25-09-2009, 05:44 AM
Let's analyze MM's rhetoric in the excerpt posted here (http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...php?t=2257) to see why it's so effective.
Excerpt: "MM: [The movie] deals with a system of legalized greed and they call that Capitalism now. I think Capitalism probably used to mean something else, a long time ago. But right now it's a system that is no better than any kind of ponzi scheme that guarantees that the very few at the top, in this case the richest 1% in America, have more financial wealth than the bottom 95% combined. The richest 1%'s on top of that pyramid and they get everyone else at the bottom of that pyramid to think that if they just work hard they can get to the top of the pyramid too someday. But of course there's really only room for a few people at the top of that pyramid."
1 - He uses a metaphor. Capitalism is a ponzi scheme, a pyramid scheme.
Paul has noted "The spook use of film metaphors and similes." (http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...=metaphors)
Most progressives aren't as advanced as spooks in metaphor usage largely because they lack the megabucks think tanks that benefit the rich regressives pulling the strings of government. Metaphors are powerful and savvy, or well funded, communicators know that.
--
"Metaphors We Live By" by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
CONCEPTS WE LIVE BY
"Metaphor is for most people device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish--a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action. For this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor. We have found,on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.
The concepts that govern our thought are not just matters of the intellect. They also govern our everyday functioning, down to the most mundane details. Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people. Our conceptual system thus plays a central role in defining our everyday realities. If we are right in suggesting that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, then the way we thinks what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor...."
http://theliterarylink.com/metaphors.html
--
Metaphor, Morality, and Politics,
Or,
Why Conservatives Have Left Liberals In the Dust
by George Lakoff
© copyright George Lakoff 1995
"We may not always know it, but we think in metaphor. A large proportion of our most commonplace thoughts make use of an extensive, but unconscious, system of metaphorical concepts, that is, concepts from a typically concrete realm of thought that are used to comprehend another, completely different domain. Such concepts are often reflected in everyday language, but their most dramatic effect comes in ordinary reasoning. Because so much of our social and political reasoning makes use of this system of metaphorical concepts, any adequate appreciation of even the most mundane social and political thought requires an understanding of this system. But unless one knows that the system exists, one may miss it altogether and be mystified by its effects.
For me, one of the most poignant effects of the ignorance of metaphorical thought is the mystification of liberals concerning the recent electoral successes of conservatives. Conservatives regularly chide liberals for not understanding them, and they are right. Liberals don't understand how anti-abortion "right-to-life" activists can favor the death penalty and oppose reducing infant morality through prenatal care programs. They don't understand why budget-cutting conservatives should spare no public expense to build prison after prison to house even non-violent offenders, or why they are willing to spend extra money to take children away from their mothers and put them in orphanages --- in the name of family values. They don't understand why conservatives attack violence in the media while promoting the right to own machine guns. Liberals tend not to understand the logic of conservatism; they don't understand what form of morality makes conservative positions moral or what conservative family values have to do with the rest of conservative politics. The reason at bottom is that liberals do not understand the form of metaphorical thought that unifies and makes sense of the full range of conservative values.
To understand what metaphor has to do with conservative politics, we must begin with that part of our metaphor system that is used to conceptualize morality -- a system of roughly two dozen metaphors. To illustrate how the system works, let us begin with one of the most prominent metaphors in the system -- the metaphor by which morality is conceptualized in terms of accounting."
http://www.wwcd.org/issues/Lakoff.html
--
Metaphor and War: The Metaphor System Used to Justify War in the Gulf
George Lakoff, Linguistics Department, UC Berkeley
"This paper was presented on January 30, 1991 in the midst of the Gulf War to an audience at Alumni House on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. An earlier version had been distributed widely via electronic mail, starting on December 31, 1990.
Metaphors can kill. The discourse over whether to go to war in the gulf was a panorama of metaphor. Secretary of State Baker saw Saddam Hussein as "sitting on our economic lifeline." President Bush portrayed him as having a "stranglehold" on our economy. General Schwarzkopf characterized the occupation of Kuwait as a "rape" that was ongoing. The President said that the US was in the gulf to "protect freedom, protect our future, and protect the innocent", and that we had to "push Saddam Hussein back." Saddam Hussein was painted as a Hitler. It is vital, literally vital, to understand just what role metaphorical thought played in bringing us in this war.
Metaphorical thought, in itself, is neither good nor bad; it is simply commonplace and inescapable. Abstractions and enormously complex situations are routinely understood via metaphor. Indeed, there is an extensive, and mostly unconscious, system of metaphor that we use automatically and unreflectively to understand complexities and abstractions. Part of this system is devoted to understanding international relations and war. We now know enough about this system to have an idea of how it functions...."
http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HT...hor_1.html
--
Idea Framing, Metaphors, and Your Brain - George Lakoff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_CWBjyIERY
--
2 - The metaphor he created frames the subject, capitalism, so that the transfer of powerful emotions associated with ponzi schemes/pyramid schemes/scams is facilitated.
"But of course there's really only room for a few people at the top of that pyramid."
Scams are inherently unfair as is the capitalism he is describing wherein 1% of participants get rich. That is an apt description of a pyramid scheme.
According to Lakoff:
Moral 1: Every word evokes a frame.
Moral 2: Words defined within a frame evoke the frame.
Moral 3: Negating a frame evokes the frame.
Moral 4: Evoking a frame reinforces that frame.
...
Conservatives know about framing.
...
"The power of these frames cannot be overcome immediately. Frame development takes time and work. Progressives have to start re framing now and keep at it. This re framing must express fundamental progressive values: empathy, responsibility, fairness, community, cooperation, doing our fair share."
http://www.bswhn.org.au/Forum%20document...raming.pdf
3 - Later in this same interview MM expresses many of those progressive values.
More from Lakoff:
"Re framing is telling the truth as we see it - telling it forcefully, straightforwardly, articulately, with moral conviction and without hesitation.
...
[Note that while the conservatives have engaged in deceptive framing, Lakoff advocates honest framing as the most effective strategy.]
...
Moral: The truth alone will not set you free. It has to be framed correctly."
Excerpt: "MM: [The movie] deals with a system of legalized greed and they call that Capitalism now. I think Capitalism probably used to mean something else, a long time ago. But right now it's a system that is no better than any kind of ponzi scheme that guarantees that the very few at the top, in this case the richest 1% in America, have more financial wealth than the bottom 95% combined. The richest 1%'s on top of that pyramid and they get everyone else at the bottom of that pyramid to think that if they just work hard they can get to the top of the pyramid too someday. But of course there's really only room for a few people at the top of that pyramid."
1 - He uses a metaphor. Capitalism is a ponzi scheme, a pyramid scheme.
Paul has noted "The spook use of film metaphors and similes." (http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...=metaphors)
Most progressives aren't as advanced as spooks in metaphor usage largely because they lack the megabucks think tanks that benefit the rich regressives pulling the strings of government. Metaphors are powerful and savvy, or well funded, communicators know that.
--
"Metaphors We Live By" by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
CONCEPTS WE LIVE BY
"Metaphor is for most people device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish--a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action. For this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor. We have found,on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.
The concepts that govern our thought are not just matters of the intellect. They also govern our everyday functioning, down to the most mundane details. Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people. Our conceptual system thus plays a central role in defining our everyday realities. If we are right in suggesting that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, then the way we thinks what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor...."
http://theliterarylink.com/metaphors.html
--
Metaphor, Morality, and Politics,
Or,
Why Conservatives Have Left Liberals In the Dust
by George Lakoff
© copyright George Lakoff 1995
"We may not always know it, but we think in metaphor. A large proportion of our most commonplace thoughts make use of an extensive, but unconscious, system of metaphorical concepts, that is, concepts from a typically concrete realm of thought that are used to comprehend another, completely different domain. Such concepts are often reflected in everyday language, but their most dramatic effect comes in ordinary reasoning. Because so much of our social and political reasoning makes use of this system of metaphorical concepts, any adequate appreciation of even the most mundane social and political thought requires an understanding of this system. But unless one knows that the system exists, one may miss it altogether and be mystified by its effects.
For me, one of the most poignant effects of the ignorance of metaphorical thought is the mystification of liberals concerning the recent electoral successes of conservatives. Conservatives regularly chide liberals for not understanding them, and they are right. Liberals don't understand how anti-abortion "right-to-life" activists can favor the death penalty and oppose reducing infant morality through prenatal care programs. They don't understand why budget-cutting conservatives should spare no public expense to build prison after prison to house even non-violent offenders, or why they are willing to spend extra money to take children away from their mothers and put them in orphanages --- in the name of family values. They don't understand why conservatives attack violence in the media while promoting the right to own machine guns. Liberals tend not to understand the logic of conservatism; they don't understand what form of morality makes conservative positions moral or what conservative family values have to do with the rest of conservative politics. The reason at bottom is that liberals do not understand the form of metaphorical thought that unifies and makes sense of the full range of conservative values.
To understand what metaphor has to do with conservative politics, we must begin with that part of our metaphor system that is used to conceptualize morality -- a system of roughly two dozen metaphors. To illustrate how the system works, let us begin with one of the most prominent metaphors in the system -- the metaphor by which morality is conceptualized in terms of accounting."
http://www.wwcd.org/issues/Lakoff.html
--
Metaphor and War: The Metaphor System Used to Justify War in the Gulf
George Lakoff, Linguistics Department, UC Berkeley
"This paper was presented on January 30, 1991 in the midst of the Gulf War to an audience at Alumni House on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. An earlier version had been distributed widely via electronic mail, starting on December 31, 1990.
Metaphors can kill. The discourse over whether to go to war in the gulf was a panorama of metaphor. Secretary of State Baker saw Saddam Hussein as "sitting on our economic lifeline." President Bush portrayed him as having a "stranglehold" on our economy. General Schwarzkopf characterized the occupation of Kuwait as a "rape" that was ongoing. The President said that the US was in the gulf to "protect freedom, protect our future, and protect the innocent", and that we had to "push Saddam Hussein back." Saddam Hussein was painted as a Hitler. It is vital, literally vital, to understand just what role metaphorical thought played in bringing us in this war.
Metaphorical thought, in itself, is neither good nor bad; it is simply commonplace and inescapable. Abstractions and enormously complex situations are routinely understood via metaphor. Indeed, there is an extensive, and mostly unconscious, system of metaphor that we use automatically and unreflectively to understand complexities and abstractions. Part of this system is devoted to understanding international relations and war. We now know enough about this system to have an idea of how it functions...."
http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HT...hor_1.html
--
Idea Framing, Metaphors, and Your Brain - George Lakoff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_CWBjyIERY
--
2 - The metaphor he created frames the subject, capitalism, so that the transfer of powerful emotions associated with ponzi schemes/pyramid schemes/scams is facilitated.
"But of course there's really only room for a few people at the top of that pyramid."
Scams are inherently unfair as is the capitalism he is describing wherein 1% of participants get rich. That is an apt description of a pyramid scheme.
According to Lakoff:
Moral 1: Every word evokes a frame.
Moral 2: Words defined within a frame evoke the frame.
Moral 3: Negating a frame evokes the frame.
Moral 4: Evoking a frame reinforces that frame.
...
Conservatives know about framing.
...
"The power of these frames cannot be overcome immediately. Frame development takes time and work. Progressives have to start re framing now and keep at it. This re framing must express fundamental progressive values: empathy, responsibility, fairness, community, cooperation, doing our fair share."
http://www.bswhn.org.au/Forum%20document...raming.pdf
3 - Later in this same interview MM expresses many of those progressive values.
More from Lakoff:
"Re framing is telling the truth as we see it - telling it forcefully, straightforwardly, articulately, with moral conviction and without hesitation.
...
[Note that while the conservatives have engaged in deceptive framing, Lakoff advocates honest framing as the most effective strategy.]
...
Moral: The truth alone will not set you free. It has to be framed correctly."
