On Monday I posted about a published interview with George Lakoff, a UC Berkeley professor, in which he discussed the framing of issues. Specifically he talked about why conservatives have been so successful at controlling the terms of reference in political debate. It turns out Digby at Hullabaloo is a long time reader of Lakoff's work and he's posted at length in response to this piece. He's particularly concerned with the way Lakoff has distinguished the right from the left:
If I have a beef with Lakoff it’s that the one frame he’s most known for --- the Republican “strict father” and the Democrat “nurturing parent” --- is one of the most unfortunate metaphors for the progressive cause that I can imagine.It's an interesting point. I guess the challenge here is to use Lakoff's ideas to improve on Lakoff's own frame.It’s not that he’s wrong in his analysis, it’s that he’s used the wrong terms to frame it. (Yep. You heard me. I hereby accept the 2003 Shameless Intellectual Arrogance Award. Thank you very much.)
I don’t think it’s a very good frame to begin with because it isn’t honest. Let’s not pretend that the real frame isn’t “strict father” vs “nurturing mother.” The frame doesn't really make sense otherwise. And, rightly or wrongly, this frame makes the tension gender based, and in doing so it defines progressive leadership as female leadership, something that is an indistinct and still evolving archetypal image. This puts progressives at a disadvantage because people don't immediately associate women with public leadership just yet. That will, of course, come to pass in the not too distant future (I hope.) But framing isn't a matter for wish fulfillment. To work, it must be immediately recognizable. The fact that Lakoff didn’t use the obvious "father-mother" construction indicates to me that knew that this was a problem.
