Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

That started me on my love of words, at an early age I came to understood their power, their ability to clarify and confuse, scare and amuse. I would purposely manipulate the words I said to peers and adults to make it seem like I was telling the truth about any one incident, although I most definitely was not. My younger brother was often the guinea pig for these linguistic experiments. In order to get him to do things, or, in order to get my way, I would trick him with semantics. "If you clean the bathroom, then I will let you play Mario Brothers," I might say to him, but after he did clean our bathroom and asked me to let him play the Nintendo, I would reply, "I did say I would let you play, but I did not say when." I thought I was clever then -- withholding or inventing information in order to get what I wanted -- now I see I was just being a jerk.

As a freshman in high school, I developed an interest in performing magic. The easy, almost automatic tricks of stage magic was not what interested me, the art was in close-up magic; being in the middle of a group of people and amazing them with slight of hand. As any magician will tell you, it often is not the physical act of doing the trick that is important but instead it is the "prattle" that goes along with the magic routine - prattle is a vitally important verbal monologue the close-up magician speaks because it confuses the "mark" or the audience. Prattle also helps with misdirection.

For a magician, Miss Direction is their greatest partner, -- she effectively keeps the mind of the mark away from the secret of the trick. As I used to tell friends, "You are staring at my right hand waving spastically way up in the air while my left hand is lifting your wallet." Misdirection, as a concept, was one of the most important life lessons learned, it made me understand how easy it is to use words to hypnotize a person, distract them from realizing what is happening right in front of their eyes. This gave me a sometimes very cynical view of humanity as being easily lead -- as part of the herd. For the longest time, I really felt that most people saw the same things, that the majority of the populace at large could discern truths from fictions and judge appropriately. Unfortunately that does not seem to happen, so many people still arrest their brain function, losing themselves to prattle of the magicians in this world. Only in the middle of the restaraunt do they find empty pockets with no money to pay for supper.

More disturbingly, words can also be the prison that locks up people's minds. During the past six years, the linguistic magicians of George W. Bush's administration have redefined words to manipulate and misdirect the thought processes and emotions of America's citizens. They have used words to build an alternative reality that has little to no basis in truth. Like when I told my brother that I never said when I would let him have his turn, the Right-Wing, with their think tanks and narrow sight, have said the same to us. The difference between the two is that our country is not eight years old and this manipulation puts our democracy at risk.

Words help make reality, they move our understanding by creating metaphor and allegory. The Estate Tax used to be a tax that stopped the ultra-rich from passing down their great fortune from generation to generation untaxed, helping to squelch dynasties. However, in the revised version today, courtesy of Republican framing, the Death Tax is a bad tax that stops hard-working individuals from receiving the money their parents spent a lifetime to gain. The Estate Tax was never debated by the populace until it became the Death Tax, now the mass of the Republican voters want it gone. Just by changing one word the new reality is created and the old is removed.
But what is reality? How is it defined? Is it what we see? Is it what we think? Scientists tell us we live in a colorless world, the colors we see only reflections of light. A green object absorbs all colors but green, reflecting that light back into our eyes. Poets tell us that reality is mystical, colorful, loving, scary, horrific. But those are merely words to describe feelings, and poets are magicians with words.

Robert Anton Wilson, writing in "Cosmic Trigger II", also wondered about reality and, as a teenager, discovered the book Science and Sanity: "(Alfred) Korzybski had the answer to at least one question that had perplexed me for years - namely, `What is reality?.' According to Korzybski, the only correct way to answer the question begins with recognizing that reality is - a word." ("The Problem of Reality," page 167, Cosmic Trigger II by R. A.Wilson, 1991 New Falcon Publications)

The word "reality" is not real - it is merely a word that stands for what we sense as real and because the idea of real is different for everyone, one person's definition of reality differs greatly from another's. A person who sees themself as a hippy may include ideas or practices in their reality that a neuro-scientist may openly scoff at and define as "pseudo-science." Or, quoting again from Cosmic Trigger II, "... it does not appear accurate to say the world of our perceptions - the sensory-sensual world - `is real.' More accurately, we should say that we find it convenient to label that world as `real' most of the time, and that sometimes we have to revise the label and replace it with `optical illusion' or `hallucination.'" ("The Problem of Reality," page 168, Cosmic Trigger II by R. A.Wilson, 1991 New Falcon Publications)

Just because someone labels it a "Death Tax" does not necessarily make it true. The Right Wing of our government has been adept at framing each issue in terms of what the party personally believes. George Lakoff, a linguistic professor at the University of Berkeley in California, has been studying this phenomenon for some time. During the 2004 Presidential election he wrote a handbook, Don't Think of an Elephant for Progressives (The new word for Liberal as it has not been tainted by Right Wing framing techniques and turned into a bad word - yet.) on how to use the same techniques against the Republican pundits and media opinionators. Mr. Lakoff explains framing and the right wing's penchant for redefining words in this excerpt from an interview posted on the BuzzFlash news website:

"Every word is defined with respect to what cognitive scientists call a frame. A frame is a conceptual structure of a certain form. Let me give you an example. Suppose I say the word `relief.' The word `relief' has a conceptual frame associated with it. Here's the frame: In order to give someone relief, there has to be an affliction and an afflicted party -- somebody who's harmed by this affliction -- and a reliever, somebody who gives relief to the afflicted party or takes away the harm or pain. That reliever is a hero. And if someone tries to stop the person giving relief from doing so, they're a bad guy. They're a villain. They want to keep the affliction ongoing. So when you use only one word, `relief,' all of that information is called up. That is a simple conceptual frame...

"On the first day that Bush came into office, the language completely changed coming out of the White House. ... One of the new expressions that came in was the term `tax relief.' It evokes all of these things -- that taxation is an affliction that we have to get rid of, that it's a heroic thing to do, that people who try to prevent this heroic thing are bad guys.

"So if you go on Fox News ... one commentator who is asking the questions, and the question is, `Are you in favor of the President's tax relief program or are you against it?' -- it doesn't matter what you say. If you say, `I'm against tax relief,' you're still evoking that framing. You're still in their frame, and all that it automatically brings with it: what kinds of policies are good, who is bad, and so on ... It frames the issues from a conservative perspective. Once the issue is framed, if you accept the framing, if you accept the language, it's all over." ("Inside the Frame" BuzzFlash, Posted January 15, 2004. http://www.alternet.org/story/17574)

This framing technique effectively destroys debate and instead puts topics in the realm of magic, using words to misdirect the populace into looking one way while they remove our ability to rationalize. Reality is just a word, remember? Reality can be defined and redefined according to the belief systems (or B.S.) of those who are the strongest at keeping an audience hypnotized with prattle. In the example of "tax relief" mentioned by George Lakoff, the Right Wing effectively kills debate by turning anyone who is against "tax cuts for the Right Wing elite" into someone who is against "tax relief for the hard-working American," although, in the long run, they are giving tax cuts to the elite and no relief to Americans at all. Instead of people being equal and debating ideas in an educated and rational way, you have good versus evil, you have light versus darkness. You have those who are "with us" and those who are "against us."

Not that any of this is new. Stopping debate has been a tactic tried by many ruling governmental parties who would like to keep the status quo. In Victorian England, the passing of laws had a profound effect on debate. When Darwin brought up the topic of evolution, there were many on each side that verbally warred with the other. One side believed they were right because they had God's Word as evidence, while the other side thought they were correct because of Scientific Proof.

Writing along these lines, one of the Victorian Age's most influential thinkers, John Stuart Mill, knew the power of debate and in his essay, "On Liberty," stresses the importance of listening to the other side of any argument. In lines which seem custom tailored for our present time, Mill says; "The worst offence ... which can be committed by a polemic, is to stigmatize those who hold the contrary opinion as bad and immoral men ... those who hold any unpopular opinion are peculiarly exposed, because they are in general few and uninfluential, and nobody but themselves feels much interested in seeing justice done them; but the weapon is, from the nature of the case, denied to those who attack a prevailing opinion." ("On Liberty" John Stuart Mill)

Debate is not a magic trick with a final moment of "Ah-ha!" Debate is not intended to change the minds of the participants. Instead, debate is meant to inform and educate those who may have bits missing in their belief system (B.S.). Debate is meant to bring parties together in one place, help work out where the differences are and where there may be room for compromise. You may never change someone's opinion but at least they will understand why you feel the way that you do.

Right Wingers do not debate: they pass down the law from on high like Moses appearing with the commandments on Mount Sinai. Progressives become agitated and frustrated because they feel no one is listening to their issues. Progressives lay out the scientific proof and Right Wingers know they have the Righteousness of God on their side.

It is only by looking through the reality tunnel of a wrathful and vengeful God do we see why Right Wingers are advocating torture in a one-sided way and closed-minded way. "An eye for an eye," they may say, "we must do to them what they want to do to us, so we can gather the information to stop them before they do." Progressives understand that torture is not helpful, the victim of torture parrots back the Giant Golden Book plots the the establishment wants them to confess to. This is rote memorization of a magic reality that becomes real only because the magicians tell us so.

As Wilson points out, reality is a word: "... our words are not the sense impressions they denote (the word "water" will not make you wet.) Our sense impressions are not the events in space-time which trigger these impressions. (When a rock hurts you, the hurt is not `in' the rock but in the interaction of the rock with your senses.) Our scientific or religious models (orchestration of words and other symbols) are not the non-verbal universe they seek to describe or explain; the menu does not taste like the meal or have the same nutrients or additives as the meal." ("The Problem of Reality," page 170, Cosmic Trigger II by R. A.Wilson, 1991 New Falcon Publications) To use another recent example of framing from this Administration, look at the word "torture." Torture is not the pain associated with people being hit with broomsticks or anally raped with chemical light sticks (as at Abu Graib). Anybody can say torture, but not everybody will experience the effects or the pain and humiliation of that word. But when the opposing viewpoint wants to open up debate about the cons of torture, the Right Wingers immediately kill it by saying, through rote memorization: "If you are against torture then you do not care for America and you want to help the terrorists." What type of debate is that? Immediately they have framed the issue as "Torture removes terrorists, terrorists are afraid of torture, therefore those who are against torture must be terrorists."

What surprises me most about this thinking is that on the whole the Right Wing totally believes the talking points of the party and if one of their own questions this dogma, they are stigmatized and placed in the "you are against us" cubby hole. John Stuart Mill realized such a thing could happen and warned against allowing the party to remove the individual, "...whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called, and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men." ("On Liberty," John Stuart Mill)

Leaving torture (let's hope forever), let's look at a couple more examples of the Administration's ability to redefine words in order to change reality, "Today's military doesn't even use the words "body bags" -- a term in common usage during the Vietnam War, when 58,000 Americans died. ... During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Pentagon began calling them `human remains pouches' and it now refers to them as `transfer tubes.'" ("Pentagon Keeps Dead Out of Sight," Tim Harper, Toronto Star, Sunday November 2, 2003 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1102-08.htm).

By calling "body bags" "transfer tubes," the humanity of the phrase is effectively removed. When you hear "body bags," you think death and murder, when you hear transfer tubes you think of objects being moved from one place to another. How can the Right Wing, who unendingly speak of "supporting our troops" be okay with a term that excises the memory of someone's human individuality and turns them into little more than a memo being mailed back home?    

Another example from a 2006 press conference, a reporter asks a pertinent question only to have Bush interject with a framing technique. Molly Ivins, who wrote the following excerpt, goes on to explain her frustration at the Administrations choice of words when it comes to their listening in to American's personal conversations:

"Q: On both the eavesdropping program and the detainee issues -
A: (George W. Bush) We call it the terrorist surveillance program, Hutch.

"Sometimes I'm convinced this is a war of words. Should we call it surveillance or eavesdropping? Is the detainee issue about holding terrorists, or is it about torturing them and then trying them without telling them what evidence we have against them? If we stop calling it eavesdropping plus torture ... with kangaroo trials, will it stop being eavesdropping, torture and kangaroo trials, and become anti-terrorist activity? Who gets to name things? Would a rose by any other name, like skunkwort, smell as sweet?" ("Another look at Bush's Rose Garden press conference." Molly Ivins, Last Updated 10:35 am PDT Wednesday, September 20, 2006 http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/26429.html)

Molly Ivins also wonders about the new reality currently being defined. "It seems like carrot and stick politics," she says. If the elephant waves a carrot in front of a donkey, the donkey will go wherever the carrot goes. Democrats are not playing the same game and they are not as effective at framing the issues as much as Republicans are.

As a kid, I rationalized my manipulation of others by thinking what a master of words I was, by thinking "Hey, after all, I am just a magician giving them the magic they want to believe in." That did not make it right, and as I grew I saw how hurtful that attitude was to others.

Words have been used to redefine our view of reality by a few magicians who want to achieve and never give-up political power. They have effectively usurped debate to the point that when I speak of the darker actions of our current government to people who vote along mainstream party lines, I am labeled a "conspiracy theorist" and my opinion is immediately disregarded. Will the day come when instead I will be labeled a "thought terrorist?" If so, I have my argument ready, it is this: "I am not a terrorist, I am an American. And as one I would never want to harm another American, not through bombings, hi-jacking, torture, poverty, war or the words that escape my lips. Can you say the same?" The Right Wing may perform their linguistic games, but I will not play them; I once did, when I was a child, but then, I grew up.