The Framing Wars

Jill Klausen posted this helpful guide to not stepping into reactionary boobytraps this election season. I don't know if I am just especially gloomy this morning or resenting idealistic liberals who reflexively say that understanding framing drops "us" to the republican level of barbarism. Perhaps that is not the appropriate word, barbarism implies taking what you want by force. Many aspects of movement conservatism approach barbarism, such as vote-rigging, voter suppression, deceit and misdirection, and simply unleashing the cops to beat protesters, etc. But manipulation of language is more of an exercise in demogaugery than barbarism, so perhaps we can settle on calling republican framing simply an extraordinary program of propaganda on a particularly insidious level.
Klausen summarizes the problem this way: "Democrats have failed to speak in a language strong enough to rebut Republicans who have defined who we are and what we want, in a way that doesn't even remotely reflect an iota of the truth, and instantly conjures up the negative in the mind of the listener." Part of liberal/progressive failure is simple intellectual laziness, trying to speak in terms that play right into republican boobytraps. More insidious is the attitude of idealists such as the philosophy professor I loaned George Lakoff's book Don't think of an Elephant. Super Dave returned it to me the next day (it is a short book) and said, "very interesting, but if we go this route we will be as bad as the conservatives." Super Dave is a liberal, through and through, I mean by this that he hangs on to Enlightenment thinking. Further, that he ascribes to an earlier liberalism epitomized by John Dewey, that all people have the capacity to critically think about events and evaluate them rationally. Dewey argued through his long career that education was the key to building a better society and combined with the reform of institutions would yield a humane and just world.
I honestly and truly respect Super Dave and John Dewey, I wish their ideas were universally valid. But as an historian, I understand too well that beyond a point far from universality people simply are not rational and not equally capable of critical thought. And in any case, we live in a world that prizes irrationality and refuses to allow everyone the opportunity and access to the education necessary for training your mind. Dewey's great antagonist on this idealism was the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. Niebuhr had a great understanding of Christianity (the good kind, not rick santorum's brand) as well as history and used it to formulate a philosophy of realism that understood the frailty of human nature but sought to use it to build a more just society in spite of human proclivities to injustice.
Though I am far from a Niebuhrian expert, I argue that he would have fully supported the use of framing. Not to manipulate people, but to empower them. Niebuhr argued that selflessness was good, selfishness was sinful and like Lakoff, good people must activate the better angels of selflessness and empathy while not discounting the power of self-interest in service to justice. To illustrate, Niebuhr wrote a book called The Children of Light and The Children of Darkness as a defense of democracy and pluralism. The Children of Darkness (or of This World as in the Bible) are wise but know no law beyond their self-interest, the Children of Light are foolish but reach beyond themselves to seek justice for all humanity. Sound familiar at all? Niebuhr also had some interesting things to say about group morality that applied well to the conservative tribalism in contemporary America. Moral Man and Immoral Society posited the idea that individuals could be selfless but group identity by individuals often leads to immoral actions by organizations and institutions. Niebuhr suggested that even patriotism, the selfless love of country, could be turned to immoral ends by both individuals and leaders.
Niebuhr would understand that if Children of Darkness used framing to manipulate people into supporting the selfish ends of the CoD, the Children of Light must use framing in the service of selfless ends for the achievment of justice. But isn't this "just as bad" you may ask? In a way yes, but Niebuhr had an explanation for this as well, Irony. He argued that a pathetic situation, such as masses of working people voting against their self-interest by voting republican, illicited pity. A truly evil situation where republicans use wedge issues and framing to "manufacture consent" for their destructive policies, illicts contempt. But the ironic situation is one in which evil means are used for just or good purposes. Thus, during the Cold War Niebuhr argued the irony of American nuclear arms kept in readiness for use to keep the peace even though their actual use would destroy the world.
Now, Super Dave and other idealists would probably argue that Demosthenes and Aristotle did not need framing to pursuade their audiences. Using framing in response to republican propaganda undermines democracy and insults the intelligence of the people. To this I unfortunately have to point to the 2010 midterm elections, not ancient history. Two words, "death panels" and fierce desire to shamelessly promote themselves allowed the reactionary base of the gop to reinvent itself as the tea party (itself a shameless use of framing) to fire up and scare people who rationally would know better to the polls. Thus ensuring that the next two years at least will and have been about putting the needs of conservatives far, far ahead of what is best for the nation and obstructing rationalism as an end unto itself.
Any strategy to reclaim America for the Children of Light must include the use of framing issues on progressive terms. Without activating frames favorable for empathy and justice in the electorate, all the best intentions of the foolish Children of Light are buried under an avalanche of fear, hate, superstition, and selfishness.