The ALL NEW Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate Read online

  Praise for The ALL NEW Don’t Think of an Elephant!

  “When the original Don’t Think of an Elephant! came out in 2004, Lakoff showed us that progressive Democrats voted on values, not issues—just like the right. Now, Dr. Lakoff is back to prevent a relapse of bad framing. The ALL NEW Don’t Think of an Elephant! is a must read, every bit as important as the first edition. This time we have to train ourselves to think for the long term. Buy this book, memorize it, and teach it to your children. Progressives may be smart, but we don’t communicate our ideas well. This book is the blueprint for how to do better.”

  —Howard Dean, former chair of the Democratic National Committee and founder of Democracy for America

  “Lakoff single-handedly convinced liberals of the importance of language in winning political battles. Now he’s back to finish what he started.”

  —Markos Moulitsas, founder and publisher, Daily Kos

  “The All New Don’t Think of an Elephant! is an indispensable tool for progressives—packed with new thinking on framing issues that are hotly debated right now, and new insights on how to reclaim the political debate on meaningful terms that can yield true progress, not just political gains.”

  —Jennifer M. Granholm, former governor of Michigan

  Praise for the first edition, Don’t Think of an Elephant!

  “It’s not enough that we have reason on our side. We also have to use words and images powerful enough to persuade others. Lakoff offers crucial lessons in how to counter right-wing demagoguery. Essential reading in this neo-Orwellian age of Bush-speak.”

  —Robert Reich, author, Aftershock, former US Secretary of Labor

  “Fascinating insights into why progressives lose good causes and how they can start winning again. You will never listen to a political speech the same way after reading this book.”

  —Tina Brown, cofounder, The Daily Beast

  “Don’t let anyone tell you that the words don’t make a difference; they can evoke the best and the worst in us. Read this book and be part of transforming our political dialogue to support our highest ideals and speak to the hearts of Americans.”

  —Joan Blades and Wes Boyd, MoveOn.org

  “Ever wonder how the radical right has been able to convince average Americans to repeatedly vote against their own interests? It’s the framing, stupid! Don’t Think of an Elephant! is a pithy and powerful primer on the language of American politics, and a vital reminder that he who creates the political framework controls the picture that’s put inside. It’s also a detailed roadmap out of the mess we are in. Lakoff shows how progressives can reclaim the political narrative—and, in the process, change our country and our world for the better.”

  —Arianna Huffington, cofounder and editor-in-chief, The Huffington Post

  “This is a pocket manifesto for those who still wonder how a small group of rich, powerful oligarchs tied together the shoelaces of the progressive movement. Read it once, and know why we are losing. Read it twice, and we can restore sanity to the world.”

  —Paul Hawken, author of Natural Capitalism

  “Don’t Think of an Elephant! is a work of genius. As George Lakoff explains how the right has framed the notion of the political center, he presents both the most original and the most practical analysis of United States politics in many years.”

  —George Akerlof, Nobel Prize winner in Economics

  “George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant! is a wonderful example of what happens when you combine a linguist’s ear for the subtleties of language with an understanding of the complexities of modern politics and a commitment to progressive ideals. Whether you think of yourself as a liberal, a progressive, or simply someone with an interest in how political language works, this is a must read.”

  —Geoffrey Nunberg, University of California, Berkeley

  “Progressives have a lot to learn about persuading swing voters to our cause, and there’s no better teacher than George Lakoff. This readable text couldn’t be more timely; it should be read widely and put to work before November!”

  —Daniel Ellsberg, author of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

  “If you want to take back our country, you have to take back your community. If you want to take back your community, you need to take back the debate. This book, and the video that goes with it, are your essential tools. What the Bush administration has done for obfuscation, George Lakoff’s work does for clarification.”

  —Carl Pope, former president, Sierra Club

  Previous Books By George Lakoff

  ★ Political Action ★

  The Little Blue Book

  Don’t Think of an Elephant!

  Thinking Points

  ★ Deep Politics ★

  Moral Politics

  Whose Freedom?

  The Political Mind

  ★ Linguistics and Cognitive Science ★

  Metaphors We Live By

  Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things

  Philosophy in the Flesh

  Where Mathematics Comes From

  More Than Cool Reason

  ★ ★ The ALL NEW ★ ★

  Don’t Think of an Elephant!

  Know Your Values and Frame the Debate

  George Lakoff

  Chelsea Green Publishing

  White River Junction, Vermont

  Copyright © 2004, 2014 by George Lakoff.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

  The first edition of this book was published as Don’t Think of an Elephant!

  Editor: Joni Praded

  Project Manager: Patricia Stone

  Copy Editor: Deborah Heimann

  Proofreader: Eric Raetz

  Designer: Melissa Jacobson

  Printed in the United States of America.

  First printing September, 2014.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 14 15 16 17 18

  Our Commitment to Green Publishing

  Chelsea Green sees publishing as a tool for cultural change and ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book manufacturing practices with our editorial mission and to reduce the impact of our business enterprise on the environment. We print our books and catalogs on chlorine-free recycled paper, using vegetable-based inks whenever possible. This book may cost slightly more because it was printed on paper that contains recycled fiber, and we hope you’ll agree that it’s worth it. Chelsea Green is a member of the Green Press Initiative (www.greenpressinitiative.org), a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the world’s endangered forests and conserve natural resources. The ALL NEW Don’t Think of an Elephant! was printed on paper supplied by Thomson-Shore that contains 100% postconsumer recycled fiber.

  ISBN 978-1-60358-594-1 (paperback)—ISBN 978-1-60358-595-8 (ebook)

  The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  Chelsea Green Publishing

  85 North Main Street, Suite 120

  White River Junction, VT 05001

  (802) 295-6300

  www.chelseagreen.com

  To Kathleen,Whose insights illuminate every page

  ★ Contents ★

  ★ Preface ★

  Introduction: Reframing Is Social Change

  Part I: Framing 101:Theory and Application

  Framing 101: How to Take Back Public Discourse

  Part II: Framing 102: Framing
the Unframed

  Framing the Unframed

  Reflexivity: The Brain and the World

  Systemic Causation

  Politics and Personhood

  The Private Depends on the Public

  Part III: Framing for Specific Issues

  Freedom Issues

  The Piketty Insight on the Accelerating Wealth Gap

  Government by Corporation

  Part IV: Framing: Looking Back a Decade

  What’s in a Word? Plenty, If It’s Marriage

  Metaphors of Terror

  Metaphors That Kill

  Part V: From Theory to Action

  What Conservatives Want

  What Unites Progressives

  Frequently Asked Questions

  How to Respond to Conservatives

  ★ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ★

  ★ Preface ★

  Ten years ago, in 2004, when the first edition of this book appeared, hardly anyone had heard of or thought about, much less discussed, how social and political issues were framed. Framing was an unknown and undiscussed concept, outside of the academic field of frame semantics.

  Don’t Think of an Elephant! became a best seller and changed all that. Discussions of how issues are framed are now commonplace in the national media. Millions of people hear the word “frame” in a discussion of issues and understand, at least basically, what it means. That is a lot for one small book to have accomplished.

  But Don’t Think of an Elephant! had higher goals. At the time, the Republicans were doing a much better job at framing issues their way than the Democrats were. Republican framing superiority had played a major part in their takeover of Congress in 1994. I and others had hoped that, starting in 2004, a widespread understanding of how framing worked would allow Democrats to reverse the trend.

  In the 2008 election, Barack Obama led a Democratic sweep of the White House and Congress, using far superior framing, as well as superior on-the-ground tactics—besides being a far superior candidate. I had hoped that the superior framing would continue.

  It didn’t. Almost immediately after Obama’s inauguration in 2009, the Republicans regained framing superiority in public discourse, and that played a major role in the ascendancy of the Tea Party in Congress and in state houses throughout the nation. Now Republicans are setting their framing sights on the cities as well as the states.

  What happened?

  This tenth anniversary edition of Don’t Think of An Elephant! will do more than just recap what framing is and how it works. The goal of this edition is to explain what happened, why the Democrats have gone back to losing framing wars, and what can be done about it.

  That’s a tall order. Let’s get started. We will recap Framing 101 and then go on to Framing 102 and beyond.

  George Lakoff

  Berkeley, California

  June, 2014

  ★ INTRODUCTION ★

  Reframing Is Social Change

  We think with our brains. We have no choice. It may seem that certain politicians think with other parts of their anatomy. But they too think with their brains.

  Why does this matter for politics? Because all thought is physical. Thought is carried out by neural circuits in the brain. We can only understand what our brains allow us to understand.

  The deepest of those neural structures are relatively fixed. They don’t change readily or easily. And we are mostly unconscious of their activity and impact.

  In fact, about 98 percent of what our brains are doing is below the level of consciousness. As a result, we may not know all, or even most, of what in our brains determines our deepest moral, social, and political beliefs. And yet we act on the basis of those largely unconscious beliefs.

  My field—cognitive science—has found ways to study unconscious, as well as conscious, modes of thought. As a cognitive scientist, my job is to help make the unconscious conscious, to find out and let the world know what is determining our social and political behavior. I believe that such knowledge can lead to positive social and political change. Why? Because what goes on in people’s brains matters.

  Do we have to go to the neural level to understand our politics? In some cases, yes. Diving that deep will be important, and we will discuss the brain when necessary. But, on the whole, the most important brain structures for our politics can be studied from the perspective of the mind. They are called “frames.”

  Frames

  Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world. As a result, they shape the goals we seek, the plans we make, the way we act, and what counts as a good or bad outcome of our actions. In politics our frames shape our social policies and the institutions we form to carry out policies. To change our frames is to change all of this. Reframing is social change.

  You can’t see or hear frames. They are part of what we cognitive scientists call the “cognitive unconscious”—structures in our brains that we cannot consciously access, but know by their consequences. What we call “common sense” is made up of unconscious, automatic, effortless inferences that follow from our unconscious frames.

  We also know frames through language. All words are defined relative to conceptual frames. When you hear a word, its frame is activated in your brain.

  Yes, in your brain. As the title of this book shows, even when you negate a frame, you activate the frame. If I tell you, “Don’t think of an elephant!,” you’ll think of an elephant.

  Though I found this out first in the study of cognitive linguistics, it has begun to be confirmed by neuroscience. When a macaque monkey grasps an object, a certain group of neurons in the monkey’s ventral premotor cortex (which choreographs actions, but does not directly move the body) are activated. When the monkey is trained not to grasp the object, most of those neurons are inhibited (they turn off), but a portion of the same neurons used in grasping still turn on. That is, to actively not grasp requires thinking of what grasping would be.

  Not only does negating a frame activate that frame, but the more it is activated, the stronger it gets. The moral for political discourse is clear: When you argue against someone on the other side using their language and their frames, you are activating their frames, strengthening their frames in those who hear you, and undermining your own views. For progressives, this means avoiding the use of conservative language and the frames that the language activates. It means that you should say what you believe using your language, not theirs.

  Reframing

  When we successfully reframe public discourse, we change the way the public sees the world. We change what counts as common sense. Because language activates frames, new language is required for new frames. Thinking differently requires speaking differently.

  Reframing is not easy or simple. It is not a matter of finding some magic words. Frames are ideas, not slogans. Reframing is more a matter of accessing what we and like-minded others already believe unconsciously, making it conscious, and repeating it till it enters normal public discourse. It doesn’t happen overnight. It is an ongoing process. It requires repetition and focus and dedication.

  To achieve social change, reframing requires a change in public discourse, and that requires a communication system. Conservatives in America have developed a very extensive and sophisticated communication system that progressives have not yet developed. Fox News is only the tip of the iceberg. Progressives need to understand what an effective communication system is and develop one. Reframing without a system of communication accomplishes nothing.

  Reframing, as we discuss it in this book, is about honesty and integrity. It is the opposite of spin and manipulation. It is about bringing to consciousness the deepest of our beliefs and our modes of understanding. It is about learning to express what we really believe in a way that will allow those who share our beliefs to understand what they most deeply believe and to act on those beliefs.

  Framing is also about understanding those we disagree with most. Tens of millions of Americans vote conservative. For the most p
art they are not bad people or stupid people. They are people who understand the world differently and have a different view of what is right.

  All Politics Is Moral

  When a political leader puts forth a policy or suggests how we should act, the implicit assumption is that the policy or action is right, not wrong. No political leader says, “Here’s what you should do. Do it because it is wrong—pure evil, but do it.” No political leader puts forth policies on the grounds that the policies don’t matter. Political prescriptions are assumed to be right. The problem is that different political leaders have different ideas about what is right.

  All politics is moral, but not everybody operates from the same view of morality. Moreover, much of moral belief is unconscious. We are often not even aware of our own most deeply held moral views.

  As we shall see, the political divide in America is a moral divide. We need to understand that moral divide and understand what the progressive and conservative moral systems are.

  Most importantly, a great many people operate on different—and inconsistent—moral systems in different areas of their lives. The technical term is “biconceptualism.”

  Here the brain matters even more. Each moral system is, in the brain, a system of neural circuitry. How can inconsistent systems function smoothly in the same brain? The answer is twofold: (1) mutual inhibition (when one system is turned on the other is turned off); and (2) neural binding to different issues (when each system operates on different concerns).

  Biconceptualism is central to our politics, and it is vital to understand how it works. We will be discussing it throughout this book.

  What Is Rationality?

  The brain and cognitive sciences have radically changed our understanding of what reason is and what it means to be rational. Unfortunately, all too many progressives have been taught a false and outdated theory of reason itself, one in which framing, metaphorical thought, and emotion play no role in rationality. This has led many progressives to the view that the facts—alone—will set you free. Progressives are constantly giving lists of facts.