A Modest Proposal

I borrow my title from Jonathan Swift, who was writing about the problem of starvation in eighteenth-century Ireland. Swift’s proposal for solving the problem, considered one of the best examples of irony in English literature, was for the starving Irish to solve the problem of starvation by boiling and eating their babies. Swift’s proposal was, of course, anything but modest. It was also satire—educated people of the time were not expected to take it seriously. Today’s Republican Party, however, has been proposing actions, while not as horrific as boiling and eating babies, would foster almost as much misery for the . . . → Read More: A Modest Proposal

Framing—Again

In a recent article in the Huffington Post, George Lakoff (author or co-author of numerous books and articles on metaphors and other aspects of language usage), said the following about framing:

Framing is much more than mere language or messaging. A frame is a conceptual structure used to think with. Frames come in hierarchies. At the top of the hierarchies are moral frames. All politics is moral. Politicians support policies because they are right, not wrong. The problem is that there is more than one conception of what is moral. Moreover, voters tend to vote their morality,  since it is what defines . . . → Read More: Framing—Again