FINE POINT
A look at the week in Washington
Linguist has message for Democrats
By Michael Tackett.
On paper, George Lakoff doesn't seem a likely oracle for the Democratic Party. He's a professor of cognitive linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. His areas of expertise: the "neural theory of language, conceptual systems, conceptual metaphor, syntax-semantics-pragmatics," among other things.
It's hard to imagine a caricature more ripe for Republican mocking.
In person, it isn't much better. Bearded, bespectacled and a bit on the portly side, he also in no way lacks confidence in his intellect. A central-casting Cal-Berkeley liberal.
But Lakoff may be on to something.
He makes a very persuasive argument that Democrats have allowed Republicans to hijack words such as "freedom" and "liberty" in fundamental ways that have undercut Democrats' credibility. His latest book, "Whose Freedom? The Battle over America's Most Important Idea," builds on earlier works that urge progressives to stop getting their pockets picked by Republicans over issues in which, he says, progressives actually hold the higher moral ground.
Lakoff contends that Republicans not only have taken ownership of words, they also have skillfully succeeded in framing the debate. That has trapped Democrats into being reactive, implicitly buying into the GOP framework and almost dooming them to failure.
Consider the war in Iraq. Republicans have adroitly labeled Democratic calls for troop pullbacks as "cut and run." So how did Democrats respond? With John Kerry saying that the Bush strategy is "lie and die."
Instead, Lakoff says, Democrats must change the nature of the debate, starting by rejecting the premise that America is in fact at war. The war, he says, ended when President Bush said it did with his "Mission Accomplished" stunt on an aircraft carrier. Now, Democrats should refer to the conflict as an occupation. They should say U.S. troops were not trained to be occupiers and that they were betrayed by administration policy, with the U.S. weakened as a result.
Lakoff makes a similar point about the "war on terror." Terrorism, he says, should be fought in the same way the government went after the Mafia.
Right or wrong, no prominent Democrat has adopted Lakoff's proposed framing. That hasn't stopped him from making the rounds in Washington, urging Democrats to take heed.
He is a one-man army for the counterintuitive. Democrats, he says, are an anti-intellectual party. It is Republicans, he says, who support conservative intellectuals with many think tanks and interest groups to promote a conservative agenda.
Republicans, he adds, actually control the media. They reinforce Bush's positions and use radio, television and the Internet to create an amen chorus before Democrats can even deliver a compelling sermon.
Democrats, he says, need to become framers.
Lakoff says the Democratic message needs to be something like this: Republicans oppress people when they can't eat the fish they catch because of water pollution, when kids get asthma because of bad air, when ranchers can't let cattle drink the water in the streams that run through their land, all because of lax regulation. And don't make the mistake of labeling yourself an environmentalist.
Lakoff likens the GOP orthodoxy as offered by Bush to a "strict father" mentality with a stark and unambiguous view of right and wrong. Democrats offer more a "nurturant parent" who is empathetic and looks at things in context.
Democrats, he says, need to start framing with core convictions and not with calibrations to try to win over converts.
Framing alone won't get it, though. Lakoff recalled a conversation with Richard Wirthlin, the pollster for Ronald Reagan. Wirthlin told him that when he did surveys for Reagan, he found that voters disagreed with Reagan but liked him for the values he projected--authenticity, trust and the ability to connect with voters on a personal level.
And Reagan didn't move to the middle to try to get votes. Rather, his personal traits had a pull for those voters in the middle who were willing to support him almost in spite of his positions.
"Talk to the center the way you talk to your base," Lakoff says.
In Lakoff's view, most of the Democrats being discussed as potential presidential candidates don't have that skill set. Not Hillary Clinton. Not John Kerry. Not John Edwards.
His lone exception: Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
"He's amazing," Lakoff says, ticking off Obama's capacity for authenticity, values, trust and connection. "He doesn't just get up there and give a laundry list of programs."
Obama, he says, has an innate understanding of language and framing that the others do not.
Lakoff made a point of saying that he has talked to Obama. We will see if Obama listened.
Michael Tackett is the Tribune's Washington Bureau chief.
[email protected]
The following from today's Chicago Tribune (section 2, page 2; online version) is posted here especially due to the last few sentences:
This is an interesting article, and Lakoff (gosh, he must have taken a lot of ribbing as a kid) has some interesting and some foolish things to say.
Quote:FINE POINT
A look at the week in Washington
Linguist has message for Democrats
By Michael Tackett.
On paper, George Lakoff doesn't seem a likely oracle for the Democratic Party. He's a professor of cognitive linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. His areas of expertise: the "neural theory of language, conceptual systems, conceptual metaphor, syntax-semantics-pragmatics," among other things.
What does a likely oracle for the Democratic Party look like?
Let's see...liberal academic in the field of linguistics? Nope. Nobody like that would ever be held in high esteem by Democrats.
It's hard to imagine a caricature more ripe for Republican mocking.
I can imagine a half dozen much more ripe for mocking. The Berkley connection is pretty automatic, but there's nothing stereotypically liberal about a linguistics scholar. Seems to me that Tackett himself hasn't bothered to listen to the good doctor, and can't help but insinuate that Republicans are anti-intellectual.
In person, it isn't much better. Bearded, bespectacled and a bit on the portly side, (Sounds like a description of Robert Bork) he also in no way lacks confidence in his intellect. A central-casting Cal-Berkeley liberal. I should think there are thousands of Cal-Berkeley liberals who would take umbrage with this.
But Lakoff may be on to something.
He makes a very persuasive argument that Democrats have allowed Republicans to hijack words such as "freedom" and "liberty" in fundamental ways that have undercut Democrats' credibility.
Use of the word "hijack" implies that words like "freedom" and "liberty" were once the property of Democrats. This is a foolish thing to assert. A more accurate assessment (and one which manages to resist a cheap shot at Republicans) would be that the GOP has effectively identified itself with the terms and, to a lesser extent, been able to suggest to the public conciousness that for Democrats, concepts like "freedom" and "liberty" are not priorities on their agenda.
His latest book, "Whose Freedom? The Battle over America's Most Important Idea," builds on earlier works that urge progressives to stop getting their pockets picked by Republicans over issues in which, he says, progressives actually hold the higher moral ground.
Once again the thievery metaphor. Perhaps if Democrats made more effort to identify themselves with positive terms and concepts than they do in trying to identify Republicans with negative ones, they would be more successful politically. Clearly Republicans have tried, and successfully, to associate Democrats with negative terms and concepts, but it is equally clear that they have worked on their own positive public identity as well. The Democrats have not, which is simply another way of saying that they have criticisms but no solutions, condemnations but no ideas.
Lakoff contends that Republicans not only have taken ownership of words, they also have skillfully succeeded in framing the debate. That has trapped Democrats into being reactive, implicitly buying into the GOP framework and almost dooming them to failure.
I'm not sure what this says about Democrats. We can understand that a mouse might not be able to recognize the huge and ominous contraption surrounding that piece of tempting cheese, but we expect reasonably intelligent human beings to be better able to recognize traps, particularly after they have been repeatedly caught by them.
Consider the war in Iraq. Republicans have adroitly labeled Democratic calls for troop pullbacks as "cut and run." So how did Democrats respond? With John Kerry saying that the Bush strategy is "lie and die."
Good example.
Instead, Lakoff says, Democrats must change the nature of the debate, starting by rejecting the premise that America is in fact at war. The war, he says, ended when President Bush said it did with his "Mission Accomplished" stunt on an aircraft carrier. Now, Democrats should refer to the conflict as an occupation. They should say U.S. troops were not trained to be occupiers and that they were betrayed by administration policy, with the U.S. weakened as a result.
What Lakoff fails to recognize is that Democrats have attempted to change the nature of the debate on the war - they just haven't been effective at it. In fact I believe they have even tried some version of the template he suggests: Frame the war as something incompatible with heroics and even tainted with the connotation of the "bad guys" -- Occupation, but carefully avoid framing the soliders as Occupiers, instead framing them as victims of the Administration's perfidy.
It hasn't worked. Whether this is because the template is inherently flawed or the Democrats applying it are just not rhetorically skilled enough is a matter of opinion.
It isn't all about the way an issue is framed.
Certainly effective communication of a position is helpful in persuading people to support it, but the position must, to a large extent, speak for itself. Republicans have not been more successful than Democrats simply because they have been more linguistically crafty.
Lakoff makes a similar point about the "war on terror." Terrorism, he says, should be fought in the same way the government went after the Mafia.
Right or wrong, no prominent Democrat has adopted Lakoff's proposed framing. That hasn't stopped him from making the rounds in Washington, urging Democrats to take heed.
Lakoff's point that our national response to terrorism should be framed in terms of criminal prosecution instread of war is a new idea? Where have Lakoff and Tackett been the past few years? Didn't John Kerry make this very argument without success?
He is a one-man army for the counterintuitive. Democrats, he says, are an anti-intellectual party. It is Republicans, he says, who support conservative intellectuals with many think tanks and interest groups to promote a conservative agenda.
I knew something he said was interesting. I don't know that I would go so far as to say Democrats are anti-intellectual, but he is correct about Republicans.
Republicans, he adds, actually control the media. They reinforce Bush's positions and use radio, television and the Internet to create an amen chorus before Democrats can even deliver a compelling sermon.
If he actually argues that Republicans control the media, add anther one to the foolish column. Both parties attempt to get their talking points broadcast to the public. Each have media outlets that lean in their direction or are virtual arms of the parties. One party may be better at it than the other, but this is a matter of execution, not concept.
Democrats, he says, need to become framers.
Lakoff says the Democratic message needs to be something like this: Republicans oppress people when they can't eat the fish they catch because of water pollution, when kids get asthma because of bad air, when ranchers can't let cattle drink the water in the streams that run through their land, all because of lax regulation. And don't make the mistake of labeling yourself an environmentalist.
Democrats need to be more effective at framing the issues, but they can only be as good as their material. Attempting to frame the environmental issue as one of Republicans oppressing people is ridiculous and would fail first step out of the box.
Lakoff likens the GOP orthodoxy as offered by Bush to a "strict father" mentality with a stark and unambiguous view of right and wrong. Democrats offer more a "nurturant parent" who is empathetic and looks at things in context.
To some extent this is an accurate representation of the competing ideologies, but hardly unique. Having established the contrast, now what?
Does Lakoff or Tackett (I have a feeling that Lakoff's ideas may be suffering from the telling of Tackett) mean to suggest that one approach is so far superior to the other that merely delineating it will do the trick?
To some extent Lakoff's notions are a product of the post-modern regard for context. Since there are virtually unlimited permutations of the context in which actions can be viewed it is impossible to rely on absolutes like right or wrong. Taken to its logical extension, this regard for context means that neither Republican nor Democratic core convictions can be right or wrong, and so it really comes down to how well the position plays in Peoria on any given day, and during the last while, Republicans have been better in selling their particular message than have the Democrats. I'm afraid I can't buy that.
Democrats, he says, need to start framing with core convictions and not with calibrations to try to win over converts.
This is an interesting statement, but I don't understand it. Can you help out Walter?
Framing alone won't get it, though. Lakoff recalled a conversation with Richard Wirthlin, the pollster for Ronald Reagan. Wirthlin told him that when he did surveys for Reagan, he found that voters disagreed with Reagan but liked him for the values he projected--authenticity, trust and the ability to connect with voters on a personal level.
And Reagan didn't move to the middle to try to get votes. Rather, his personal traits had a pull for those voters in the middle who were willing to support him almost in spite of his positions.
"Talk to the center the way you talk to your base," Lakoff says.
In Lakoff's view, most of the Democrats being discussed as potential presidential candidates don't have that skill set. Not Hillary Clinton. Not John Kerry. Not John Edwards.
His lone exception: Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
"He's amazing," Lakoff says, ticking off Obama's capacity for authenticity, values, trust and connection. "He doesn't just get up there and give a laundry list of programs."
Obama, he says, has an innate understanding of language and framing that the others do not.
Wow, now there's a revolutionary concept that few political scientists have dared to broach - Charisma! I guess it took a linguistics professor to identify the fact that charisma has a lot to do with communication skills. I'm sure no one ever thought of that before.
Lakoff made a point of saying that he has talked to Obama. We will see if Obama listened.
I don't know how we will unless we start hearing Obama speak of environmental issues in terms of Republican oppression. I can't find anything in this article that the Democrats (including Obama) haven't known or thought for sometime.
I will acknowledge though that Obama has charisma and excellent communication skills, and agree with Lakoff that he has them in abundance over Clinton, Kerry, and Edwards. He hasn't made the mark in DC that I expected when he broke onto the national scene in 2004, but it's still very early, and he seems to be a man of reserve rather than impulse. I'm looking forward to seeing him blossom. Michael Tackett is the Tribune's Washington Bureau chief.
[email protected]
