onfocus

This George Lakoff interview about how conservatives have been successful by framing debates with language is brilliant:

The phrase "Tax relief" began coming out of the White House starting on the very day of Bush's inauguration. It got picked up by the newspapers as if it were a neutral term, which it is not. First, you have the frame for "relief." For there to be relief, there has to be an affliction, an afflicted party, somebody who administers the relief, and an act in which you are relieved of the affliction. The reliever is the hero, and anybody who tries to stop them is the bad guy intent on keeping the affliction going. So, add "tax" to "relief" and you get a metaphor that taxation is an affliction, and anybody against relieving this affliction is a villain.

I've been meaning to pick up Lakoff's book about categorization called Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things for a long time. And now I have another of his to add to my list: Moral Politics. [via boing²]