NYT on Lakoff :: Why the Democrats Need to Stop Thinking About Elephants

If George Lakoff had his way, the Kerry campaign would have run a commercial attacking the "baby tax." Dr. Lakoff, a Berkeley linguistics professor and Kerry campaign adviser, wanted to divide the interest on the national debt by the number of Americans born each year. The result, $85,000 per newborn, say, would have been handed to a baby in the form of a bill, and the baby would have started to cry. That, Dr. Lakoff says, "frames" the issue "in a way people can understand."

"Framing" is a hot topic among political junkies and in the blogo-sphere right now, thanks to Dr. Lakoff. In "Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate," his surprise best seller, Dr. Lakoff argues that Republicans have been winning elections because they have been better than Democrats at framing issues - from taxes, to abortion, to national security - in ways that resonate with core American values.

Dr. Lakoff has been stepping out of the classroom lately to lecture everyone from the Senate Democratic caucus to "living wage" advocates on how to use linguistics to craft a more effective message. "Framing" alone won't give the Democrats the White House, or the Senate and House. But Dr. Lakoff's theories offer the Democrats a road map for going forward.

The title "Don't Think of an Elephant!" comes from a classic experiment Dr. Lakoff conducts in Cognitive Science 101. He tells his students not to think of an elephant, and he has yet to find one who has managed it. Thinking about elephants is the frame, and negating it simply reinforces it. This was the problem, he says, with President Richard Nixon's famous declaration, "I am not a crook."

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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/15/opinion/15mon3.html

Hope he stays on our team!

Before we was robbed of our elections,
We was robbed of our language.

But he has a very good point. There is a difference between being condescending and presenting a position in a way most people can understand.

Republicans tend to underestimate the depth of public understanding and the Democrats tend to overestimate. Guess who is on a winning streak?

His book's been out for a while. Maybe not that long, but since early fall at least.

I'm in the book biz.

which came out in 1997 or 1998...

As the article discusses...the key is not just using the words such as "baby tax", but actually to reframe the issues that the republicans have so successfully framed in their own way...

Its not about getting rid of lawyers who file frivilous lawsuits...its actually the Republicans trying to eliminate public service protectors, the last line of defense between corrupt corporations and the people who get hurt by them...etc.etc.

Though I agree with the article that a commercial about taxes could be framed better...IMO he does do a better job at it later in the book...

We are putting together a group trying to follow the ideas behind what Lakoff says in Moral Politics and DTOAE...if interested, PM me...thanks!

this as well.

Mr. Lakoff is RIGHT! Democrats need to learn the right "propaganda" methods. We must shape our message so that the public understands them.