Who are the great re-framers of past and present?
October 24, 2019 10:19 AM Subscribe
Its seems that throughout history and in the present day, great leaders have used the concept of re-framing of issues to win followers and achieve their goals.
They understood that before a debate on a topic could even be started, sometimes the whole topic had to be re-framed. Tony Blair (ex-prime minister of UK) was a master of it. But, who are / were the other great re-framers and what issues did they re-frame?
They understood that before a debate on a topic could even be started, sometimes the whole topic had to be re-framed. Tony Blair (ex-prime minister of UK) was a master of it. But, who are / were the other great re-framers and what issues did they re-frame?
Saussure was arguably the big reframer in linguistics.
Before him, grammarians tended to look at languages as historical traditions, and to be interested in questions like "How do we preserve the tradition by speaking properly?" and "What should the word mean given its etymology?" There was a lot of focus on writing and literature, and on using grammar to better understand scriptures and historical documents.
Saussure moved towards thinking of language as a system of categories in the brain, and not of words on the page. Linguists after him were more interested in asking how people actually think and talk, and less interested in telling them how they should read and write. His work was part of the basis for linguistic anthropology and descriptive fieldwork, and it also led to linguistic structuralism and from there to Chomsky.
posted by nebulawindphone at 11:04 AM on October 24, 2019
Before him, grammarians tended to look at languages as historical traditions, and to be interested in questions like "How do we preserve the tradition by speaking properly?" and "What should the word mean given its etymology?" There was a lot of focus on writing and literature, and on using grammar to better understand scriptures and historical documents.
Saussure moved towards thinking of language as a system of categories in the brain, and not of words on the page. Linguists after him were more interested in asking how people actually think and talk, and less interested in telling them how they should read and write. His work was part of the basis for linguistic anthropology and descriptive fieldwork, and it also led to linguistic structuralism and from there to Chomsky.
posted by nebulawindphone at 11:04 AM on October 24, 2019
Both Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg designed litigation strategies aimed at winning nationwide recognition of equality for a group by building a body of incremental case law rather than one big case. I believe Marshall pioneered this. Ginsburg’s strategy also relied on picking cases where the unequal law she wanted struck down hurt a member of the majority population (like a widower who was denied benefit checks a widow in his place would have gotten), to better appeal to male judges. In doing so, both used the courts rather than the legislature, which seems commonplace today but was much less so then.
(Many groups, good and bad, borrow the tactics and language of the US civil rights movement (itself partially borrowed from Gandhi) to frame their issues. The anti-choice movement in particular has done this. But I refuse to call them great.)
posted by sallybrown at 11:06 AM on October 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
(Many groups, good and bad, borrow the tactics and language of the US civil rights movement (itself partially borrowed from Gandhi) to frame their issues. The anti-choice movement in particular has done this. But I refuse to call them great.)
posted by sallybrown at 11:06 AM on October 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
Milton Friedman and the notion of shareholder value as the primary/only driver of a business's actions.
Bill James and the idea that, in baseball, a walk is as good as a hit.
Both are kind of :-/ Friedman probably more like :(
posted by kevinbelt at 11:31 AM on October 24, 2019
Bill James and the idea that, in baseball, a walk is as good as a hit.
Both are kind of :-/ Friedman probably more like :(
posted by kevinbelt at 11:31 AM on October 24, 2019
The widely acknowledged master of re-framing in contemporary politics is the political consultant Frank Luntz. He is responsible for, among many other things, convincing Republicans to re-frame issues through clever word choice, such as replacing "drilling for oil" with "exploring for energy;" "undocumented workers" with "illegal aliens;" and "estate tax" with "death tax." Many contemporary political cleavages find their roots in his ability to shape language to help his clients re-frame key issues.
posted by googly at 12:34 PM on October 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by googly at 12:34 PM on October 24, 2019 [5 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:40 AM on October 24, 2019 [2 favorites]