Not War on Terror" there are a whole range of policy options.  You'll miss them if you fix all their attention on the dueling frames.

Who was it who said "the world is divided into two kinds of people -- those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don't"?

For what it's worth -- I'm not fond of the phrase "War on Terror" -- I prefer "War on Islamism," which does a better job of pointing at the target, and suggests the possibility of many kinds of engagement -- in addition to, not instead of the purely military.  But that's been covered elsewhere, so I won't belabor it in this space -- at least, not in 2004...

AND MORE, YET AGAIN: Trying to move beyond the Lakoff argument, and toward possible Democratic Party positions and platforms, here.

AND ON, AND ON: The whole Lakoff thing doesn't want to stop ramifying.  Have a look here, or directly here.

AND IT CONTINUES: Here.

Comments

[Rushed]

I recently started writing Lakoff's book, Moral Politics, and to a certain extent I have the same misgivings. "Framing" an issue feels too much like "spin".

However, perhaps we are missing the point of Lakoff's work. Is the perception of spin just the result of a contrary world or moral view? And furthermore, it seems that "framing" does not necessarily require conscious effort. When progressives speak, they subconciously frame issues in a way consistent with what they believe. Conservatives frame too, using their own language.

If I were a conservative reading your piece, and I see "To draw on the best that everyone has to offer. To exclude no one. To recognize that government isn't an enemy of the people, it's the expression of the people. To find the right way for government to participate in the lives of the people..."

Well, doesn't that sound down right liberal? After all, as a conservative, I don't want big government interfering in my life, so why is this guy emphasizing how the government should participate in my life? What I want to hear is how you're going to secure my freedom.

Now, you obviously tried to be honest and clear in your comment in a way that you think is appealing to everyone... But I think Lakoff would say that you've still subconciously made your message appeal primarily to liberals.

[The Dean]

You ask why values are important to values voters, and then answer that it's because of "security". That's not Lakoff's answer. He believes (see 'Moral Politics') that values voters, both conservative and liberal, vote based on the use of a 'Nation as Family' metaphor: the nation is a family writ large. Conservatives fill the 'Nation as Family' metaphor with what Lakoff calls a 'Strict Father' moral system (to my ears, it sounds pretty much like an Old Testament morality). Liberals fill it with a 'Nurturant Parent' moral system (to me, sounds more like a New Testament morality). The two systems are incompatible, which is way liberals and conservatives never understand each other, and why we're at war culturally and politically. You do Lakoff an injustice to typify his work as merely manipulative. He is a liberal, and writes to promote the liberal cause, but he's trying to be honest about it. His real point is that liberals/progressives are well-meaning but semi-conscious and inarticulate. He's suggesting they wake up and realize they have to know what they believe in, why they believe it, and how to communicate it. That's not 'manipulative'. Being conscious of and using 'framing' well is just another way to say you have to be conscious of context, of the big picture that makes sense of the world, and you have to be able to frame your beliefs with conviction and authority if you expect to have people take you seriously. Whether you do that honestly or not is another question. The trouble with liberals, in Lakoff's view, is they hardly do it at all, so the conservatives have 'stolen' the language. All liberals do now is react to the conservative frame -- and so of course they lose the game before they even get on the field. Reaction won't cut it. Vision, including moral vision, has to be proactive. Lakoff is asking liberls to do the hard work of putting aside the past and re-thinking their deepest moral beliefs from the ground up -- and then finding the language and the metaphoric 'frames' to express their vision. In fact, I would say he's actually asking liberals to give up manipulation (the cliches of the past) and enter into an honest dialog with themselves and then the world. I will agree however, that he is not the best word-smith himself. He's got a tin ear. Nevertheless, don't sell him short. You might find it intersting to check out his website at http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/

[Alan G. Ampolsk]

Good comments, both.

Rushed -- a good insight to equate framing with spin. My quarrel with framing -- and for that matter with spin -- isn't really a moral one, it's a professional one. I agree with you -- and with Lakoff -- that none of us can help framing. We think and speak that way. Also, I'm completely comfortable with the thought that we live in a marketplace of ideas. I don't think people are trying to manipulate me, I think they're trying to persuade me of stuff. That's their job. It's my job to be a good consumer of information, and decide on my own whether I'm persuaded or not. Caveat Emptor.

My problem with framing, and with spin, is that they don't work. Both models assume a one-time, one-way, transactional exchange -- all I have to do is spin this, or frame this, and you'll come to your conclusion and my job is over. Except that it isn't. I don't believe -- speaking as a professional -- that people were ever persuadable in that simple a way. And they're certainly not now, when every claim -- every framing and every element of spin -- is open to testing and scutiny right here on the Web, among other places. This is an age of transparency. People are going to see right through your spin, and worse, take you to task for trying to spin them. It's not a good game to play.

Over the years I've had many corporate clients come to me and ask me to "spin" this or that, and I've always told them that I don't spin, for exactly those reasons. They want spin because it seems easy. I tell them that unfortunately there's no substitute for the hard work of actually getting to know your audience, engaging in dialogue with it, and building a relationship with it. It's a long-term process, and if you're doing it right, you're going to be changed by the interaction as much as the audience will. And part of the change comes from the fact that you understand and respond to their real concerns.

My quarrel with Lakoff - and with his framing examples -- is similar. He operates too quickly, too much on the surface, and doesn't dig deep enough.

You're right that my alternative example is liberal. I wasn't actually trying to be centrist -- this was a riff on a Democratic strategy. It assumes a future in which things have gone slightly sour for the Republicans, and it assumes a core Democratic viewpoint, which is that government needs to play at least some role in the protection of the community. I think we already know the Republican alternative, which we say play out in the last election.

The Dean -- I take your points, and many of Lakoff's. And I don't want to sell him short -- at least not totally. "Metaphors We Live By" is really a landmark piece of thinking. But I think his models -- the ones you mention -- are much too rigid. If you like that kind of model, you're better off with Spiral Dynamics, where at least there's more interplay among the factions (but believe me, I have major reservations about that system, too). My take is that the country is less polarized than the red-state, blue-state, "values voter" construct suggests. The media like that angle because they like contrasts and oppositions. I think there's a greater community of shared concerns (therefore my interest in security as the more basic driver), and I think -- to your point and Lakoff's -- that the Republicans are doing a much better job of speaking to that sensibility. The Republicans are working with myth; the Democrats are still a party of white papers. But to quote a mentor of mine, "you can't win an emotional argument with facts."

I admire what Lakoff is trying to do -- I'd just like to see him getting past the rival-parents model, and pushing a few layers below language, to get where he wants to go.