I just finished George Lakoff's book Don't Think Of An Elephant this week. I bought it 2 years ago but never got to reading it. All I have to say is WOW, I should have read it earlier.
The Lakoff book is about reframing the debate. You know how the right talks about "tort reform"? And we all think to ourselves "Reform? It's criminal to call it that! Tort reform should be called 'Allowing corporations to screw citizens with impunity.'" Healthy Forests? Oh, you must mean No Tree Left Behind.
I knew that was the subject of the book when I bought it. But I never suspected how much I would possibly gain from such a tiny little book. Here we all are, trying to state our points and communicate the facts to the American people - and I could have found out two years ago that I've been going about it all wrong!
While I certainly did not understand the conservative frame of mind as clearly as Lakoff stated it in his book, to some extent, I got it. A great friend and former room mate of mine is your stereotypical conservative, and I spent two years of college trying to figure out what made her tick.
My friend grew up in a wealthy family where "father knows best." The dad was clearly the head of the household, and all three women and the dog heeded his every word. I think the cat was less obedient. Cats are liberal.
Fear played a great role in my friend's life. Fear of spiders, fear of sharks, fear of getting fat, fear of getting a B, etc. Once we talked about the death penalty. We had to apologize to each other afterwards. I was raised to believe that it is far worse to execute one innocent person than it is to let any number of guilty people go. My friend is afraid that guilty people will be let go.
She's afraid that even horrible people who are sentenced to life will get parole at some point, to go back out on the streets to rape and kill. Far better to kill them. Dead people don't get out of jail. I pointed out how many innocent people were found on Illinois' death row. Her attitude? If you're such a dumb schmuck that you get picked up for a crime you didn't commit - buh bye! You must have been hanging out with some pretty rotten people to get mistaken for the guilty person.
My friend has a great need for control in her life - if you can't already see that from her views on the death penalty. She says she's obsessive compulsive. She's had problems with anorexia, but now she is successfully on weight watchers. Her little sister, unfortunately, has a more serious problem with anorexia. She graduated school with a 4.0 (as did her sister) and promptly went to grad school for an MBA (as did her sister).
Once I interviewed her for a women's studies paper. I found out that she feels that the right time for a woman to marry is at age 22 - right when she graduates college. And my friend got married about two months after she graduated college.
She married her first boyfriend, who is also a conservative. I don't like him very much. He's very macho. Or rather, I like him enough in social situations, but I hate seeing my friend adopt the role of being his little wife - which is clearly filling a need for him and for her as well. In college, he did not want her to go out dancing with a group of girls, but he felt it was acceptable for him to go out to strip clubs. She was absolutely tormented by the thought of him at a strip club - totally convinced he would see beautiful women naked and realize how inadequate she was - but she obeyed him and did not go out dancing again, even though she knew how innocent our excursions to clubs always were.
My friend is not a NASCAR fan. My friend is not religious. My friend has nothing (that I know of) against gay people. However, she's pretty racist, although she doesnt realize it. Probably because her dad is a total racist and he's very open about it. And her family is richer than god. But now she's married and working while her husband goes through med school. He grew up in a very poor family - a single mother with chronic health problems and six sisters - and she will share his debts when he finishes school.
Ok, so why the hell does my friend vote for Bush? She's intelligent. Every time his approval ratings go down, I wonder if she still supports him. But I know the answer.
Lakoff had the answer. He points to a strict father family model, extrapolated to apply to the entire nation. My friend certainly grew up in a family like this and she's already married someone who will ensure that her adulthood is no different from her childhood. Is this healthy? Probably not. It tore me apart watching my friend and her sister starve themselves. But she's in that 30% of Americans who just won't change.
In this strict father family model, everyone is to act in their own self interest. The good are rewarded, the bad are punished. It's social darwinism and Calvinism, basically. If you are good, you will succeed. Thus, the government should reward you. How? Tax cuts for the top 1% are a nice start. If you are bad, you will fail. The government should punish you. No New Deal for you!
What I've been trying to get across to my friend - VERY unsuccessfully - is how the social safety net plays a role in her self interest. It's in everyone's self interest.
Take me for example. Right now, things aren't so good. I graduated school, got 2 degrees, had good grades. Then I got a job. I was making an incredibly salary for someone my age and working in a job I was good at. Also, I developed a disability (migraines) which started as a small problem and grew increasingly worse over the last 10 years. Before I lost my job, I bought a house.
So that's where I am now. Unemployed and disabled - with a house. If our healthcare system wasn't totally craptastic, I might have been able to fix my disability before losing my job. I'd probably still have a job. Now I pay for COBRA and I have a great doctor and I'm making progress towards getting better.
With a social safety net, I can somehow get from here (unemployed, disabled, in debt) to being a contributing member of society once again. If I can keep making progress with my health, then I can get a job and pay for my house. I'll be a taxpayer and a consumer. I'll help the economy for everyone.
Without a social safety net, I'm stuck. I need a way to fix my health. I need a way to pay for my house. This is a temporary problem, so long as I can get a bit of help. Without that, it's a permanent problem. I won't pay taxes, I won't buy things, and the bank will get screwed since I sure as hell can't pay for my house.
I should add that I'm probably going to be okay since I have a lot of savings, so don't worry too much about me. The point is, multiply me by several million people. Lots of people do all of the right things and have something catastrophic happen in their lives. Is it in your self interest or mine that those people get screwed over? I say no.
I want those people to be happy, healthy, educated, and employed. For them? No, for me. I don't want to pay for them when they use the ER as their primary care. I don't want them to catch diseases and give them to me. I don't want them to become criminals. I don't want them to steal from me. I'd prefer they could buy things, so that companies do well, and I can have a job.
Does any of this get through to my friend? Oh no, she's in that 30%. She's a die-hard.
Lakoff says I'm going about it the wrong way. He proposes that liberals have an alternate frame that they base their values on. We believe that we're all in it together instead of every man for himself. Lakoff says we equate the government with a nurturing parent. We don't want wasteful spending, but we do see a need for Medicare and Social Security. We are for affordable access to healthcare and a top quality education for all.
So how do I get this across to my friend? Probably, I don't. She's a lost cause. But what about the middle 50% of Americans. Lakoff says they have BOTH frames. The right knows how to tap into the strict father frame. We need to tap into their nurturing parent frame.
In other words, it's OK to talk about fairness as a value. And it's true - I am for fairness. I think it's unfair that people born to poor parents don't go to good schools. I think it's unfair that companies can pollute mercury into the air and unknowing pregnant women eat fish that are contaminated with mercury. I think it's unfair that someone can work hard at a job 40 hours a week and still live in poverty.
I am for cooperation. We should cooperate with other countries to make a better world. To start, we should cooperate with Arab nations to achieve the least bad outcome in Iraq. With cooperation, we can solve global warming - together, as all people in all countries pitch in.
A conservative's response might be "OK, liberal, let's all sing Kum Ba Ya," but according to Lakoff, this frame exists and it works. By arguing that my liberal stances on issues are in my self interest, I was accepting my friend's frame that we all work only in our own self interest. I don't have to do that. We are all in this together. People will respond to that.
If you haven't read Don't Think of an Elephant yet, I highly recommend it. I can't wait to read more by Lakoff. We've got Congress now - we can start framing our own issues. We can create our own wedge issues to screw the right over. Lakoff suggested mercury. That'd be an easy one. No person is pro-mercury. Except perhaps my friend...