Transition: frames, values, metaphors

Some conceptual stuff is beginning to come together for me, and here’s my attempt to articulate how.

George Lakoff”s work on frames has been very influential in US political spheres. His book Don’t Think of an Elephant! is a clear, if rather repetitive, explanation of how humans use metaphors that activate and reinforce certain deeply-held worldviews (or frames), how conservatives have understood and exploited this fact and how those of a progressive cast can redefine the political debate in terms of our own frame through the use of alternative metaphors. Lakoff thinks that in the US, the abiding metaphor for the nation and its politics is that of the family (think ‘founding fathers’), and that the choice is between a strict-father frame (conservative) and a nurturing-parent frame (liberal). Language that activates the former might include ‘tax burden’ (people should be self-reliant and put their family first: tax is used to support people outside the immediate family, especially those who are feckless: tax is a burden on the self-reliant); language that activates the latter might include ‘tax contribution’ (people should work together to support each other: tax enables collective efforts: tax is a means by which we make our contribution to the collective good).

Key to Lakoff’s message is an understanding of the way in which language reinforces our deepest assumptions about the world around us. This body of work has been expanded on recently in a paper for a group of environmental charities, which calls for a change in the way such charities communicate their messages. Common Cause by Tom Crompton at WWF quotes research on how our values and goals can be activated by reminders and instructions, and – fascinatingly – how a community-spirited set of values works in opposition to a self-focused set of values, such that if one set of values is activated this reduces the presence of the opposite set. So for example, if you give people a task and tell them they need to succeed at it (activating a self-focused value), they are less likely to say yes when asked to help out with the same task later for no payment.

Crompton and his colleagues Joe Brewer at Cognitive Policy Works, Paul Chilton at Lancaster University and Tim Kasser at Knox, Illinois argue that charities must set out in their communications to activate the values that are helpful to their cause, not the ones that are unhelpful. This means they must stop appealing to self-interest (to win short-term battles) and should instead appeal to community spirit (to win the war – interesting metaphor, hey?). They have set up a great blog on this subject which I’ve linked to in my sidebar. I want to understand how I can represent this thinking in the work I’m doing for Oxfam: can the toolkit for supporters that I’m working on somehow get this message across in ways that work for the audience and the purpose?

Another implication of the finding about how opposing values work is a personal one for me. I’m a freelance consultant: I have to think about money and fees. In doing so I need to keep aware of the way in which paying attention to these things actively reduces the power of the ‘community-spirit’ value in me, and keep the money focus to the minimum needed to enable me to earn a living.