I think that covered the bases nicely.
Thank you. I often wish policy debates in this country could be covered without appeals to emotion or scare tactics but it often seems like that will something that will forever be a dream of mine. I guess the only thing I can do is make fun of that type of thinking.
One can always hope, though.
I was recently reading about "framing" and I wonder if maybe the two are related. Do these sort of "discussion" tactics just work better at motivating people, or is just an easy solution for politicians to quickly frame their position on a controversial topic?
I'm not really clear on what the difference is between the two possible answers to your question are that you're putting forward so it seems to me we're very likely talking about this in different terms. If I'm not addressing your point here, could you talk about it a little more?
The best example I can think of for "framing" a discussion was the constant repetition post 9/11 of the "This is something none of us could have expected" meme. It was simply repeated over and over again by the administration and the media as a key talking point to coming to grips with 9/11. This was vital to framing the discussion of how the nation would react to what happened. There was suddenly a crisis of epic proportions. At the same time, it was quite clear to anyone who took a moment to think about it that planes being flown into the World Trade Center was actually something quite a number of people inside and outside the government could easily have conceived, and indeed did conceive of pre-9/11. There was the attack in the early nineties and the knowledge that islamic terrorists frequently get one target in their head and don't give up on it. There were movies and books written about scenarios very similar to the one that actually happened. There were government reports considering the possibility of it happening. There were numerous planes throughout the history of flight that have accidentally flown into buildings. It was quite clearly something that, while shocking and momentarily surprising, was something that a reasonable person whose job it was to consider such things, could have expected. But these considerations were things that were "framed out" of the discussion because as we all know, 9/11 was "something none of us could have expected."
I handle contract negotiations in my job and this question of "how do we frame it" is the first thing that our team sits down and discusses each time a new project comes up. We take to the individuals their "framed" portion of the big picture and quite regularly use the fact that they're not aware of other information outside their frame as leverage. It's our job to do this. If we simply gave the other people we work with all our information, they wouldn't need us any longer and our company would go away. Do you get everyone this way? No but 9 times of 10 you certainly get enough.
Part of framing a discussion is taking the offensive in making that framing happen. One of the key ways to getting the other side off balance is to get them emotional and to frame key discussions in terms of a "crisis." Creating an emotional response within a crisis to which you can provide the answers gives you key access to a person's decision making processes. It's no mistake that this is one of the first lessons in pick up artistry.
It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.
I guess I didn't mean the two options to be exclusive to eachother. What I sort of was trying to say was do people do it (emotional appeals, silly framing) because it works, or because it's quick and easy, or possibly both?
Replies seem to indicate both, which is sort of depressing. As you indicate it can be difficult to recover from the initial off-balance of a strongly emotional framing of an event, but I feel like people could be more aware of it, and try to take a more critical look at things.
Ah, interesting take. I know people who ought to "know better" -- ie, one would hope that reasonable, intelligent people could find ways to relate to one another in the fashion p0 advocates -- but who pursue the emotional crisis mode in almost all cases because they feel it is most successful. You probably have no idea who I'm talking about but take NHL coach Mike Keenan or NFL coaches Ray Rhodes or Tom Coughlin. They're known for their emotional crisis appeals...and they're known to have been initially successful but for their motivations to wear thin. Ray Rhodes, it was said, would give rousing speeches to his players in which he declared that the opposition were home invaders who had come and stuck guns to the heads of his player's family.
In the same way, there's already terrorism fatigue in America you can tell that the current administration has already learned they're getting a lower and lower response rate each time they use it. Personally, I think people do it yes because it works but also because they don't really know any better and it's always more difficult to go about things "the right way."
It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.
Both and neither. I think these appeals to emotion have a few purposes. One: As you point out they motivate the base. Nothing gets the base more likely to write angry e-mails or call in than appeals to emotion. Two: By painting the issue as a black and white type situation they can simply the issue to masses who may not care enough about it to research all the sides and will settle for a simple explanation of the debate. Three: By making things "black and white" they allow the emotion to deny the opposition the chance to point out "the world is grey" and that the issue may not be as simple as proposed.
This way a complex discussion about privacy rights, effectiveness, civil liberties and downright plausability turns into "Why don't you think of the children? Why do you support child porn?"
Wow, I had completely missed that... Wow.
Scary isn't it? I think it would make for a good TnT story. It's been on my to do list since I first read about it.
