The All New Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate

by George Lakoff

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.

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.

All politics is moral, but not everybody operates from the same view of morality.

Facts matter enormously, but to be meaningful they must be framed in terms of their moral importance.

Nixon addressed the nation on TV. He stood before the nation and said, “I am not a crook.” And everybody thought about him as a crook. This gives us a basic principle of framing: When you are arguing against the other side, do not use their language. Their language picks out a frame—and it won’t be the frame you want.

The strict father model begins with a set of assumptions: The world is a dangerous place, and it always will be, because there is evil out there in the world. The world is also difficult because it is competitive. There will always be winners and losers. There is an absolute right and an absolute wrong. Children are born bad, in the sense that they just want to do what feels good, not what is right. Therefore, they have to be made good.

What does nurturance mean? It means three things: empathy, responsibility for yourself and others, and a commitment to do your best not just for yourself, but for your family, your community, your country, and the world.

To be accepted, the truth must fit people’s frames. If the facts do not fit a frame, the frame stays and the facts bounce off.

There is another myth that also comes from the Enlightenment, and it goes like this: It is irrational to go against your self-interest, and therefore a normal person, who is rational, reasons on the basis of self-interest. Modern economic theory and foreign policy are set up on the basis of that assumption.

People do not necessarily vote in their self-interest. They vote their identity. They vote their values. They vote for who they identify with.

Orwellian language points to weakness—Orwellian weakness. When you hear Orwellian language, note where it is, because it is a guide to where they are vulnerable. They do not use it everywhere. It is very important to notice this and use their weakness to your advantage.

When you think you just lack words, what you really lack are ideas. Ideas come in the form of frames. When the frames are there, the words come readily.

If we think about it a little, we can list our values. But it is not easy to think about how the values fit the issues, to know how to talk about every issue from the perspective of our values, not theirs.

Our understanding of the world is part of the world—a physical part of the world.

Without an everyday concept of systemic causation, global warming cannot be properly comprehended. In other words, without the systemic causation frame, the oft-repeated facts about global warming cannot make sense. With only the direct causation frame, the systemic causation facts of global warming are ignored. The old frame stays, and the facts that don’t fit it cannot be comprehended.

The progressive (nurturant parent) moral system maintains a delicate balance between the empathy and the personal well-being systems. At its core is empathy for others and the responsibility to act on that empathy, but it is modulated by the proviso that you can’t take care of anyone else if you’re not taking care of yourself. That is, it centers on empathy and includes both personal and social responsibility.

The conservative moral system centers on the well-being system—on personal responsibility alone, on serving your own interests without depending on the empathy of others to take care of you and without having empathy and responsibility for others.

The private depends on the public. Public resources make private life possible.

Since the 1970s, the concept of taxation has shifted from the source of needed, and often revered, public resources to the idea that taxation is a burden—an affliction in need of “tax relief.”

Connect the private-depends-on-the-public concept to something that conservatives will understand: freedom. Public resources allow for freedom in case after case, opening up all kinds of opportunities in life. It is the freedom that public resources afford that make them central to democracy.

Healthy food is also a freedom issue. Much of big agriculture produces unhealthy food, especially processed food, sugary food, food with unhealthy additives, meats with hormones and antibiotics from animals raised on pesticide-treated feed, and so on.

All of these are freedom issues: If you are homeless or cannot find a decent place to live for yourself and your family, you are oppressed and limited, you are not free. If you cannot relocate or travel when you need to, or want to, you are limited in your freedom. If you cannot eat properly, you are not free. If you are not able to connect with people, you are not free. If you are not free to find a job and work, you are not free.

“I don’t think gays should be able to marry. Do you?” The response is: “I believe in equal rights, period. I don’t think the state should be in the business of telling people who they can or can’t marry. Marriage is about love and commitment, and denying the right to marry to people in love who want a public lifetime commitment is a violation of human dignity.”

There are (at least) three kinds of causes of radical Islamic terrorism: • Worldview: the religious rationale • Social and political conditions: cultures of despair • Means: the enabling conditions The Bush administration discussed only the third: the means that enable attacks to be carried out.

A petition was circulated calling for “justice without vengeance.” Without has another implicit negative. It is not that these negative statements are wrong (three negatives!). What is needed is a positive form of discourse. There is one.

It was another lesson in systemic causation. Foreign policy and domestic policy are inextricably linked. Guns made for war will be sold at gun shows and used to kill children. Drones and computer technology developed for the surveillance of enemies abroad will be used for surveillance of civilians at home. And money spent on war abroad will be drained from public resources at home.

It is a common folk theory of progressives that “the facts will set you free.” If only you can get all the facts out there in the public eye, then every rational person will reach the right conclusion. It is a vain hope. Human brains just don’t work that way. Framing matters. Frames once entrenched are hard to dispel.

Awareness matters. Being able to articulate what is going on can change what is going on—at least in the long run.

What they have done is to create, via framing and language, a link between strict father morality in the family and religion on the one hand and conservative politics and business on the other. This conceptual link must be so emotionally strong in those who are not wealthy that it can overcome economic self-interest.

Protection, fulfillment in life, fairness. When you care about someone, you want them to be protected from harm, you want their dreams to come true, and you want them to be treated fairly. • Freedom, opportunity, prosperity. There is no fulfillment without freedom, no freedom without opportunity, and no opportunity without prosperity. • Community, service, cooperation. Children are shaped by their communities. Responsibility requires serving and helping to shape your community. That requires cooperation. • Trust, honesty, open communication. There is no cooperation without trust, no trust without honesty, and no cooperation without open communication

We should be governed not by corporations, but by a government of, by, and for the people.

For example, if they are nurturant at home but strict in business, talk about the home and family and how home and family relate to political issues. Example: Real family values mean that your parents, as they age, don’t have to sell their home or mortgage their future to pay for health care or the medications they need.

If you remember nothing else about framing, remember this: Once your frame is accepted into the discourse, everything you say is just common sense. Why? Because that’s what common sense is: reasoning within a commonplace, accepted frame. • 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 reframing Think and talk at the level of values Say what you believe