The question Australians should be asking is: why are they so fearful?
Ghosts are tumbling out of Canberra’s cupboards and their howls can be heard echoing through some prominent media outlets.
More than happy to influence Australia’s law making process over expensive meals behind closed doors, top-shelf lobbyists are understandably feeling jittery about our ‘new paradigm’ Government. Thanks to those pesky Independents and Greens, present governing will not lend itself so keenly to the good-ol’-style, vested interest driven decision making process that so suits industries.
The verging on hysterical reactions from some corners—namely Big Coal and other mining giants through their mouthpiece, The Australian— indicate where the key fault lines in our democracy lie. The thought of decision makers considering policies that aim to factor in the true worth of the countless invaluable services provided free by our environment clearly will not serve the balance sheets of the many transnational corporations we host. When massive profits can only be generated with resort to ecologically destructive practices, clearly there is a problem with the business model in question.
AFTER establishing their credentials as economic dunces, the Greens, contrary to their own propaganda, are increasingly emerging as environmental dunces over the core issue they claim as central to their platform — man-made climate change…
Surely when assaults become so vicious they risk alienating even the perpetrator’s own followers. As this MediaWatch story Gunning for the Greens demonstrates, The Australian’s attacks are oozing out of the Opinion section and spilling right through its so called news content: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3010433.htm
Surely there is an inherent contradiction in a strategy vilifying the Greens for promoting (for a long time actually) the progressive policies that increasing numbers of Australian voters want. By and large Australians want to protect and preserve their natural assets for present and future generations. And, besides Big Coal and other major polluters, who would not want Australia to be a leader in 21st century appropriate renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies which will generate many thousands of new jobs in local, more secure and sustainable economies?
Deborah,
Thank you for your thoughtful posts and for your work at LIVE, which is inspirational.
To my mind, commentary around the Greens falls into two broad categories. The first one is “the sky is falling” category, exemplified by Shaun Carney’s histrionic quip that Bob Brown’s agenda is to “de-industrialise Australia” http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/aggression-pays-in-king-hits-on-labor-20100827-13w05.html
This group of phrases paint a picture of wreckage, destruction, vandalism and all out assault caused by the hand of the Greens should it fall on the levers of that superbly functioning machine, the growth economy. The second is “the Greens are children” category, exemplified by David Marr’s effort http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/lord-of-the-greens-readies-his-troops-for-the-return-of-the-queen-20100908-151ca.html and the recent Spooner cartoon (9/10/2010). This group tells us about how naïve, irresponsible, haphazard, immature, bumbling or wide-eyed the Greens are. These categorisations are frames, and most of the time we hear them they’re spliced, conveying an impression of the Greens as people who are stupid, threatening and can’t be trusted.
I’ve taken these examples from the “socially-conscious” pages of The Age, in part to recognise that these frames and their usage are not confined to the howling conservatism of The Australian. Also, I’d like to draw attention to what frames are and the way they work. “Frame” doesn’t refer to a set of words only; words, language and its uses are a reflection of our thoughts and thought processes; words resonate deeply held values and reflect our worldviews. Our values and worldviews are shaped by our life experiences, so “frame” can be better understood as mental structures, the product of a lifetime of reasoning that shape our perception and in turn colour the way we reason. One of the perplexing and existentially challenging features of our value structures is that in most of us there are sets of opposing values, motivating every now and then contradictory behaviours. It’s more useful, then, that we see our mental structures, their values and worldview, not as something immutable, but as something that is more fluid and paradoxical. We should recognise also that they are emotional and that our reasoning is not as the Rationalists would have us believe: abstractly calculating the costs and benefits of inputs to serve one’s self-interest, but as a moral landscape toned by feelings. Because of this plurality, values that we don’t necessarily publicly espouse or live by, but which may be part of our mental landscape, can be activated by the words, images, symbols and social contexts that are associated with them, making these frames more salient, and with repetition over time can shape an individual’s opinion, influence social discourse, political decisions and the form of our institutions. This works because when one frame is called to mind, for example, “immature Greens” it recalls an entire mental structure and associated values, which in turn defines the parameters of our reasoning. That is, we tend to reason “inside the frame”, meaning that we reference the experiences and values pertaining to the mental structure of that frame to reach an opinion. If the frame is repeated often and widely enough and over a prolonged period the frame becomes “common sense” an opinion, value or worldview that is widely shared and largely unquestioned. Think of the pernicious effect of “war on terror” or “tax burden” or Mr. Abbott’s latest: “great big tax on everything”.
What’s important about your article is that you’re drawing attention to the act of framing. Most of our mental processes, estimated to be about 98%, happen unconsciously. By drawing attention to these frames and clearly defining them we’re taking the first step towards making a largely unconscious process salient. In our public encounters we should be very clear on this point: whenever we hear or read these frames we need to start by drawing attention to them, being clear about their existence, what motivates them and how they vary from the facts. Once we’ve accomplished this, we can reframe the discourse around our own values and reason according to those, and the facts that support our views, towards policy and institutional outcomes that reflect a progressive worldview.
The “Greens are childish wreckers” frame comes up a lot, in conversations with family, friends, workmates, and has many guises. I think this is because the Greens represent an entity that’s unfamiliar to many people, coupled of course with the persistent framing in the mass media I’ve described above. People often have negative emotional responses to things that are strange, new, unfamiliar, because they come from outside of their worldview and are seen as a threat to it, which is a threat to them, because worldview is identity, it’s the person. The first thing I do is draw attention to the frame. This could be as plain as saying, “I don’t agree with the way you’ve framed that…” or more reflecting back, “So you see the Greens as sort of like vandalising children…” I’ve sometimes shared the observation that people often feel uncomfortable about the Greens because they don’t know enough about them, and followed up by some facts that show how long they’ve been around on the political scene, how many times they’ve formed government and ask if they’ve read any of their policies, and if not, whether they’d like to.
In a conversation just prior to the election, a work colleague muttered that Greens in parliament “wouldn’t be good for the economy”. I asked him what it was about ignoring the fact of global warming and climate change for the last thirty years, which the old political parties have done, that qualifies them as mature and competent stewards of government? Well, since you put it like that…
If you’d like to know more about communication from a progressive worldview I recommend the following:
Cognitive Policy Works: established by Joe Brewer, is a U.S. consultancy that advises progressive organisations on communications. Joe formerly worked with the cognitive linguist George Lakoff, who has published extensively on this topic. This site has numerous interesting articles and links: http://www.cognitivepolicyworks.com/
Common cause: a paper that discusses the evidence and provides direction for progressive communications and can be downloaded at: http://www.coinet.org.uk/news/2010-09-27/common-cause-case-working-our-cultural-values
I can be contacted at: nurturant@gmail.com
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things”.
Niccolo Machiavelli
“One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Washing ones hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.” – Paulo Freire
I say …. bring it on!!!!