The ALL NEW Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate Read Free

each system operates on different concerns).
    Biconceptualism is central to our politics, and it is vital to understand how it works. We will be discussing it throughout this book.
    What Is Rationality?
     
    The brain and cognitive sciences have radically changed our understanding of what reason is and what it means to be rational. Unfortunately, all too many progressives have been taught a false and outdated theory of reason itself, one in which framing, metaphorical thought, and emotion play no role in rationality. This has led many progressives to the view that the facts—alone—will set you free. Progressives are constantly giving lists of facts.
    Facts matter enormously, but to be meaningful they must be framed in terms of their moral importance. Remember, you can only understand what the frames in your brain allow you to understand. If the facts don’t fit the frames in your brain, the frames in your brain stay and the facts are ignored or challenged or belittled. We will explore those frames in detail in the pages ahead.
    It is by popular demand that this book is short and informal. It is meant to be a practical guide both for citizen activists and for anyone with a serious interest in politics. Those who want a more systematic and scholarly treatment should read my books Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think (second edition) , Thinking Points, Whose Freedom?, The Political Mind, and The Little Blue Book (with Elisabeth Wehling). And for those just dying to read clearly written 600-page academic books and hundreds of articles on both political and academic topics, you can find them on my website: www.georgelakoff.com . But for a quick informative read and your first introduction to framing, start here.
    It is vital—for us, for our country, and for the world—that we understand the progressive values on which this country was founded and that made it a great democracy. If we are to keep that democracy, we must learn to articulate those values loud and clear. If progressives are to win in the future, we must present a clear moral vision to the country—a moral vision common to all progressives. It must be more than a laundry list of facts, policies, and programs. It must present a moral alternative, one traditionally American, one that lies behind everything Americans are proud of.
    This update of the original version of Don’t Think of an Elephant! is written in the service of that vision.
    Enjoy!

★ ★ Part I ★ ★
    Framing 101: Theory and Application

★ 1 ★
    Framing 101: How to Take Back Public Discourse
    —January 21, 2004—
    On this date I spoke extemporaneously to a group of about two hundred progressive citizen-activists in Sausalito, California. Some updates have been made.
    W hen I teach the study of framing at Berkeley, in Cognitive Science 101, the first thing I do is I give my students an exercise. The exercise is: Don’t think of an elephant! Whatever you do, do not think of an elephant. I’ve never found a student who is able to do this. Every word, like elephant , evokes a frame, which can be an image or other kinds of knowledge: Elephants are large, have floppy ears, tusks, and a trunk, live naturally in jungles, are associated with circuses, and so on. The word is defined relative to that frame. When we negate a frame, we evoke the frame.
    Richard Nixon found that out the hard way. While under pressure to resign during the Watergate scandal, Nixon addressed the nation on TV. He stood before the nation and said, “I am not a crook.” And everybody thought about him as a crook.
    This gives us a basic principle of framing: When you are arguing against the other side, do not use their language. Their language picks out a frame—and it won’t be the frame you want.
    Let me give you an example. On the day that George W. Bush arrived in the White House, the phrase tax relief started coming out of the White House. It was repeated almost every day thereafter, was used by the