(2004-08-26) Lakoff Framing

A nice example from George Lakoff on Framing. Unfortunately the outcomes still ends up being focused on painting the other side as immoral. As Robert Anton Wilson says, Most primates lie constantly, because they're afraid of getting caught and pronounced no-good shits. (Red Vs Blue)

Semi-related: Louis Menand on the ignorance of voters. Philip Converse claimed that only around ten per cent of the public has what can be called, even generously, a political Belief System... Non-ideologues may use terms like "liberal" and "conservative," but Converse thought that they basically don't know what they're talking about, and that their beliefs are characterized by what he termed a lack of "constraint": they can't see how one opinion (that taxes should be lower, for example) logically ought to rule out other opinions (such as the belief that there should be more government programs).... Public-opinion polls, he (Morris Fiorina) argues, show that on most hot-button issues voters in so-called red states do not differ significantly from voters in so-called blue states. Most people identify themselves as moderates, and their responses to survey questions seem to substantiate this self-description. What has become polarized, Fiorina argues, is the elite.