Framing

In my book, Thinking Points: A Progressive's Handbooks, George Lakoff came up with an interesting connection between cognitive psychology and politics: the use of "framing" in politics to manipulate feeling and emotions.

"Frames" are the "mental structures that allow human beings to understand reality" (Lakoff 25). Essentially, they are our subconscious assumptions and perceptions of reality, and function in the same way as Hayakawa's intensional map. Frames lock us into viewing something a particular way and restrict us: to step out of a mental frame is similar to "thinking outside of the box", a difficult task.

Lakoff states that there are basically two types of frames: surface frames and deep frames. Surface frames are easily manipulated by language and refer to the temporary feelings and images that a word evokes, so they are similar to intensional connotations. Lakoff gives an example of surface frames with the word "accuse". The word "accuse" immediately causes a surface "accusation" frame to come up and influence our view: We begin to look for an accuser, and accused, and an offense. We begin to look for someone to blame or indict. Hayakawa would say that the judgments implanted in words are what cause surface frames to spring up.

The other type of frame is a deep frame, which refers to our moral worldview and political philosophy. Liberals and conservatives have inherently different deep frames. Although surface frames can be activated by using loaded (snarl/purr) words, deep frames can only be indirectly reached through the use of surface frames.

According to Lakoff, an understanding of political framing shows why the "war on terror" is impossible to win. The surface frame associated with the word "war" influences us to look for an army, a fight, an enemy to conquer and kill, and the surrender of the enemy. Already, we're viewing the world through a particular lens or frame. When "terror" is added onto "war," the opposing army becomes "terror." But because "terror" is not a tangible enemy but only a state of mind, it cannot be conquered on the battlefield. However, the deep frames aroused by the "war on terror" push us to continue the fight and "win," because losing a war is unacceptable. Because conservatives have framed the occupation in Iraq as the "war on terror", we have an instinctive desire to "win the war" and "fight the good fight." This whole "war" frame of mind then leads to criticisms like "cut and run", because in "war" you should stay and fight.

Lakoff asks what would have happened if we had framed the terrorist acts not as a "war on terror" but as an international police problem: We would go to the International Criminal Court to indict bin Laden, and then use diplomacy to create an international coalition to hunt bin Laden down and try him for crimes against humanity. This approach is completely different from the "war" frame.

Anyway, as much fun as frames are, I felt that there was a question that Lakoff never explicitly answered in the book: How do we reframe issues? To give you an example that we all know, conservatives have reframed "global warming" as "climate change." But how did they do it? How do you step outside of the frame and then change the perspective? It wasn't as simple as repeating "climate change" over and over again...or was it?

I apologize for the lengthy post, but it's helping to clarify my thoughts for my book review...

Any comments?
(Eric Wei)