Conservative vs Liberal Morality From The American Prospect, a very interesting little article.

I've been thinking a lot over the past week about frameworks and schemas and how everything we know is known within an interpretive framework. What set me off was realizing that Kerry has been successfully framed as a flip-flopper, just as Gore was framed as a liar. So I was thinking of ads that would counteract that and how to reframe his behaviors in a different context, like "It's not flip-flopping to adapt to changing circumstances, in fact it's irresponsible of Bush not to." There's no point in arguing "facts" because how Kerry voted on Bill X isn't the issue--WHY he voted that way is. So getting into "facts" is playing their game, and they made the rules, so guess who wins? Anyway, the point is not to prove people wrong but to change minds, and telling people "you're wrong" is not going to make them open to your message. Hence "reframing". It's at the emotional pre-fact level so I was thinking a very strong visual referencing the idea itself, like Kerry putting on flip-flops because he's about to walk on the beach, or a guy changing horses midstream because the first horse is lame and unable to cross. Definitely NOT a lot of talking.

This TAP article reminds me of schemas via the ideas of George Lakoff. I had read an article summarizing his argument a few months ago and I find it up there with the Al-Qaeda article I blogged about in terms of explanatory power. I can't find it now, but this interview is just as good. The way Lakoff brings the experiences back to the family and conceptions about how families work is just incredible. If you get this framework into your head, American political discourse jumps into focus. It's amazing.

And the TAP article about morality fits right in.
¶ 2:51 PM