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Language Scholar Claims Conservatives For Immediate Release:  George Lakoff opens the 2006-07 Artist and Lecture Series on Sept. 18, in Goddard Auditorium. RICHMOND, Ind. — Although a professor of linguistics, not political science, George Lakoff's succinct explanation for the outcome of the 2004 U.S. presidential election is winning him many new disciples among knowledgeable political observers and strategists, particularly Democrats. While President Bush was merely attacked, says the University of California at Berkeley scholar, John Kerry was framed. No one from the Bush campaign or national Republican Party alleged Kerry's involvement in a crime, of course. Instead, Lakoff asserts, conservative leaders early on seized control of the language of the election debate, popularizing phrases like "tax relief," "gay marriage" and "war on terror" and effectively forcing Kerry and his supporters into a contextual "frame" not of their own design — a frame from which they never escaped and that ultimately proved their undoing. A pioneer in the field of cognitive science or how psychology, biology, neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy and even physics all contribute fundamentally to the process of human learning, Lakoff will address the subjects of "Framing and Freedom: Why Understanding Mind and Language Matters for Democracy" at 7 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 18, in Goddard Auditorium of Carpenter Hall on the Earlham College campus. Tickets ($5/adults; $3/seniors and students) are required for this first Artist and Lecture Series event of the Fall Semester and may be obtained from the Runyan Center Desk at Earlham. According to Lakoff, the problem for Democrats in 2004 wasn't the substance of the party's agenda or its messenger. It was their inability to communicate coherently. For example, he suggests that in the months leading up to the election, if one asked a Republican stalwart what the GOP stood for, the response received was almost certain to be the 10-word party mantra of strong defense, free markets, lower taxes, smaller government and family values. On the other hand, asking a Democrat loyalist the same question was likely to produce a meandering five- or 10-minute conversation resulting in no clear conclusions. The current minority party would have fared better, Lakoff proffers, if it had been able to counter with its own defining chant — something like "stronger America, broad prosperity, better future, effective government and mutual responsibility" — and if, like the president and his backers, it had repeated the phrase or "frame" to the point that it became a part of the accepted lexicon, "a part of 'normal' English." "Gay Marriage" and "The Nuclear Option" Cognitive science has proved, says Lakoff, that through long-term repetition savvy message crafters actually can "reprogram" the neural networks inside our brains, something Republican strategists have shown themselves remarkably adept at doing since the days of the Reagan administration when conservative groups started to "put billions of dollars into" setting up institutes and think tanks, building TV studios and promoting conservative talk radio. The point of all that (the conservative Heritage Foundation estimates there are now 1,500 conservative radio talk show hosts in America), Lakoff argues, was to make sure that the Republican message was "always on" and largely said and repeated in the same way. However, Lakoff — author of Moral Politics (University of Chicago Press; 1996) and Don't Think of an Elephant! (Chelsea Green Publishing; 2004) — stops short of characterizing the strategy as an attempt at "brainwashing" or anything similarly sinister. "Absolutely not," he told The New York Times shortly after President Bush's second inaugural in 2005. "Brainwashing has to do with physical control, capturing people and giving them messages over and over under conditions of physical deprivation or torture. What conservatives have done is not brainwashing in this way. They've done something perfectly legal. What they've done is find ways to set their frames into words over many years and have repeated them over and over again" until they end up "dictating the terms of the national debate." Take, for instance, "gay marriage." Although national surveys show that Americans overwhelmingly object to discrimination against gays, they also are overwhelmingly against gay marriage. Why? Because, says Lakoff, "marriage" is about sex, and so when someone refers to "gay marriage," the discussion really becomes about gay sex, "and approving of gay marriage becomes implicitly about approving gay sex." "Framed in that way, the issue of gay marriage will get a lot of negative reaction," Lakoff continues. "But, what if you make the issue 'freedom to marry,' or even better, 'the right to marry'? That's a whole different story. Very few people would say they did not support the right to marry whom you choose. But, the polls don't ask that question, because the right wing has framed that issue." Although late to the game, Democrats are starting to even the score, believes Lakoff. He points to the minority's recent victories in Capitol Hill skirmishes over Social Security reform (during which Republicans tried but failed to overcome the president's initial, mistaken application of the words "private accounts" instead of "personal accounts") and restricting Democrats' use of the Senate filibuster on judicial nominations through the so-called "nuclear option." According to Democratic pollster and Lakoff acolyte Geoff Garin, use of the term "nuclear option" by GOP Senator Bill Frist, in particular, made the majority leader — a physician — sound less like Dr. Frist and more like Dr. Strangelove. "It's a very evocative phrase," said Garin at the time. "It's having your finger on the button [and] it's blowing up the Senate." And not surprisingly, notes Lakoff, many Americans shuddered at the very thought. The rules governing use of the filibuster essentially were left alone. — EC — Contact: Kevin Burke, director of media relations
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Earlham
College · 801 National Road West · Richmond,
Indiana 47374-4095 |