| Number 288 | February 4, 2005 |
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This Week:
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Greetings, I had hoped to conclude the "Fantasy Versus Reality" series this week, but it turned out to be too complicated to do on this deadline. So, instead, there are three pieces that, as it turns out, have to do with that series, but not directly enough to call any of them "Part 4." Nygaard Notes will be taking next week off, as I have had to accept other paid work that will take up too much time to put out a regular issue. Gotta pay the bills, y'know. I'll be back in two weeks, with a little news announcement about the Notes, and more on "morality politics." Right now, it's the most beautiful day in Minneapolis in months, so I'm going outside! Until the 18th, Nygaard |
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Speaking to an audience of 38 million people in his State of the Union speech on February 2nd, George W. Bush said this about the Social Security program (assuming nothing is done to change the current law):
This is false. The President knows it is false. The President lied, in prime time. (More on this - much more! - in a future Nygaard Notes.) |
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"Frames" are the mental structures that shape the way we see the world. Politicians use them all the time, usually very consciously. A good politician understands that the frame that people use to understand something makes all the difference when it comes to shaping public policy. An issue framed in one way looks like a bad thing, even an evil thing. The same issue framed in a different way can seem like a blessing. For example, is your son or daughter a drain on the family's bank account? Or is he or she a joy and a miracle, which puts the costs of raising that child in the realm of a gladly-accepted responsibility? That's framing. In the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) of January 28th appeared an article on the issue of taxes that illustrates beautifully how frames are used in politics. The article was headlined "State Progresses in Business Tax Rating." That sounds like something good is happening, right? Well, that depends on the frame you use. The frame accepted by the Star Tribune reporter is stated clearly - if unconsciously - in the lead paragraph, which read: "Minnesota continues to make progress in easing property-tax burdens on businesses, according to a new state-by-state comparison study." The frame is that property taxes are a "burden," which obviously need "easing." This is the position of the Minnesota Taxpayers Association, certainly, which is the group that released the study upon which this article was based. Framed differently, however, taxes - including property taxes - can be seen as the shared responsibility of a civilized people, the paying of which allows us to have a more just and prosperous state. To be fair, the Star Trib story does acknowledge that (as they put it) "Not all Minnesota taxpayers, however, are unqualified winners in the study." But they weren't talking about the taxes on the house you live in, they were saying that "Commercial property taxes remain 'stubbornly high' in rural Minnesota." The story quoted a couple of elected officials (Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and State Senator Larry Pogemiller, pointing out that the "progress" that is the lead of the article is part of "the state-led shift in tax burden from businesses to homeowners." That is, you and I pay more in rent so businesses can pay less. But these changes, the Star Trib is quick to add, "have been deemed good tax policy by the Taxpayers Association. Despite these quotations from Democrats in the state who question the "progress" noted in the headline and the lead of the story, the basic frame - that taxes are bad, and taxes on business are really bad - is never challenged. The alternative frame - the frame that places taxes in a positive light - includes the idea that taxes allow for the provision of some widely-valued goods and services that come from government, like schools, roads, health care, and more. If one sticks to the "Taxes Are Bad. Period." frame, then it makes sense to quote the director of the Taxpayer's Association, as the Star Trib did, when he says "Everybody should be happy" about the declining share of tax responsibility held by business in our state. And perhaps "everyone" is happy - at least everyone who doesn't think about the cuts, reductions, and declines in level of public services that are part and parcel of the reductions in commercial property taxes outlined in this story. |
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Almost a year ago, in NN #243, I wrote an article called "The 'Reversing the Headline Trick' Explained," which started out like this:
In a speech given in San Francisco on August 16th, 2004, writer and activist Arundhati Roy illustrated that the trick goes beyond the headlines. She said:
Ms. Roy here reverses, not the headline, but the overall idea of occupation. What if the "us" were "them," and the "them" were "us?" This idea of "reversing" the roles, whether in the news or in your daily life, is a key part of a skill that is necessary for developing compassion. That skill is called "empathy," and it is the ability - and willingness - to put oneself in another's place and ACTIVELY imagine what a situation must be like for that other person. The better you are at empathy, the more compassionate and loving you can be. Can you empathize with your teacher? How about your teenage child? Try practicing empathy with your boss, or with that person in the solidarity group who drives you up the wall. When they are doing those things that drive you insane, what might be going on for THEM? Most of us can understand the reasons that we, ourselves, do bad things. That's because anybody can empathize with themselves! Empathizing with others is a little more difficult, but essentially the same process. Unless you accept the idea that someone can be essentially "evil," then there must be something that you can understand that is driving the behavior. Such understanding should not be used to "excuse" behavior that violates our values, but it does preserve the humanity of the perpetrator. What you end up with is that which Mohandas Gandhi often spoke of when he would repeat the adage "Hate the sin, not the sinner." The Believers in Evil must - if the concept is to have any sense - maintain an absolutist position, one which says that there is nothing to be done with someone who is "evil" except to eliminate them - lock them up in prison for life, execute them, wipe them from the face of the earth, "hunt them down and kill them," or whatever. And if some behaviors are absolutely wrong, then they must be forbidden, their perpetrators punished, their existence denied. Here we see the roots of the "War Against Terror" (The WAT?!), and the "Abstinence-Only" policies about which I have been writing for the past three weeks. Understanding this difference - between the "Good Versus Evil" approach and the "People In Context" approach - helps to explain a lot of the much-talked-about "polarization" in the United States of America. I'll talk more about this in the next Nygaard Notes. |
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An angry reader wrote to me about my recent issue on sex education ("The Absolutists Versus the Rest of Us"), saying to me that "you're a rather foul kind of absolutist yourself," adding suspiciously that "I'm not quite sure what your agenda really is..." So, for those of you who did not cancel your subscriptions in disgust at my thoughts about sex education, here is my agenda: When it comes to morality and what to teach our kids, my agenda has to do with the difference between "individual" and "social." In my Webster's Dictionary, those words are defined like this:
In the realm of "morality," there are different ways to judge right and wrong. The individualist way focuses on the outcome for the individual first: I, as an individual, will or will not get to heaven, or otherwise be rewarded, based on what I do. If I do things that are "wrong," I should be punished, because I have violated some universally-applicable rule. The social way of judging right and wrong focuses on the effects of behavior on the community, or the society. The individualist way imagines that behavior is "right" or "wrong" in and of itself, and in ways that always apply in the same way, to everyone. The social way only grasps the concepts of right and wrong in terms of the effect of behavior on the world in which we live. Whether something is "right" or "wrong," in other words, depends on a lot of factors, and may be different for different people. So, what about sex? My individual morality may tell me that it is wrong to have sex outside of marriage. But other people - clearly and obviously - do not agree. What sort of public policy do we want to have, in that case? Since it is social policy - that is, since it has to do with our "dealings with one another," then the only fair thing to do is to limit our public policy to things that enhance the good things or reduce the bad things, as we agree upon them. In the case of teen sex, some people think any sexual behavior is "wrong," and some do not. But almost everyone, I think, agrees that we want our kids to be as safe and happy as possible. When it comes to things like teen sex, or teen drug use, here's what we know: We know that some kids will have sex, and some kids will use drugs. We even know roughly how many. What we do NOT know is who, exactly, those kids will be. So, we can urge kids not to have sex or take drugs - if that's what we all agree is the right thing to tell them. But, since we know that some kids will do so despite what we tell them (maybe BECAUSE of what we tell them, if I remember my teen years correctly!), then we had better provide the comprehensive information that we know is needed for kids to make good decisions and stay healthy, should they decide to ignore our good advice. I chose to write about so-called "morality politics" these past few weeks precisely because it is such a challenge to develop public policy in a diverse society such as the United States. I agree with professor James Sears, editor of the book "Sexuality and the Curriculum: The Politics and Practices of Sexuality Education," who said in a recent interview,
His language is kind of academic, but the reason I agree with it is simple: I argue for public policy that is based on shared values and shared knowledge, instead of individual morals. Here's the difference: To the extent that moral behavior is a matter of individual choice we have to allow individuals to behave in accordance with their moral beliefs. (When behavior comes into conflict with others' rights, that's not a matter of individual choice.) But public policy - laws, educational curricula, transportation systems, environmental practices, and so forth - is different. Public policy affects all of us, so it had better be based on promoting values that serve all of us. How do we know what those values are? Through a democratic process, conducted in public, involving as many people as possible. This is the meaning of "social" or "public," as in Sears' "public square." So, that's my agenda: Leave matters of individual morality to individuals, and base our public policy on providing our kids with the tools to make good decisions - in line with whatever their morals may be - and to be as safe as possible. It's more complicated than that, but there's only so much room in one issue of Nygaard Notes! |