Language Warriors

Language is yet another field in which Progressives lag light-years behind the Right. It isn’t bad enough that our movements are hard to be apart of, are often alienating to outsiders, and ask too much, too quickly of their participants. We have to take it to the next step and talk to people like we are from a different planet. And when our language is accessible we are usually don’t understand how people are receiving what we are saying, nor do we grasp the full implications of the assumptions our language are creating or reinforcing.

Language matters. Progressives frequently enter a discussion, lose their temper or are annihilated by their opponents, and then can’t seem to fathom why they lost the debate. Even worse, some times they blame their loss on the audience – as if the public is the cause of our inability to effectively communicate our values and vision. What we almost never realize is that we regularly lose the debate before it has even starts.

The Language Around Global Warming

Take global warming. Open a copy of the New York Times and find an article about global warming. Take out a highlighter and highlight every form of the word “global warming” you see (“global warming”, “climate change”, “climate crisis”, etc…). Then tally up the number of times each term is used. There is a good chance that the most common term you will find, is “climate change”, often used 2 to 3 times as much as “global warming”. A few years ago, the term “climate change” didn’t exist in newspapers, and the term “global warming” was used every time the concept of environmental chaos was discussed. Today the opposite is true. Newspapers, television news outlets, and even progressive activists all regularly use the term “climate change”.

Well, as one might have guessed, this wasn’t an accident. A man by the name of Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster and strategist, advised Republican politicians to use the term “climate change” instead of “global warming”. This effort by conservatives popularized the term and it is now a popular term. Why did he do that? Because the term “global warming”, as he put it, was “too hysterical”. The word caught on and is now part of the narrative that is told to the public and repeated by the public about global warming and environmental destruction. In a 16-page document entitled “The Environment: A Cleaner, Safer, Healthier America”, Luntz Research Companies advised conservative politicians on what language they could use to argue that there is “no consensus” on the issue of global warming. Hell, even Democratic Party leaders now regularly use the term.

As soon as we use the word “climate change” in front of an audience, we are triggering a whole slew of conservative stories and arguments that the right has built up around that term. And they do this for every issue!

Moral of the story: When we use their language, we lose.

How Language Traverses the Brain

But it goes deeper than that! It is telling to look at how the brain processes language and what that means for our political work.

A recent study by Sam Harris (author of Letter to a Christian Nation), Sameer Sheth, and Mark S. Cohen unearthed new evidence that shows how seriously language triggers deeply held opinions and assumptions. Their study, entitled “Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief, and Uncertainty”, explores how the brain processes statements that of “belief”, “disbelief” and “uncertainty”.

What did they find? The study found that while a statement’s validity was processed in more advanced parts of the brain, it always passed through more primitive portions (the medial prefrontal cortex and the anterior insula – portions of processing reward, emotion, pain perception, taste, and disgust) where it received a “final stamp” of “belief” or “disbelief”. If a participant thought a statement to be true, parts of their brain linked to reward, emotion and taste showed activity; statements which they perceived to be untrue activated sections of the brain linked with pain, disbelief, and taste.

If these findings are indeed true, what would that mean for the left? What would it mean for how we frame things, how we relate to people, and how we choose our words if the consequence of a poor or alienating word choice is that our statements actually make the public “feel” discomfort, bad taste, and disgust?

The study seems like it could help to explain a lot. It would help to partially explain things like “stubbornness”, and people voting “against their self-interests”, and many trends that progressives often display contempt for.

Perhaps that’s our primitive brain applying disgust to things we should have much more sympathy towards.

What we are up against

The republicans are often quite honest about their intentions. Take Gary Bauer for example. Bauer was a 2004 republican presidential hopeful. In describing politics, he said: “We are engaged in a social, political, and cultural war. There’s a lot of talk in America about pluralism. But the bottom line is somebody’s values will prevail. And the winner gets the right to teach our children what to believe.” I don’t see any reason to doubt the sincerity of their stated intentions. We should respond accordingly.

Even though we are young, are we going to sound like raging, angry lunatic? Or will we be the voice of reason that helps to guide people through the darkness and into the light.

Solutions

When a republican or evangelical gives a speech, they tell you what they think, what they want, and how they plan to get it. They are usually quite honest about their intentions. They use highly inspiring and hopeful language, talking about everyday people and popular themes (many of which they helped create). We need to be talking using the same type of inspirational language from a progressive perspective.

Luckily for us, there are already those in progressive circles working hard on figuring out new ways to communicate our values with the public. The smartMeme project (www.smartmeme.org) is one of the groups pioneering a field they call “story-based strategy”; an exciting initiative which challenges progressives to reframe the debate using alternative narratives to counter dominant myths around social programs.

Another small collective, Beyond the Choir (www.beyondthechoir.org), is also doing innovative work on how progressives can communicate our values using strategic and well-planned organizing, education, campaigns and actions.

George Lakoff’s Rockridge Institute (www.rockridgeinstitute.org) is also paving the way in taking back language from the rightwing.

While much more is needed, we should all challenge ourselves to begin a much needed dialog about how our words, our actions, and our attitudes are received by the American people. Our victory depends on it.

Recommended Links

Progressive:
George Lakoff – www.georgelakoff.com
Rockridge Institute – www.rockridgeinstitute.org
Beyond the Choir – www.beyondthechoir.org
smartMeme – www.smartmeme.org

Conservative:
Frank Luntz – www.luntz.com

Recommended Articles

• What Prevents Radicals from Acting Strategically by Beyond the Choir (Matthew Smucker in collaboration with Madeline Gardner) www.beyondthechoir.org
• Building a Successful Antiwar Movement by Beyond the Choir www.beyondthechoir.org

Recommended Books

Progressives Books:

• Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate by George Lakoff
• Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think by George Lakoff

Conservative Books: (note: Luntz is the same way, but from a conservative perspective. It is very interesting to read his stuff both for concepts and to learn how the other side thinks and is framing almost every issue.)

• Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear by Frank Luntz

Bibliography

Harris, Sam, Sameer A. Sheth, Md, Phd, and Mark S. Cohen, Phd. “Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief, and Uncertainty.” Annals of Neurology (2007). Wiley InterScience. 28 Dec. 2007 <http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/117858891/HTMLSTART>.