Posted on 04/17/2005 11:20:36 AM PDT by CHARLITE
George Lakoff [http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/people/lakoff] is the self-appointed guru [http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml] who has helped create and feed the Democratic frenzy over "framing [http://jeffrey-feldman.typepad.com/frameshop/]," which is code for revamping rhetoric once ideas and people have repeatedly failed. To which one says: good luck with that.
If the Dems can win an election touting higher "civilization fees" in lieu of taxes, then the American people deserve them in high office. Reality and history will not be so kind to Lakoff: as a man once noted, ideas have consequences [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0226876802/102-5211570-0496 146?v=glance], and the language you dress them up in does little to affect that.
It's noteworthy that long before modern conservatism began advancing its lexicon in the public discourse, its core ideas had spent the previous few decades under development and debate. The American left is indeed purchasing real estate in the vale of tears if it seeks to advance directly to square B through "framing." The irony here, as dKos regular Armando noted to me this past weekend, is that Lakoff is directly responsible for one of the worst bits of framing to afflict the Dems in recent memory: the casting of the GOP as the "strict father" party, and the portrayal of the Democrats as the "nurturant mother" party.
The idea was that voters liked dear mum more -- warm cookies, no paddlings! -- but guess who they wanted in their corner in wartime? Turned out to be dad and his quick temper and his rules.
Lakoff family dynamics as policy: bad move. Negative effect on Lakoff's standing: zero. So in the happy interim between idea and consequence, Lakoff is taking his celebrity to the fetid watering-hole of the modern Democratic Party:the Daily Kos, where, like most of the party eminences (more on this in a bit), he is casting his pearls of wisdom [http://dailykos.com/story/2005/4/15/2016/11711] before the swine online.
And this bit of -- well, framing -- cast as an enunciation of core Democratic principles, jumped out at me: "We want to protect life all the way from birth up until the edge of death.
Indeed. What's missing here? Why not value and protect life on "the edge of death"? Why not value and protect life before birth? Not long before, mind you: five minutes or so will do. I leave it to the intrepid reader to draw inferences as he will. For my part, I will be generous and say that despite the failings of his one big idea, Lakoff has here captured, framed and hung a core principle of the Democratic Party and the American left with admirable and awful clarity.
If you can't just SAY your message, you know your message is one people don't want to hear. Shouldn't that tell you something? Dopes.
Lakoff in a nutshell, "How can we fool them into voting democrat?"
Lakoffs advice to dems...LIE!
Is he the leftist Karl Rove from a parallel dimension? I think I saw that Star Trek episode.
Well now. After decades of deconstructing the language to further a political agenda, liberals have now found themselves face-to-face with a linguistic "construct" they can't quite dig themselves out of. Indeed, it appears that most human beings believe that the word "life" doesn't really have much to do with starving disabled people in public and lopping the heads off the unborn.
What to do?
They're sheeple .. Hillary has done well in convincing 10-15% of the public that she is "moderate" and slightly to the right. After all the junk and trash this woman has said in the past - it just all flew out the window.
However .. we at FR are not going to allow the public to forget what she said in the past.
Politicians lie?
Surely you jest.
(And that goes for both sides, but just the demonicrats.)
This is very funny and well-written. I'll have to pay attention to this writer in the future.
What this over-rated bloat is saying about 'framing' is nothing more than 'defining the issues.'
The basic idea is valid but it is nothing new, and nothing that politicians haven't been doing reasonably deliberately since time began.
Indeed. And Democrats have been doing it, too.
Only now are they sufficiently worried to consult an academic nihilist to see if they can do better.
Absolutely. We have to be relentless in reminding voters that this woman is and has always been a far left socialist. She wrote her Wellesley College Senior thesis on Saul Alinsky!........and has been following his principles ever since. I should know. I graduated from Wellesley College.
Char
How many times can they keep repackaging Marxism until NOBODY takes it seriously anymore.
That's exactly it. I mean, how utterly ridiculous can it get when they start talking about taxes as "civilization utility fees?!!" Next thing you know, they'll call the IRS "The Societal Participation Club."
With Howard Dean at the helm, the Dems appear to use insults as means of trying to win voters.
I actually like the "Mommycrats" and "Daddycans" analogy.
it seems to me that if a message MUST be deliviered in some kind of slick packaging, one can assume the orator believes there is either something wrong with the message or something wrong with the intended audience.
either way, by taking up with "framing" the Democrats have delivered themselves up, bound and gagged and helpless, for evisceration in the next election cycle.
Idiots.
I think the problem has been that the 'rats are prevented from massaging their message by the hardcore leftists and death-culture radicals who rule the candidate selection process.
when they lie down with dogs...
I like it! Sort of captures their essence...
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