Elephants, Crooks, and Class Warfare

When President Obama announced his new plans for improving the economy in the States, Republicans cried, “Class warfare!” Obama’s response was, “It is not class warfare—it’s math.” This response not only reminded me of Nixon’s infamous claim, “I am not a crook,” but also reminded me of George Lakoff’s warning against using your opponent’s frame in your counterarguments (see Framing—Again. It is a failure to remember the Don’t think of elephants rule. When Nixon said, “I am not a crook,” the connection made in most people’s minds was, “Nixon—crook.” The not gets lost in translation.

In addressing the issue . . . → Read More: Elephants, Crooks, and Class Warfare

The Father of Lies

The Christian Bible says that Satan is the “Father of Lies.” The actual Father of Lies, however, is fear. Regardless of whether you believe that Satan is a metaphor for fear, you undoubtedly know that people lie when they are afraid. Everyone, George Washington included, has lied and will probably lie again. Lying is a normal part of human existence because humans experience fear. Think about the last time you told a lie, especially a significant one, and note that you felt fearful before uttering your lie. You can use knowing that fear is the “father” of lies to increase . . . → Read More: The Father of Lies

Framing and Reframing

Those of you who have studied NLP or persuasive communication are familiar with the concept of perceptual frames. The metaphor is fairly obvious: a window frame, for example, limits what we see on the other side of the window; a photographer can choose what is included in the frame of a photo by trimming the image so that it focuses on, say, one person instead of a group. The concept has been adopted by psychology for the purpose of understanding the context that determines how something is interpreted.

All communication (all? Yes, all…) occurs within a contextual frame. In . . . → Read More: Framing and Reframing