language and frame

No other issue costs Democrats the votes of compassionate voters the way choice|abortion does.

There is no other issue where we so desperately need to have a "big tent" for people who see the world differently, to use progressive communications styles with active listening — and no other issue where we could burn our big tent down by making the wrong compromises and failing to stick to our frame.

I'd like to start with an imagination exercise:

Business Insider's article Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's tweet about workers being paid 'less than the value they create' is essentially a restatement of Marx's Labour Theory of Value — here's why that's interesting is so far wrong that it's fascinating:

(1) What are the policy choices? What are all the different frames you can think of — the different ways to focus on the story — that you hear?

Important: people can usually take either side within a frame:

Take relief => the frame is that taxes are an affliction. "No new taxes" and "The rich should pay more" => both positions treat taxes like an affliction, opposite positions within the same frame.

(2) [usually easy] Which of these frames is more focused on the values you want to emphasize?

A Framing 101 Post written for Radical Conversation enthusiasts.

Framing creates context for an issue.

Framing is unavoidable.

George Lakoff talks about framing the issues: "protections," not "regulations." This article expands on George Lakoff's advice on framing.

The Democrats's new slogan is here, "A Better Deal: Better Skills, Better Jobs, Better Wages."

Let’s break this down: What is the frame? Who is the implied speaker? What does it assume about the audience?

Progressives need a grassroots movement to ask our congresspeople what their approach to framing is on particular issues. Instead of saying "please support bill X" in cases where they already do, get them hundreds of letters asking "What is your approach to framing issue X? Do you agree with George Lakoff's suggestions? Which other politicians are you coordinating with to get the message out coherently?" We should put pressure there -- it might not take much! Please add your comments. Do you want to be part of Cognitive Politics and lead this? Create a facebook group with me?

Help name and frame a big, unnamed trend in politics: On both health-care and school's choice, a central goal of Republican policy is to have those with challenges — pre-existing conditions or kids who struggle — placed into pools of people with challenges, and people without challenges not have to help. If you have a pre-existing condition, or are a kid with ADHD, the Republicans want you to bear all the consequences for yourself and others with challenges. Social Darwinism is an old term not out of place, but not "who-what-when" enough for an effective reframing.

Many studies are finding that the best way to frame an argument is to use their values. The studies have a simple format: they take an issue like climate change, and describe it to a conservative in liberal-sounding

What's the best way to frame political arguments? Some argue that we should tell stories that express our own values strongly — preferably with many voices repeating and reinforcing the same story; this is the approach in George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant. At the opposite end of the spectrum, we hear advice as in Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind (and Moral Foundations Theory) to spend more time listening to conservative opposition and coming to understand their values — more empathy, more compassion.