Father knows best....
The phrase "Tax relief" began coming out of the White House starting on the very day of Bush's inauguration. It got picked up by the newspapers as if it were a neutral term, which it is not. First, you have the frame for "relief." For there to be relief, there has to be an affliction, an afflicted party, somebody who administers the relief, and an act in which you are relieved of the affliction. The reliever is the hero, and anybody who tries to stop them is the bad guy intent on keeping the affliction going. So, add "tax" to "relief" and you get a metaphor that taxation is an affliction, and anybody against relieving this affliction is a villain.
Versus "absent" liberal fathers? Hmmm, I wonder which is best for the family unit?
There's actually a whole other way to think about it. Taxes are what you pay to be an American, to live in a civilized society that is democratic and offers opportunity, and where there's an infrastructure that has been paid for by previous taxpayers. This is a huge infrastructure. The highway system, the Internet, the TV system, the public education system, the power grid, the system for training scientists — vast amounts of infrastructure that we all use, which has to be maintained and paid for. Taxes are your dues — you pay your dues to be an American.
I love this, and hope the Democrats adopt this strategy. It begs the natural question: what do the welfare recipients pay to be Americans? Nothing; in fact, their contribution is negative. Transfer payments aren't simply un-American, but anti-American.
Run with it, liberals.
Hard to argue with that....
What's in question here isn't linguistics or framing. It's the nature of the world. There will be periods when the conservative view best sums up reality, and periods when the liberal view looks more plausible. Because of scarcity and the complexities of human feeling the liberal view doesn't last for long, and we have to return to conservative values -- to Kipling's "Gods of the Copybook Headings."
Nurturing parents are fine and necessary, but we can't all be nurturing all the time, and we can't be parents to each other forever. It looks to me like Lakoff's scheme is itself caricatured and childish -- the "Mommy Party" vs. the "Daddy Party." The sphere of adult interactions can't be paternalistically coddling. I can't devote myself to nurturing people who are in competition or combat with me. We have to expect that people will grow up and shoulder their share of the burdens. And that adult world shouldn't be tyrannically authoritarian either (whether the conservative view really is "authoritarian" also remains to be resolved).
Fully adult relations and are left out of Lakoff's picture. Maybe the adult world where we can't run people's lives for them forever is reflected in the libertarian view. That view can't characterize all situations we find ourselves in, no more than the authoritarian or nurturing models can, but it shouldn't simply be ignored.
"Framing" plays an important role in politics. So does positioning. Conservatives frame the situtation as they do, because they have positioned themself in a place that gives them something close to the view of the average citizen/voter/taxpayer. When they don't find that place to stand, their characterizations of events are less convincing. When liberals choose to take a point of view opposed to the average citizen/voter/taxpayer, they fail, and no amount of framing will save them. When they take populist positions in bad times, they can come off rather well, because many in the public come to think of themselves as victims and have moved to a place where liberal framings seem to make sense.
I don't quite think Lakoff is on target about "framing" as a tactic liberals haven't mastered. Take a look at the evening news, or listen to NPR. It's done there all the time. Whether it works -- whether the networks can convince people that liberal framing reflects reality and provides a point of view that they can share -- is another question, but conservatives learned most of what they needed to know about framing from CBS and the other networks.
Lakoff's thinking is characterized by simplistic black and white oppositions of the sort more common to political combattants than political thinkers. You can make a case that taxes are the price we pay for civilization (though sometimes it looks like they are the price we pay for barbarism). But that doesn't justify any level of taxation no matter how high. Ruination or spoilation isn't justified. So liberals can make the argument, but people aren't obligated to accept it in any given situation. That is what democratic freedom is all about -- the right of voters to accept or reject impositions on them by the government.
"So, project this onto the nation and you see that to the right wing, the good citizens are the disciplined ones — those who have already become wealthy or at least self-reliant — and those who are on the way. Social programs, meanwhile, "spoil" people by giving them things they haven't earned and keeping them dependent. The government is there only to protect the nation, maintain order, administer justice (punishment), and to provide for the promotion and orderly conduct of business. In this way, disciplined people become self-reliant. Wealth is a measure of discipline. Taxes beyond the minimum needed for such government take away from the good, disciplined people rewards that they have earned and spend it on those who have not earned it. "
He is correct there. But of course he finds this view anathema.
UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff believes that he knows why conservatives are the party with momentum and political power:
With Republicans controlling the Senate, the House, and the White House and enjoying a large margin of victory for California Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger, it's clear that the Democratic Party is in crisis. George Lakoff, a UC Berkeley professor of linguistics and cognitive science, thinks he knows why. Conservatives have spent decades defining their ideas, carefully choosing the language with which to present them, and building an infrastructure to communicate them, says Lakoff.
It is true that the Republican Party has spent decades defining their ideas. I trust the Democratic Party has also spent time and effort defining themselves. George places more emphasis on the communication infrastructure than on the actual ideas themselves:
Language always comes with what is called "framing." Every word is defined relative to a conceptual framework. If you have something like "revolt," that implies a population that is being ruled unfairly, or assumes it is being ruled unfairly, and that they are throwing off their rulers, which would be considered a good thing. That's a frame.
Fair enough. That is why debates are so interesting to watch. Candidate A "frames" his own policies in the positive while revealing the holes in his worthy opponent's position. Then Candidate B gets a turn, and he attempts to reveal all the negatives that Candidate A neglected to include in his "frame".
If you then add the word "voter" in front of "revolt," you get a metaphorical meaning saying that the voters are the oppressed people, the governor is the oppressive ruler, that they have ousted him and this is a good thing and all things are good now. All of that comes up when you see a headline like "voter revolt" — something that most people read and never notice. But these things can be affected by reporters and very often, by the campaign people themselves.
I really don't believe that the voters of California chose to recall Gray Davis because some Republican stragegist framed the situation with the term "Voter Revolt". The abuses by Davis are well documented and the state is fiscally unsound. It is still unknown if the new governor can do any better, but it had become apparent to California voters that Davis was not capable of fixing the state's problems.
What is very interesting is Lakoff's reason why progressives (the current "frame" for liberals) are not as successful at framing as conservatives. He believes this is because liberals operate under the "nurturant parent" conceptual system, where emphasis is placed on helping those in need over administration and building infrastructure. What does parenting have to do with the issue?
Well, the progressive worldview is modeled on a nurturant parent family. Briefly, it assumes that the world is basically good and can be made better and that one must work toward that. Children are born good; parents can make them better. Nurturing involves empathy, and the responsibility to take care of oneself and others for whom we are responsible. On a larger scale, specific policies follow, such as governmental protection in form of a social safety net and government regulation, universal education (to ensure competence, fairness), civil liberties and equal treatment (fairness and freedom), accountability (derived from trust), public service (from responsibility), open government (from open communication), and the promotion of an economy that benefits all and functions to promote these values, which are traditional progressive values in American politics.
The conservative worldview, the strict father model, assumes that the world is dangerous and difficult and that children are born bad and must be made good. The strict father is the moral authority who supports and defends the family, tells his wife what to do, and teaches his kids right from wrong. The only way to do that is through painful discipline — physical punishment that by adulthood will become internal discipline. The good people are the disciplined people. Once grown, the self-reliant, disciplined children are on their own. Those children who remain dependent (who were spoiled, overly willful, or recalcitrant) should be forced to undergo further discipline or be cut free with no support to face the discipline of the outside world.
So, project this onto the nation and you see that to the right wing, the good citizens are the disciplined ones — those who have already become wealthy or at least self-reliant — and those who are on the way. Social programs, meanwhile, "spoil" people by giving them things they haven't earned and keeping them dependent. The government is there only to protect the nation, maintain order, administer justice (punishment), and to provide for the promotion and orderly conduct of business. In this way, disciplined people become self-reliant. Wealth is a measure of discipline. Taxes beyond the minimum needed for such government take away from the good, disciplined people rewards that they have earned and spend it on those who have not earned it.
George gets an A+. In this article he really does a nice job explaining what framing is and how it affects politics. But he just hammered his point home with his own example of framing. Nurturant means affectionate care and attention (a very positive frame), which is in stark contrast to strict, which means severe in discipline or inflexibility maintained (negative frame). Both descriptions include accurate attributes of each view, but his own side is framed in glowing general terms. The views of the opposition are framed in specifics, focused on the negative and trending towards hyperbole.
Framing is done by both sides. In the spirit of "fair and balanced", the article counters the nurturative parent frame with analysis of the conservative frame termed as "Tax Relief":
The phrase "Tax relief" began coming out of the White House starting on the very day of Bush's inauguration. It got picked up by the newspapers as if it were a neutral term, which it is not. First, you have the frame for "relief." For there to be relief, there has to be an affliction, an afflicted party, somebody who administers the relief, and an act in which you are relieved of the affliction. The reliever is the hero, and anybody who tries to stop them is the bad guy intent on keeping the affliction going. So, add "tax" to "relief" and you get a metaphor that taxation is an affliction, and anybody against relieving this affliction is a villain.
If the term "relief" is a problem, then we can call it something else. Tax Cut? Tax Reduction? Negative Taxation? Reverse Tax Increase? Tax Credit? (Ooops...that one is already used; it is a frame for Entitlement.) Unfortunately for George, changing what it is called is not good enough for him:
It's not just about what you call it, if it's the same "it." There's actually a whole other way to think about it. Taxes are what you pay to be an American, to live in a civilized society that is democratic and offers opportunity, and where there's an infrastructure that has been paid for by previous taxpayers. This is a huge infrastructure. The highway system, the Internet, the TV system, the public education system, the power grid, the system for training scientists — vast amounts of infrastructure that we all use, which has to be maintained and paid for. Taxes are your dues — you pay your dues to be an American. In addition, the wealthiest Americans use that infrastructure more than anyone else, and they use parts of it that other people don't. The federal justice system, for example, is nine-tenths devoted to corporate law. The Securities and Exchange Commission and all the apparatus of the Commerce Department are mainly used by the wealthy. And we're all paying for it.
We're all paying for it? Not true: 34% of all Income Tax Returns report income but pay no taxes. Wealthy Americans use the infrastructure more than anyone else? Also not true. There may be parts of the infrastructure which benefit one economic group more than others but the distribution is balanced. Wealthy people may use the Securities and Exchange Commission more than those with little wealth, but the commission does also provide capital for businesses which hire employees and produce products and services available for consumption by Americans. Many wealthy (and middle class) families choose private education, yet they still provide tax support for public education. Welfare spending is huge but is completely geared towards the poor.
What Mr. Lakoff really wants is to have taxes framed as an issue of patriotism:
It is an issue of patriotism! Are you paying your dues, or are you trying to get something for free at the expense of your country? It's about being a member. People pay a membership fee to join a country club, for which they get to use the swimming pool and the golf course. But they didn't pay for them in their membership. They were built and paid for by other people and by this collectivity. It's the same thing with our country — the country as country club, being a member of a remarkable nation.
I have no argument with this frame. I agree that reasonable taxation is an issue of patriotism. But what does this mean for those families who pay no taxes? Using this argument, they are no longer members of the country club. Does this mean that they should not be allowed to vote? (Absolutely not, but if you take this frame to its logical conclusion - that is the result.)
Reasonable taxation is patriotic, but I believe that excessive taxation is oppressive. That is why I have no problem with the "Patriotic Normalization of Tax Rates" which was enacted last year. (I'm thinking about writing a book: Framing for Fun and Profit.)
I agree with Mr. Lakoff that framing is a key component in presenting a political view. However, I do not feel that it is THE key component. Without ideas that will people will buy into, the finest frame will not bring people over to your side. As I watch the Democratic presidential candidates debate again and again, I don't see a framing failure. Instead, I see a series of empty frames being presented over and over. "Bush is Bad." "Iraq is a Quagmire." "Tax Cuts are Evil."
I don't believe that conservatives are in power because they frame the issues better than the progressives. I believe it is because the progressives have become a collection of self-interest groups with no clear message for the American people. Until they resolve that, they will continue to be the party of the empty frame.
{Originally posted here}