Sunday, June 26, 2016

Just the facts ma'am?


A few points on the Hoggan piece. Yes, frames matter but so do facts. Recall Ambo's thread on the facts. Granted just the facts ma'am isn't enough, but when framing it also helps to be factual. E.g., Lakoff said when it comes to cutting corporate tax rates = creating jobs it's patently false. Yet if repeated enough within a certain frame the facts don't matter. Hence Trump getting poor fact ratings at Politifact. So progressives need to frame the truth not by repeating the lie but by spinning the values of what actually creates jobs, like people having a good enough paycheck to buy goods and services which stimulate the economy and create jobs. Sanders has done an excellent job of that.

But then there's also the truth factor of that spinning. When Sanders says it we believe him because he has a long record of supporting these policies. When Clinton say it she not only doesn't have that record but the opposite so we don't believer her. That is, if we're not so gullible to spin without those facts. Hence this thread is trying to frame the Democratic Party and its candidates with as much factual information as possible tied to the moral framing of authentic versus pandering we the people rhetoric.


Another things I like about the Hoggan piece is that "frames are hierarchically structured and at the top of that hierarchy are the moral frames." Put in kennilingus, the moral line is hierarchically more significant than the cognitive line. This turns kennilingus on its head, since it claims that the cognitive line is the key integrator of the others (see this e.g.) This notion is much more in line with the fold thread (and Lakoff), in that some of our earliest ancestral feelings were about love and compassion. When we see how rationality builds on these via structural coupling (and doesn't transcend and include them) we see how these earlier structures can be integrated with reason instead of under it. But if rational cognitive capacity is the leader this by Lakoff's definition is false reason. The real/false reason thread explores this in great depth.

Now if we add levels, we see the postconvential moral structures are framed by the progressives, as conservatives frame them much more conventionally. Again, progressive framing per above is more integrative (syntegrated, if you will) and they transcend and replace conservative moral frames. Even kennilingus agrees that transitional structures are transcended and replaced. This thread explores that topic in depth.

All of which begs the question, can postconventional moral framing, even if done well, actually get through to morally conventional people?

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