Last Sunday, Daily Kos published a review of communications maven and newly annointed author Anat Shenker-Osorio's thought-provoking (and conversation-stimulating) book, Don't Buy It: The Trouble with Talking Nonsense about the Economy. During this past week, the author and I carried on a further email discussion about the issues raised in her work about communicating on the economy. That discussion is reproduced below, and she is also making herself available in comments for users to ask questions. Enjoy! And please join in!
Anat Shenker-Osorio
How do you view your book as differing from Drew Westen's or from George Lakoff's work? What does it bring to the table that they don't, in terms of focus, expansion of ideas or different views?I owe a great intellectual debt to George and Drew?both for specific analytical approaches and more generally for introducing the application of what are academic modes of analysis to real, live, political debates. Although their insights come from different fields, one essential critique they both bring is a long overdue call to stop trying to appeal to Enlightenment era reason and persuade via facts, figures and logic.
I take up aspects of what they've offered, in terms of appealing to emotion and recognizing the power of words to evoke and convey unconscious notions at odds with our best intentions. Then, I push these insights into the very concrete realm of advice for advocates struggling with how to convince a confused, overwhelmed and dejected public that progressive economic policies are the only way to improve things for our nation.
So, one difference is topical?this book is about how to talk about the economy. And another is that the findings here emerge from over 3 years of in the field research into how people make sense of and come to judgements, based on analysis of reams of written data, expert interviews and focus groups.
How many people do we need to get to adopt consistent use of a metaphor before it goes mainstream? What seems to be the crucial mass?
That's a tough one! Short of massive, longitudinal, psycho-linguistic experimentation?I'm not sure we could ever say for sure. To my knowledge, this hasn't been measured.
This said, the well-proven idea behind conceptual metaphor is that we all have access to any one of the set of them that exist for a concept. As members of a shared language community, the simplifications we rely upon for a complex concept like the economy are the same. The differences lie in our defaults?whether I (for example) am more likely to think and talk about the economy in comparing it to an object in motion whereas you (again, for example) tend to call upon natural elements for your comparison.
In a sense, all of the accessible metaphors are "mainstream"?understandable to all of us. But, repetition is what makes one more top of mind and that's what we need to have happen. With the better metaphors, of course?we have way too much repetition of the unhelpful ones.
Obviously media and politicians are necessary to bring on board if you want to change the language and the metaphors. Anyone else? (And sometimes even media and politicians aren't enough, correct?)
Yes, economists. Because there's a well-established tendency for people to assume they can't understand economic concepts and our lack of education on these topics (as I note in the book) makes them seem even more mysterious, Americans are more likely to believe in and turn to minted experts. In this case, that means economists.
Further, because pocketbook issues are so much on all our minds and thus tongues, the more people we have taking conscious pains to get the words about them right the better. When advocates are arguing for whatever particular policy is up for discussion, wage hikes, tax levels, regulations, if they do so grounded in a better model for what the economy actually behaves like, not only would their immediate argument make more sense, they'd bolster other ones up in the process.
Obviously, I'd like to see Hollywood screenwriters, journalist and other makers of mainstream discourse brought up to speed as well.
(Continue reading below the fold.)
Can't adoption of new terms and modes of thinking take at least a generation? What if you don't have time, as in climate change, for example?
If they were truly "new" then, yes. But, as I mentioned above, they aren't. It isn't possible to invent a simplifying model for people from scratch. All you can do is activate and more readily bring to mind one that exists. In other words, we actually used to know a lot of the stuff this book asks us to make present and immediate for people.
But, this said, we've fallen so deeply into unhelpful rhetorical grooves it's not easy to start actively changing what we write and say. I compare this to writing with your non-dominant hand. When I grab a pen, I do it with my right hand and easily jot down what I need to do. This is akin to typing up that press release, or tweet or speech using the words and phrases you always have?the missive practically writes itself because we've all argued about whatever we're passionate about for so long, so many times. But, to actively go against what you're used to saying?that's like choosing to write with your left hand (in my case). It's awkward. It's slow. It's frustrating?especially with your right hand just sitting there!
You are right, we don't have time. One of my big laments in the book is the squandering of our opportunity to really have the biggest, most effective, conversation about what a just and sustainable economy can and should look like. I'd argue the biggest opening in that window was end of 2007/early 2008. It's not closed now, but people are no longer in the space of wondering what happened and what should be. We're now just hanging on trying to keep what little didn't go under.
What do you do when Republicans flat-out lie in an attack, in a manner that forces you to use their terms on a stance you don't believe in? Example: ?GOP attacks Obama as the biggest spender ever, as someone who's raised taxes.? This is utterly false. And the mode right now is to come back (with charts!) saying, "See! We DON'T spend! We freeze federal wages! We lower taxes!" This is fighting on their ground. Yes, it's correcting the facts, but raising taxes is what is needed, spending is what is NEEDED ? Yet their flat-out blatant lie forces us to end up defending a stance we don't believe in. How do we escape this linguistic thought trap? Do you correct that, even though it then means fighting on their turf? Or do you somehow try to shift it to: "And what's wrong with that? Government is good, etc."?
I recently got into a fierce debate with activists I admire who were intent upon broadcasting how Romney's tax plan was found to raise taxes on many groups. They found this "fact" (already of dubious use given how hard it is to break a frame using actual evidence) to be a real zinger. At first, I tried a simple one sentence rebuttal: ?I thought we were for taxes?? Sadly, things devolved from there.
I firmly believe that when we message from the other guy's values, we lose. This was true when we said abortion was about getting government out (thanks, Hyde Amendment!), claimed curbing energy consumption was about abating terrorism (let's drill in Alaska and build keystone!) and attempted to make our pro-immigrant case by saying we wanted them to "get right with the law." And it's equally true about economic issues.
The way I'd respond to this kind of flat out lie is to correct the facts without accepting the frame. So, to use your example, "It would be amazing if that were the case. I'd love to say we put even more teachers in your kids' classes, hired the best American workers to shore up our bridges and patch up our roads, and brought medical care within reach of your ailing grandparents. But we didn't?and it's high time we do." There's so much potential for humor in lieu of defensiveness (and charts).
By the end of the book, it seems we've almost moved from discussing language to undoing the holy belief in the Protestant work ethic (which, I agree, is disgraceful, dysfunctional prism through which to view the value of life as lived). Quite a different?and near impossible??undertaking, yes? Where do words leave off and ideas begin? Are they so entwined they're impossible to really completely separate, ever?
I'm not a fan of said ethic but I'd argue that's actually not the opponent I'm tackling here in the book. If people want to work crazy hours because they love their jobs, enjoy their colleagues, seek to avoid their spouse, are about to cure cancer, or whatever personal motivation propels this?more power to them. I personally love my work and do lots of it. I'm going to guess you and most of your readers are in this camp too.
But what I do want to see banished is the idea that we are supposed to work for the Economy. The idea that keeping It happy or growing, or healthy or what have you is our greatest responsibility, our moral duty?that's just sick. The economy is nothing outside of us so the notion that we owe it fealty is ridiculous; it's deeply damaging to all of us as workers and to our planet that must somehow endure a growth at all costs is good approach.
You urge the use of the metaphor of instability, an internal imbalance to describe income inequality instead of gaps, or vertical or scale metaphors. Yet isn't that so close to using the "body" metaphor you described earlier as NOT good to use? After all, dizziness, the feeling of unbalance or something feeling unstable is one that's experienced very physically, by the body.
Example: "Being off balance is a familiar and unpleasant experience that transcends demographic groups. No matter where you?re from or what you have, you?ve spun yourself into dizziness at one time or another. What this model refers to is an instability that can only be righted internally."
The critical thing in considering what a certain metaphor is likely to evoke is to ascertain what we'd call its entailments. More simply, the set of immediate associations we have with it. I would argue that the ability to feel off-balance or dizzy is not a salient feature of a human body. In other words, if people were asked to free associate about bodies, they'd talk about organs, feelings, health, perhaps bodily functions but dizziness wouldn't be top of mind.
Therefore, I'm not concerned that evoking internal imbalance necessarily brings with it the idea of a body. Many things depend upon balance to operate well?airplanes, cars, moving toys, other machines.
However, at the risk of compressing too much into one answer, it is actually important to have the conversation about inequality at both levels: how it affects the whole and how it affects specific individuals in known marginalized groups. We need the human element in the simplifying model because of all the economic issues I discuss in the book, inequality is the one most acutely relevant to the experience of people in our society. Humans experience the economy, so it's important for the model we use to talk about to allow for that.
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