Posted on 07/15/2005 2:53:32 PM PDT by bitt
NEW YORK The cover story by Matt Bai in the upcoming Sunday issue of The New York Times Magazine profiles the man some liberals allegedly consider a possible new “messiah” for the Democratic party, George Lakoff. An adviser to the party on “framing” issues, he wrote “Don't Think of an Elephant”-- a book about politics and language based on his own linguistic theories.
“Framing” is the process of choosing the best words to describe individual issues and characterize a debate. Bai hails Lakoff as the father of the concept. His ideas seemed to gain some success recently in putting the Bush social security proposals in peril. Next they will be severely tested in the upcoming fight over Supreme Court nominees.
Lakoff preaches that to understand language on the whole, one must first study how an individual would comprehend that language in terms of personal experience and thought processes. He also says that metaphors allow people to process abstract ideas.
And nobody better used this philosophy before, says Lakoff, than the Republicans. In the 2004 election, George W. Bush labeled John Kerry as a “flip flopper,” and repeated this throughout the duration of the campaign. He even put out an ad that featured Kerry windsurfing, back and forth, which hammered home this idea in a visual manner.
Democrats, on the other hand, tried to pin too many criticisms on Bush, none of which stuck. Thus, as Bai writes, “Bush was attacked. Kerry was framed.”
In the article, Lakoff says that Republicans are also skilled at using loaded language and repetition to create lasting concepts in our unconscious. This is largely in part to the work of Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster renowned for creating euphemism for conservative issues.
(Excerpt) Read more at editorandpublisher.com ...
Words still mean things...
Truth is an important element of why "flip-flop" stuck while charges against Bush wouldn't hold water.
Actually, most people who vote Democrat would probably cringe at this basic divergence from Constitutional principle. Therefore, challenging a Democrat that they are supporting statist philosophy can be fruitful, while simply calling someone a "commie" will get you discounted as a "right-winger".
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