The ALL NEW Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate by George Lakoff Page A
Authors: George Lakoff
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education in general is a freedom issue, public education, on the whole, is an even more powerful freedom issue, with two important components:
• Public education is publicly accessible. It gives educational access to more people, and so increases their freedoms. It also allows individuals to understand the full range of people, and therefore opens up human relationships and the possibility of empathizing with and understanding more people.
• Public education is publicly accountable education. It prevents the narrowing of what is taught when private interests determine what is taught.
Moreover, systemic causation further makes education a freedom issue, because many of our major educational issues are due to poverty.
Poverty all too often means that parents who have to hold down multiple jobs cannot properly raise their children—not reading to them, not raising them to respect education, not being able to get them out of unhealthy environments. Poverty means children going to school hungry in the morning and not able to concentrate on classes. And poverty and lack of education replicate themselves. In a large range of cases, the failure of students to learn has mainly to do with a national economic failure and not with inadequate teachers or schools.
Poverty
Poverty is a freedom issue. It is obvious. People who are poor have a lot less freedom than people who are rich.
As we have seen, people who are poor have less access to health care and education than people who are rich.
But there are many more freedoms eroded, or altogether lost, due to poverty. Housing is better for the rich than the poor. There is no homelessness among the rich. Neighborhoods are better for the rich than the poor. The ability to relocate or travel is far easier for the rich than the poor. Food is better for the rich than the poor. Social connections are better for the rich than the poor. Better jobs are available for the rich than the poor.
All of these are freedom issues: If you are homeless or cannot find a decent place to live for yourself and your family, you are oppressed and limited, you are not free. If you cannot relocate or travel when you need to, or want to, you are limited in your freedom. If you cannot eat properly, you are not free. If you are not able to connect with people, you are not free. If you are not free to find a job and work, you are not free.
In virtually every dimension of life, being in poverty without being able to escape it is a freedom issue.
Yet many people in poverty often vote for measures that make their lives worse, not better, because continual conservative framing has activated a conservative worldview even in those whose lives could be essentially ruined by it.
Conservatives see being poor as a personal failure, a failure of individual responsibility. But the reality is that poverty curtails freedom. There is a reason why people speak of being “trapped” in poverty. They are.
Again, in our democracy, the private depends on the public. Do we care about whether our fellow citizens are free, or not?
Discrimination: Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation
By now, our history has made clear that racism is a freedom issue. It can impose poverty, lack of education, ill-health, and worse. As we saw with Trayvon Martin, it can get you killed in some states.
Our recent history has made it clear that homophobia is a freedom issue. It is as normal to be gay as it is to be left-handed. Freedom to marry for people who happen to be gay is as much a matter of love and commitment as it is for people who happen to be straight, and a denial of marriage or other rights on the basis of whether you are straight or gay is a freedom issue. That is becoming clearer all over America.
The first edition of this book played a role in the adequate framing of the deepest reality of gay rights. The prior arguments were about rights of inheritance, of hospital visitation—discrimination in monetary and social
• Public education is publicly accessible. It gives educational access to more people, and so increases their freedoms. It also allows individuals to understand the full range of people, and therefore opens up human relationships and the possibility of empathizing with and understanding more people.
• Public education is publicly accountable education. It prevents the narrowing of what is taught when private interests determine what is taught.
Moreover, systemic causation further makes education a freedom issue, because many of our major educational issues are due to poverty.
Poverty all too often means that parents who have to hold down multiple jobs cannot properly raise their children—not reading to them, not raising them to respect education, not being able to get them out of unhealthy environments. Poverty means children going to school hungry in the morning and not able to concentrate on classes. And poverty and lack of education replicate themselves. In a large range of cases, the failure of students to learn has mainly to do with a national economic failure and not with inadequate teachers or schools.
Poverty
Poverty is a freedom issue. It is obvious. People who are poor have a lot less freedom than people who are rich.
As we have seen, people who are poor have less access to health care and education than people who are rich.
But there are many more freedoms eroded, or altogether lost, due to poverty. Housing is better for the rich than the poor. There is no homelessness among the rich. Neighborhoods are better for the rich than the poor. The ability to relocate or travel is far easier for the rich than the poor. Food is better for the rich than the poor. Social connections are better for the rich than the poor. Better jobs are available for the rich than the poor.
All of these are freedom issues: If you are homeless or cannot find a decent place to live for yourself and your family, you are oppressed and limited, you are not free. If you cannot relocate or travel when you need to, or want to, you are limited in your freedom. If you cannot eat properly, you are not free. If you are not able to connect with people, you are not free. If you are not free to find a job and work, you are not free.
In virtually every dimension of life, being in poverty without being able to escape it is a freedom issue.
Yet many people in poverty often vote for measures that make their lives worse, not better, because continual conservative framing has activated a conservative worldview even in those whose lives could be essentially ruined by it.
Conservatives see being poor as a personal failure, a failure of individual responsibility. But the reality is that poverty curtails freedom. There is a reason why people speak of being “trapped” in poverty. They are.
Again, in our democracy, the private depends on the public. Do we care about whether our fellow citizens are free, or not?
Discrimination: Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation
By now, our history has made clear that racism is a freedom issue. It can impose poverty, lack of education, ill-health, and worse. As we saw with Trayvon Martin, it can get you killed in some states.
Our recent history has made it clear that homophobia is a freedom issue. It is as normal to be gay as it is to be left-handed. Freedom to marry for people who happen to be gay is as much a matter of love and commitment as it is for people who happen to be straight, and a denial of marriage or other rights on the basis of whether you are straight or gay is a freedom issue. That is becoming clearer all over America.
The first edition of this book played a role in the adequate framing of the deepest reality of gay rights. The prior arguments were about rights of inheritance, of hospital visitation—discrimination in monetary and social
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