Staying the Course Right Over a Cliff
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/staying-the-course-right-_b_32688.html
The Bush administration has finally been caught in its own
language trap.
"That is not a stay-the-course policy," Tony Snow, the White
House press secretary, declared on Monday.
The first rule of using negatives is that negating a frame
activates the frame. If you tell someone not to think of an
elephant, he'll think of an elephant.
When Richard Nixon said, "I am not a crook" during
Watergate, the nation thought of him as a crook.
"Listen, we've never been stay the course, George,"
President Bush told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News a day
earlier. Saying that just reminds us of all the times he
said "stay the course."
What the president is discovering is that it's not so easy
to rewrite linguistic history. The laws of language are hard
to defy.
"The characterization of, you know, 'it's stay the course'
is about a quarter right," the president said at an Oct. 11
news conference. " 'Stay the course' means keep doing what
you're doing. My attitude is, don't do what you're doing if
it's not working -- change. 'Stay the course' also means
don't leave before the job is done."
A week or so later, he tried another shift: "We have been --
we will complete the mission, we will do our job and help
achieve the goal, but we're constantly adjusting the
tactics. Constantly."
To fully understand why the president's change in linguistic
strategy won't work, it's helpful to consider why "stay the
course" possesses such power. The answer lies in
metaphorical thought.
Metaphors are more than language; they can govern thought
and behavior. A recent University of Toronto study, for
example, demonstrated the power of metaphors that connect
morality and purity: People who washed their hands after
contemplating an unethical act were less troubled by their
thoughts than those who didn't, the researchers found.
"Stay the course" is a particularly powerful metaphor
because it can activate so many of our emotions. Because
physical actions require movement, we commonly understand
action as motion. Because achieving goals so often requires
going to a particular place -- to the refrigerator to get a
cold beer, say -- we think of goals as reaching
destinations.
Another widespread -- and powerful -- metaphor is that moral
action involves staying on a prescribed path, and straying
from the path is immoral. In modern conservative discourse,
"character" is seen through the metaphor of moral strength,
being unbending in the face of immoral forces. "Backbone,"
we call it.
In the context of a metaphorical war against evil, "stay the
course" evoked all these emotion-laden metaphors. The phrase
enabled the president to act the way he'd been acting -- and
to demonstrate that it was his strong character that enabled
him to stay on the moral path.
To not stay the course evokes the same metaphors, but says
you are not steadfast, not morally strong. In addition, it
means not getting to your destination -- that is, not
achieving your original purpose. In other words, you are
lacking in character and strength; you are unable to
"complete the mission" and "achieve the goal."
"Stay the course" was for years a trap for those who
disagreed with the president's policies in Iraq. To disagree
was weak and immoral. It meant abandoning the fight against
evil. But now the president himself is caught in that trap.
To keep staying the course, given obvious reality, is to get
deeper into disaster in Iraq, while not staying the course
is to abandon one's moral authority as a conservative.
Either way, the president loses.
And if the president loses, does that mean the Democrats
will win? Perhaps. But if they do, it will be because of
Republican missteps and not because they've acted with
strategic brilliance. Their "new direction" slogan offers no
values and no positive vision. It is taken from a standard
poll question, "Do you like the direction the nation is
headed in?"
This is a shame. The Democrats are giving up a golden
opportunity to accurately frame their values and deepest
principles (even on national security), to forge a public
identity that fits those values -- and perhaps to win more
close races by being positive and having a vision worth
voting for.
Right now, though, no language articulating a Democratic
vision seems in the offing. If the Democrats don't find a
more assertive strategy, their gains will be short-lived.
They, too, will learn the pitfalls of staying the course.
(c) 2006 George Lakoff and The New York Times. Originally
printed in The New York Times on October 27, 2006.
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OPERATION STAY THE COURSE
AUDIO: MSNBC COUNTDOWN
http://www.apfn.net/pogo/L001I061027-stay-the-course.MP3
