Review– By Lanny Schwartz

Don't Think of an Elephant! By George Lakoff. Chelsea Green Publishing,
White River Vermont. 124 pp. $10.00.

Those of us interested in the environment have been stunned by the
political success of anti-environment politicians. We think there is a
great disconnect between what people vote for and what they actually
get. As one of my "rules of life" I always think that people are pretty
predictable, they will do what is in their self-interest. Yet we now see
people voting against their self-interest. As some columnist wrote, "How
to you get poor people to vote for tax cuts for billionaires?"

George Lakoff in this book tells us how. Lakoff is a liberal leaning,
cognitive psychologist with the University of California. Democrats have
always laid out facts and programs and assumed that people would figure
out what was in their best interests. Clearly that is not working. What
does work is appealing to people's "frames." We all have mental
constructs and identities that have developed from our experiences in
life or by hearing certain things repeatedly. Recall Hitler's famous
saying that a lie is as good as the truth if you repeat it often enough.
The often repeated claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq created
a frame. The government coming to get your guns is another frame created
by endless repetition.

Lakoff decribes two global frames. The conservative frame is the "strict
father model" with economic self-gain to protect the family, a
subordinate position for women, and even an idea that it is immoral to
help the less fortunate. All this harkens back to Ayn Rand and her Atlas
Shrugged. The liberal frame is the "nurturing parents model" with the
real "family values" such as child protection, honest communication,
freedom, prosperity for everyone, and a nice place to live. Some people
are stuck in only one frame. Most of us have some frames from both
models. Both sides try to enhance their frame to these swing voters.

No matter the facts and logic, people will generally not accept anything
that does not fit into their frames. These might be frames or identities
such as "union worker" or "God-fearing Christian." Frames must be
appealed to with values statements that are consistent with those of the
target audience. The facts and programs touted by Democrats are always
doomed to failure. The Republican strategy was developed over the course
of 40 years by financially well supported think tanks such as the Cato
Institute and the Club for Growth. Lakoff suggests that Democrats could
quickly adopt the Republican framing strategy, since the research has
already been done and the product successfully test.

The conservative genius of framing is consultant Frank Luntz. Each year
he provides a very limited circulation book that has the framing words
for the year. It goes to presidential speech writers and other political
officials. The highly unified conservatives all agree to use these
words. I recalled a TV discussion of an issue, a Republican county
treasurer in Oklahoma described her views. Later in the broadcast a
conservative senator used the exact same words. Whew!

A conservative frame is "tax relief", not tax cuts. The word "relief"
makes it seem like an affliction that must be cured. Within this frame
the concept is not critically question. Healthy Forests and Clear Skies
are frames that also are received uncritically. Lakoff points out that
when you hear such Orwellian names, it flags a political weakness that
may be an opening for the opposition.

Those of us interested in the environment have plenty of values to sell
that people really want, but they must be properly framed. For example,
"sustainable development" doesn't work as a frame, but "protecting
America's grandeur" does. "Pollution control" doesn't work, but "poison
free cities" might.

Before I was baffled. This book provided to me one of those "a ha"
experiences, now I get it. I would suggest that this book is of great
value to those interested in environmental protection.

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