Framing 101: Metaphors, moral systems and the politics of your brain
Revisiting the key ideas of framing
Metaphors, moral systems and the politics of the brain play a big role in how we analyze the world at FrameLab. As our list of readers has grown over the past year, it occurs to us that not everyone is equally familiar with these concepts. And for others, a refresher is sometimes helpful.
These ideas are laid out “Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think” as well as “Don’t Think of An Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate.” But the key points are also laid out succinctly in this one hour lecture from 2008.
Over the past few years, we have seen these elements of moral politics manifest as a serious threat to democracy. Authoritarianism has emerged the dominant, defining and dangerous force in Republican politics. Understanding how morality and metaphor work, and how they impact our brains, is more crucial than ever.
If you take the time to watch the lecture, please let us know if you have any questions for us to answer in a future newsletter.
Thanks for reading!
Coming Soon: What Walter Isaacson’s new book tells us about the strict father politics of Elon Musk.
I find these ideas (from George's 'Moral Politics' book) more important than ever, especially given the confusing algorithm-boosted political-category dislocations we see these days (Glenn Greenwald's earnest description of Tucker Carlson as "a socialist" springs to mind as one of the weirdest).
One can see Trump as a textbook example of Strict Father morality/politics, despite the early attempts by his followers to present him as an anti-elite peacenik (his record shows the absurdity of that - his escalation of every conflict he presided over, ramping up bombing in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Yemen, increasing civilian deaths, in some cases to record-high levels).
I look forward to the Framelab commentaries on Elon Musk, and on Naomi Klein's new book (which I've read - I'm glad Naomi has raised the issue of Bannon & co appropriating some major 'left' tropes, but I was disappointed that she didn't go into detail on *how* this was accomplished in political-semantics terms, or even how Bannon exploited the new media forms to do it - how he transformed those "anti-establishment" tropes so that they suddenly functioned as rallying calls for the radical right. These are issues I'd love to see Framelab commentaries on - thanks!).
I worked as a social worker for 48 years doing individual, couple and family therapy. Many of the conflicts that presented in my office seemed manifestations of the framing that the individuals had adopted or ingested growing up. Their respective narratives were often from these different Frames described here leading to conflict. A marital scientist that I admire is John Gottman who in his research identified four behaviours or attitudes that led to couple break-ups. Criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling and contempt. Those behaviours seem evident in the political conflicts of our day so I am wondering if they are comparable or underlying factors in the framing discussed in the video?