{"id":615,"date":"2009-02-27T11:17:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-27T16:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/?p=615"},"modified":"2009-02-27T11:17:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-27T16:17:00","slug":"the-frame-made-me-do-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/2009\/02\/27\/the-frame-made-me-do-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The Frame Made Me Do It"},"content":{"rendered":"

KPFA in Berkely has a wonderful radio show called Against the Grain<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 Tuesday’s show had an interview<\/a> by the host C.S. Soong<\/a> with William Irvine<\/a>, a philosophy professor at Wayne State University.\u00a0 The talk fouced on Irvine’s new book “A Giude to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy<\/a>.”\u00a0 The book focuses on the anicent Greek\/Roman philosophy of Stoicism.\u00a0 In the interview, Irvine notes that the goal of the Stoics was “tranquility” or the moderation of passions and desires which often lead us towards emotional higs and lows.\u00a0 He claims the stoics did this through reasoning.\u00a0 If you want a brand new car that you don’t need, the Stoics prescribe that you think about your current car being stolen and how that loss would make you feel.\u00a0 That in turn would make you appreciate your existing car more.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

My policy class is looking at metaphors and symbols in politics and how they are used to frame debate about issues.\u00a0 A growing consensus in emerging on our biological predispositions to become vulnerable to frames.\u00a0 Matt Bai<\/a> has a good New York Times Magazine article that describes the Democratic party’s love affair with George Lakoff and his theories of framing.\u00a0 But listeinging to Irvine’s description of the stoics makes me think about how much we’ve allowed ourselves to succumb to emotion and desire in political discourse.\u00a0 The Greek conception of man (people) was that they were half animal and half god.\u00a0 The animal was the impulsive, irrational side and the god was the reasoned, logical side. I contend that our politics have drifted towards appealing to our “animal side.”\u00a0 See Frontline’s great documentary The Persuaders<\/a> for an example of emotional appeals.<\/p>\n

Of course politicians have always appealed to lower instincts in making claims to power.\u00a0 But do we have a responsibility to create a “push back” from the “god side.”<\/p>\n

What are the consequences of policies that are sold to us using strong emotional appeals?\u00a0 Should we as a society demand that our citizens work to cultivate virtues like tranquility and reason?\u00a0 Or has the train left the station… message makers have become much too sophisticated at pushing our emotional buttons that reason’s not making a comeback, and it hasn’t been here for years\u00a0 (apologies to L.L. Cool J).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KPFA in Berkely has a wonderful radio show called Against the Grain.\u00a0\u00a0 Tuesday’s show had an interview by the host C.S. Soong with William Irvine, a philosophy professor at Wayne State University.\u00a0 The talk fouced on Irvine’s new book “A Giude to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy.”\u00a0 The book focuses on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[682,1116,85,1114,1115],"class_list":["post-615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-framing","tag-lakoff","tag-politics","tag-stoices","tag-virtues"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":617,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions\/617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}