The Idea:
The only way to prevent extremists from holding nations hostage to
their emotions is to devolve power so that no one wields enough of it
to exploit it the way untrammeled tyrants and fanatics inevitably do if
they can. And the way to reopen dialogue isn't by re-framing, it's by refocusing on what we can all agree on, regardless of frames: The need to create a healthy, happy legacy for our children.
Last January I reviewed George Lakoff's book Moral Politics,
which lays out the difference between progressive and conservative
worldviews and 'frames', and explains how to 're-frame' debate in
positive ways:
Hold
your ground. Always be on the offense. Never go on defense. Never whine
or complain. Never act like a victim. Never plead. Avoid the language
of weakness, for example, rising intonations on statements. Your voice
should be steady. Your body and voice should show optimism. You should
convey passionate conviction without losing control...Never answer a
question framed from your opponent’s point of view. Always reframe the
question to fit your values and your frames. This may make you
uncomfortable, since normal discourse styles require you to directly
answer questions posed. That is a trap. Practice changing frames...Show
respect; Respond by re-framing; Think and talk at the level of values;
and Say what you believe.
Lakoff also explains why an appreciation of different frames is
actually comforting (instead of seeing those with opposite perspectives
as stupid or irrational, you start to understand where they're coming
from, and, sometimes, you get a better understanding of where you're
coming from). I worried out loud about our human propensity (a) to be
seduced by false comforts and (b) to believe what we have 'come to
believe' even in the face of overwhelming evidence of its absurdity.
Such is our ability to filter out what doesn't jibe with our
preconceptions.
In the same article, I referred to Frances Moore Lappé's GNN essay
espousing the need to move away entirely from 'nuclear family' frames
(conservative = strict father; progressive = nurturing parent), and the
need for progressives to acknowledge neocons' willingness to use
blatant lies, deception, fear-mongering and emotional coercion to meet
their ends, rendering mere 're-framing' an inadequate progressive
response to conservative assaults on citizens' opinions. I expressed my
view that she was right, but that her (re-)frames were unsatisfying
because they weren't intuitive, visceral and engaging enough. And her
argument about the 'unethical' nature of conservative tactics struck me
as 'crying foul' just because the other team wasn't playing by your
rules -- when the battle over public opinion has never been constrained
by either principles like fairness, or accepted 'rules'.
I recently re-read that essay, which was entitled Time for Progressives to Grow Up
in light of events of the last few months, and realized I missed some
of her points. She describes the neocons' "ends-justify-means,
destroy-the-enemy approach", a brutal, manipulative and
over-reaching strategy that is abhorrent to most of us of all political
stripes, but the point is that it works.
Killing the guy who seduced your daughter may not be legal or ethical,
but it sure is effective. And that ferocity is the signature of the
neocons' high-adrenaline campaign to win the hearts and minds of the
world at any cost, and is increasingly being used by conservatives outside the US
as well.
Lappé also makes the point that progressives need to call neocons to account for such
extremist tactics, but warns this is difficult to do without "making
those who have been manipulated feel ridiculed and put down". This
difficulty, and progressives' reluctance to fight fire with fire (by
using lies and manipulation proactively themselves) is precisely what
the neocons are counting on. When such tactics are used by extremists
from any side, moderation, civility, consensus, rationality and the
truth always lose out. The neocons have learned this lesson from the
successes of terrorists and warmongers since the dawn of civilization.
Such provocation always leads
to hysteria and/or escalation -- and the triumph of extremism over
moderation. As Oscar Wilde said, "Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing
succeeds like excess."
Is there anything that can be done to counter this tactic effectively,
and to keep things reasonable? Take a look at the situation in the
Middle East or Ireland and you'll find your answer: As soon as reason
and moderation look like they might win the day, all it takes is one
extremist act to nullify a generation of diplomacy and reasoned
negotiation. We are at heart emotional creatures more than rational
ones, and passion can always trump reason. I recently argued that this
passion might just push the US over the line to totalitarianism -- it's
happened often to democracies before, sometimes improbably. The
only answer, I believe, is to devolve and dilute power, take it away
from hierarchies and move it to communities, so that no extremist group
can ever accumulate so much of it that they can use it to hold a nation
hostage to its own emotions, which is the situation the US currently
finds itself in. You don't defuse a barroom brawl by pleading for civility, you arrest it by taking away the antagonists' ability to fight.
That takes me back to Lappé's other quibble with Lakoff -- the use of
nuclear family metaphors to contrast frames. She argues for a
new, broader frame of Strong Communities:
A
“strong communities” frame might require progressives to stop, for
example, talking about the “environment,” which non-progressives can
hear as a “soft” distraction in war time, and frame ecological
challenges as threats “to safe air and water and food.” We might stop
talking about poverty, and alleviating it, which evokes images of
do-gooders, and talk about “fair-chance communities.” Stop talking
about reforming criminal justice and talk about results-based crime
prevention.
Regular readers of How to Save the World
know of my passion for communities, and I do believe this is a psychological
improvement over 'nurturing parent'. And Lappé does provide a host of
examples that suggest there is a great appetite for moving much more
human activity and authority (and hence power) to the community level
from the state level (and to some extent even from the family level, at
least for those who appreciate "it takes a village to raise a child").
Both conservatives and progressives share a loathing for hierarchy and
bureaucracy, although they see them through very different frames.
But as I noted in my earlier article, in fairness to Lakoff, he suggests progressives use precisely these
community-based re-framings to further appreciation and support for the
'nurturing parent' cause; nurturing parents, I suspect he would argue,
instinctively 'get' the value of community in supporting the learning,
nurturing, responsibility to all, and egalitarianism that are so dear
to the progressive movement.
And the term 'community' does not (yet at least) mean the same thing,
or as much, to many of our planet's citizens as it does to us, who see
its value in social networks, global communications, self-governance,
ecological thinking, citizen boards and open source. To most of the
world, especially those on the other side of the digital divide,
community may more likely mean claustrophobic small towns,
violence-obsessed neighbourhoods, dying farm villages, ghettos (of
different types), despair and even tyranny (from warlords or tin-pot
community dictators).
So I don't think we've yet found the right frame that will bridge the
chasm that extremists and isolation have opened up between
conservatives and progressives. As much as Lappé might want us to
choose an 'adult' metaphor, I suspect that the best bridging metaphor might be another family one: Legacy for Our Children.
The fact that 90% of the inhabitants of this planet want an average of
2.8 children each threatens us with extinction. But it also ensures
that creating a healthy, happy world for those children is an issue
almost everyone, of every political stripe, really believes in and can
agree upon. And most importantly, it provides a platform for dialogue
that is as close to 'frame-neutral' as we could hope to find.
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
