Essay by Martha Quillen
Politics – September 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
IF THERE’S ONE THING that history can teach us, it’s that people have seldom loved their neighbors. And in our age of terrorism, and wars on terrorism, that should provide some small comfort. At least our enmity is nothing new.
For a time in the 1960s and ’70s, however, some Americans really seemed to believe that human hostility could be stamped out. Students clamored, marched, and rioted for peace. Colleges developed ethnic study departments to urge everyone to reject prejudice, bigotry, racism, sexism, intolerance, injustice and inequality. Political correctness reigned, and we presumably all learned how to respect one another.
But the recent controversy about Ward Churchill shows how well that worked. Clearly, in some cases, Americans just turned their anger around. Instead of despising minority groups, they refocused their resentment toward leaders, authorities, and white guys (and to be fair, some of them deserved it).
But in the long run, all of this fury just seemed to breed more fury. So what can we do?
Well, dang. If I had all the answers I’d run for President.
But the instructions for establishing world peace aren’t packaged in some cereal box along with a secret decoder ring. And that’s the problem, I think — because we keep acting like it should be easy to fix everything. All we have to do is stay the course, or bring our troops home. Refuse to back down; or negotiate. Show our strength; or display our compassion. Or stay home and tend our own garden.
Apparently, this business of running a country – or even the world – is a very simple matter in most people’s minds. And now George Lakoff, a California linguist, has stepped front and center to tell the defeated Democrats that what it really takes is framing.
So what’s framing?
Well according to Lakoff, it’s how the Democrats can take back America. And it’s all about metaphors. Lakoff claims that we all embrace metaphors that control what we think and believe, and he contends that one of the principal differences between Republicans and Democrats lies in their metaphorical concept of family. According to Lakoff. Republicans believe that a well-run family, and thus by extension a well-run country and world, must follow a “strict father model,” whereas Democrats embrace a “nurturant parent model.” Thus Republicans promote toughness, threats, and punishment, while Democrats advocate mediation, collaboration, and financial incentives.
Obviously, both approaches are common in our country. But as Lakoff sees it, the Republicans have learned to dominate American discussions by pushing their metaphors to the fore – or in other words they’ve learned how to use “frames,” which, according to him, are “the mental structures that shape the way we see the world.”
Thus, in his book, Don’t Think of an Elephant!, Lakoff urges the Democrats to “reframe” everything. Instead of talking about defense, Democrats should talk about a “stronger America.” Instead of talking about free markets they should talk about “broad prosperity.” Instead of talking about taxes they should talk about a “better future.” Instead of talking about family values they should talk about “mutual responsibility.” And how will this help?
Well, presumably the party that controls the metaphors will have everybody framing things their way. Lakoff explains how the phrase “tax relief” sways people. “Think of the framing for relief. For there to be relief there must be an affliction, an afflicted party, and a reliever who removes the affliction and is therefore a hero….”
So how is framing different than spin?
According to Lakoff, “Spin is the manipulative use of a frame.” Whereas frames themselves are natural, and an inherent part of how people think. He claims: “They are part of what cognitive scientists call the “cognitive unconscious — structures in our brains that we cannot consciously access, but know by their consequences: the way we reason and what counts as common sense.”
AND ACCORDING TO Lakoff, people can’t see or understand the truth if it doesn’t fit into their metaphorical concepts. In fact, he says that explains why many Republicans still believe that there were WMDs in Iraq and that Saddam was conspiring with Al Quaeda, despite the 9/11 Commission findings. “They have a frame and they only accept facts that fit that frame.”
As I see it, this if frightening stuff. Lakoff’s theories suggest that our brains are warped, our thought processes are limited, and we can’t differentiate between the truth and metaphorical delusions. But Lakoff doesn’t seem worried, nor do the Democrats.
Nope, they all just want to know how to plant more mind-distorting frames into our minds. According to the New York Times Magazine, Tom Daschle, Hillary Clinton, Byron Dorgan, Nancy Pelosi and numerous other Democratic leaders and strategists are courting Lakoff. So is anybody trying to figure out how to eliminate these narrow frames and expand our thought processes?
Hardly. In fact, what’s notable in Lakoff’s book, is his, and the Democrat’s, and the media’s agreement that effective political discourse must be repetitive and kept on message.
Yet if you keep saying the same thing over and over again, how do you evaluate your position? How do you innovate? How do you respond to questions and criticism?
And to make matters more problematical, Lakoff encourages Democrats to use his “nurturing parent” metaphor as a promotional devise, without ever considering the hazards in contemplating the world from a “parental” perspective. But it doesn’t take a genius to see how this sort of overbearing paternalism incites both America’s enemies and allies.
Clearly Lakoff sees himself as an innovator in campaigning and cognitive science. Yet metaphors are nothing new. Despite Lakoff’s sudden celebrity, deceptive metaphors have been around for ages. In fact, given Lakoff’s definition, one might conclude that John C. Calhoun may have been the best “framer” in American history.
CALHOUN, A SOUTHERNER who served as Vice President under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, and as a U.S. Senator from South Carolina, reframed the whole slavery issue. Calhoun presented it as a matter of state’s rights, including a state’s right to “nullify” (or not obey any law it considered unconstitutional) and to secede. When Southerners should have been considering death and consequences, Calhoun had them waxing poetic over “state sovereignty.”
Before Calhoun’s influence, Southerners tended to defend slavery as a necessary evil, but Calhoun reframed it as a “positive good.”
“The African is incapable of self-care and sinks into lunacy under the burden of freedom,” he alleged. “It is a mercy to him to give him the guardianship and protection from mental death.”
Calhoun died in 1850, but his message lived on, and his memory was commemorated on Confederate bills. Although successful, Calhoun’s venture into framing clearly had drawbacks, including an estimated 646,392 American deaths.
Yet it’s easy to see that in some cases reframing is a good idea. For example, the civil rights movement and all of those ethnic studies departments clearly advocate vigorous reframing. And let’s hope they’re at least partially successful — since constitutional amendments, anti-discrimination laws, fairness, and common decency don’t necessarily change peoples’ minds.
Clearly, some metaphors improve things and some lead us astray. And some merely seem to delude us.
For example, Republicans tend to regard themselves as moral and God-fearing and to characterize liberals as promiscuous and sinful. But if Republicans really have a monopoly on decency, then why does the Bible Belt (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas) generate more murder and rape than New England? And why are crime rates far higher in the South than in the Northeast which is awash in Democrats? (And the Northeast includes the Mid-Atlantic — New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania — so it isn’t due to population.)
But Democrats have significant delusions, too. For instance, they generally regard themselves as rational and scientific, which is easy for them, since they seem convinced that everything they think is scientific, including their religion.
BUT EVEN IF YOUR RELIGION is based upon quantum mechanics, particle physics, human potential, Eastern cosmology, channeling, astrology, or energy conduits, it’s still a matter of faith – because MIT and Cambridge grads just aren’t smart enough yet to observe, quantify and prove transcendental convictions.
But the real problem with Democrats is that they’re snobs. Whereas conservatives seem convinced that a glimpse of bare breast or a racy song might make people run right out to fornicate, Democrats seem equally convinced that watching television, or reading a romance, or going to Nascar races can result in brain death.
I cannot count how many Democrats I know who would never, ever listen to FOX, or watch a made-for-tv movie, or flip through a People magazine. And therefore, Democrats are absolutely incapable of logical politicking — because they have no idea what country they’re living in.
And talk about irrational, environmentalists are more addicted to horrifying, apocalyptic visions than David Koresh. We are going to run out of mercury, tin, zinc, copper, lead, and fossil fuels by 1995. Frogs are disappearing all around the world, indicating that our environment is in grave jeopardy and the great die-off has begun. Global warming will soon cause flooding, violent coastal storms, heat waves, illness, death and world-wide financial collapse.
Environmentalists don’t seem to be able to drop the fear tactics, even though they never work. And if Democrats weren’t so scared of being corrupted by popular culture, they’d know why they don’t work. With Democrats, Republicans, fundamentalists, jihadists, peace workers, and environmentalists all forecasting destruction, people are starting to think the world is doomed — imminently. So what would be the point of conservation?
Talk about metaphors. If you want to save the world, it might be better not to depict it as beyond hope. As a matter of fact, one of the most disconcerting developments I’ve seen in recent years is our growing fondness for apocalypse. And anyone who doesn’t believe that many Americans are eager for Armageddon should read (or reread) the Left Behind series — or tune into Jack Van Impe Presents.
For those unfamiliar with him, Van Impe is a televangelist who monitors international news for signs that apocalyptic prophecy is being fulfilled. On his show, he alternates passages of Revelations with readings from news clippings, while his aging blonde Barbie doll of a wife cheers him on. “Oh, yes, Jack, oh, yes, it’s coming,” she’s pronounces ardently, marveling over tsunamis, famines, wars, and pestilence. Their joint enthusiasm for disaster is so outlandish, that their show’s become a bit of a cult classic.
Yet crazily enough, Van Impe and the environmentalists seem to be sharing some of the same frames. So, presuming Lakoff is right about framing controlling our thoughts, where is all of this gloom and doom leading us?
In the last thirty years, environmentalism has turned into a major industry. There are now environmental products, books, reporters, publications, lawyers, consultants…. Today, universities offer degrees in environmental ethics and the environmental sciences. Currently there are thousands of environmental websites about global warming that suggest things ordinary people can do, including: drive fuel-efficient vehicles; drive less often, plant more trees, reduce home energy usage; buy and use fewer products in order to reduce industrial emissions; discard less garbage to reduce methane-producing wastes.
And what has all of this accomplished? Americans drive larger vehicles, we commute further distances to work, and we live in bigger homes. We got rid of the 55 mile-per-hour speed limit. We seem to package everything in multiple layers of paper, cardboard, and plastic. We’ve got multi-billionaires instead of millionaires, and the rich frequently have two, three, four, or more over-sized houses.
After decades of concerted effort to expand environmental awareness, ours is an era of mind-boggling excess. So apparently the environmental information we’re dispersing is not the message we’re listening to. Instead, we seem to be enthralled by visions of wealth and sex.
After first reading about framing a month ago, I thought, “Oh, no, not another guru telling our politicians what short, pithy messages they can bore us with until we’re comatose.”
But I hadn’t read Lakoff’s book yet. When I did, I realized that I was essentially right about him. Yet some of his ideas about metaphor resounded — because Americans really don’t seem to be paying much attention to what they claim they believe in.
THEN I ATE LUNCH with some people who were talking about Ward Churchill coming to Salida, and I started thinking about Western metaphors: the noble savage, the stalwart pioneer, the lone frontiersman, the savage Indian, the cruel white men, the vanquished warriors….
At that point, Slim Wolfe’s letter arrived, and it made me smile. Slim thinks the good old days were better because we produced our own food and goods. My mom claims they were better because people didn’t run around talking about sex and wearing next to nothing. Christians say they were better because there was prayer in our schools. Environmentalists think they were better because we hadn’t messed up the whole planet yet. Liberals say they were better because George Bush wasn’t President. And I figure they really must have been better because our metaphors, or frames, or whatever you want to call them weren’t making people so depressingly negative.
And that’s when I got out my history books to check some details I needed for a review, and ended up reading about those good old days for a week (Clearly, I have no talent for time management).
But guess what? None of the conventional stereotypes fit very well, be they pioneer/savage or victim/abuser models. They’re all heavily biased — and neglect a lot of the facts to make their point. In the traditional Western legend, it’s all a matter of white men and Indians. But Colorado’s history was considerably more complicated than that.
IN ABOUT 1300, the Anasazi abandoned their villages for unknown reasons, perhaps because of drought. Or as some would have it, they fled a society deteriorating due to cannibalism. Or they may have been chased out. In those days, the Utes, the Apache, and the Navaho may or may not have been in the region. The Apache and Navaho Apache arrived at about that time from the far north, and the Utes presumably came from Nevada – although they may have always wandered in and out of our region.
In the 1500s, the Spanish arrived, and made friends and enemies over the years by allying with peaceful tribes to subdue belligerent ones. In the late 1600s, the Comanche migrated into southern Colorado from Wyoming, presumably because they’d been crowded out by migrating eastern tribes (and because they wanted Spanish horses).
By the 1700s, the Comanche had pushed the Jicarilla Apache off the plains. At that point, the Shoshone lived in northwest Colorado; the Pawnee dwelled in the northeast; Utes dominated the west; Jicarilla Apache lived along what would someday be the southern border or our state; and the Comanche dominated the southwest sector. Comanche continuously raided the Spaniards, and eventually irritated the Utes. Hence in 1779 Juan Baptista de Anza rode north with Utes and Apaches to ambush the Comanche Cuerno Verde.
In the early 1800s, fur trappers spread across the state; Indian trading posts were established; and the Arapaho and Southern Cheyenne arrived. The Arapaho and Cheyenne had been driven out of the Great Lakes and Missouri area by eastern tribes decades earlier. In migrating west, they dislodged the Kiowa from their home near the northern Rockies; whereupon the Kiowa fled south and settled near the Comanche.
Then the Arapaho and Cheyenne arrived in Colorado, and drove out the Pawnee. But they made peace with the Kiowa and Comanche. The newcomers, however, crowded the Utes off the plains, and the tribes became enemies (although tribal battles tended to be ritualized affairs with far fewer casualties than European conflicts).
In the beginning, the Utes fought European settlement. They raided Spanish herders in northern New Mexico, attacked encampments along the Arkansas, and drove the Mexicanos out of early San Luis Valley settlements. But in 1848, the Americanos won their war against Mexico and thereby laid claim to the region. Forts were established to protect settlers, and several villages survived. For a time, the Utes persisted in terrorizing settlers. But on Christmas Day, 1854, Utes killed fifteen men at Fort Pueblo, and more troops were sent into our region. By 1855, military campaigns stopped Ute raids, and the Indians established a somewhat uneasy peace.
Over on the plains, game shortages made life dismal. Although settlers are commonly blamed for such scarcity, they had not yet arrived. But merchants traveling on the Sante Fe Trail and commercial hunting and trapping by traders and mountain men doubtlessly contributed to the problem. Early paucity, however, was probably due to drought and because so many tribes were moving into the region.
According to Colorado, A History of the Centennial State: “In 1853, Indian agent Thomas Fitzpatrick wrote that the tribes were ‘In abject want of food half the years … Their women are pinched with want and their children constantly crying out with hunger.'”
In 1858, gold was discovered on the Front Range, and by ’59 the rush was on.
War broke out between the states in 1861; the military presence in the West diminished, and problems mounted between Indians and settlers. In 1864, the Sioux were at war and managed to effectively shut off the trails into the fledgling city of Denver — disrupting mail and causing shortages of trade goods. Black Kettle and several other chiefs yearned for peace, but young Cheyenne and Arapaho kept riding out to join the Sioux.
In June, warriors attacked a ranch, killing the Hungate family; and their scalped and mutilated corpses were put on display in Denver. In August, Governor Evans announced that white citizens could engage in “private” raids on Indians. Alarmed peace chiefs appealed to the U.S. military, asking what to do, and Major Edward W. Wynkoop, arranged for a meeting with Evans. In response, Evans vaguely warned the Indians that they would have to prove their good intentions, and afterwards army officers urged the chiefs to stay on their reservations — where the Indians assumed they were safely under federal protection.
BUT IN LATE NOVEMBER, Colonel John Chivington led the Colorado militia on a brutal raid. The soldiers struck at sunrise, descending on Indians still in their tents. The troops slaughtered the surprised Arapaho and Cheyenne, murdering an estimated 100 people, then mutilated the corpses and carried off dripping body parts as grisly souvenirs. A military investigation was launched, and it concluded that Chivington’s attack was disgraceful, but Coloradans rallied around their troops, and little was done. Captain John Soule, however, had testified against the atrocities, and was subsequently murdered on the streets of Denver.
After Sand Creek, the Arapaho and Cheyenne retaliated by raiding and burning Julesberg and killing forty residents. The Indians were subsequently defeated and removed to reservations elsewhere.
After prospectors streamed into their reservation in the San Juans, the Utes were moved to warmer regions near Utah. There crops could be grown, but the Utes at the White River agency were not farmers, and had no inclination to be – despite the insistence of their new agent Nathan Meeker. In 1879, the Indians defied Meeker, and one assaulted him, whereupon Meeker summoned the army. Realizing that the situation was volatile, the responding commander tried to approach gingerly, but the very proximity of soldiers triggered a clash. The Utes attacked and killed fourteen soldiers, then killed Meeker and eleven men at the agency and rode off with five hostages. After the uprising, citizens agitated for the Utes’ removal. Hence, the northern bands were removed to Utah in 1881. But Chief Ouray and a delegation of Utes who lived nowhere near White River managed to negotiate a new treaty which left the tribe a narrow strip of land in southwest Colorado.
In the first half of the twentieth century, tales of these events tended to be all about settlers being murdered, raped, and mutilated. In the second half, it switched to stories about broken treaties and barbarities committed against Indians.
METAPHORICALLY, Americans tend to embrace dualism: good vs. evil; heroes and villains, cowboys and Indians; victims and abusers. But there are some exceptions, including that old melting pot/salad bowl metaphor used to describe immigrants. The immigrants aren’t necessarily heroic, just beleaguered and the adversity facing them isn’t usually evil, merely daunting (eg. language barriers and getting along with the neighbors). Although there may be villains in this tale (con men and cheaters), they are seldom principal players. Instead the cast generally includes a panoply of humanity.
And Colorado’s story could have been “framed” that way. Our state was home to a steady stream of immigrants – Apache, Comanche, Arapaho, Irish, Chinese, Finns – all searching for something better — whether it was in the form of buffalo and horses or farmland and gold. All of them were hungry and hopeful — and not particularly concerned about the fate of the people already here. But in this metaphorical version, everybody presumably works it all out to become Americans; and then they start caring about one another.
Instead, we’ve fashioned our history as a chronicle of the virtuous facing down demons. And that seems to have led us to our second favorite metaphor: ultimate destruction. After all, everyone knows what happens when the hero takes on too many demons: he goes down in a blaze of glory. Bang. The end. In recent years, we’ve grown so fond of this scenario, most people regard it as gospel. We’re headed for Armageddon. Or nuclear annihilation. Or total planetary desolation. And how could anybody disagree with that? After all, our society has run amok; our industries are poisoning us; we’re at war; and we’re running out of oil.
But such pessimism is more than a little ludicrous considering that the Greeks, Romans, Vikings, and First Continental Congress somehow got along without oil. Today, Americans are comparatively rich, educated and comfortable, but they don’t seem to believe that they can fix anything (without blowing it up first).
Could that be because our metaphors encourage antagonism, eulogize victims, and exaggerate what needs to be done?
It’s 2005, and here we are: greedy and wasteful and feeling sorry for ourselves. George Lakoff is right; it’s time to try out some new metaphors, but not for the sake of something ephemeral like trendy campaign slogans. We need to do it for our future – unless you like the idea of complete annihilation.
