September 14, 2004
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Outside Xanga
Sometimes I forget there is an blogging world outside of xanga. Today I was googling for business cards and came across Ned Batchelder’s site because he wrote a blog on how to make business card cubes. He also found an insightful quote on the language of politics from Cal prof George Lakoff:
Conservatives have branded liberals, and the liberals let them get away with it: the “liberal elite,” the “latte liberals,” the “limousine liberals.” The funny thing is that conservatives are the elite. The whole idea of conservative doctrine is that some people are better than others, that some people deserve more. To conservatives, if you’re poor it’s because you deserve it, you’re not disciplined enough to get ahead. Conservative doctrine requires that there be an elite: the people who thrive in the free market have more money, and they should. Progressives say, “No, that’s not fair. Maybe some should have more money, but no one should live in poverty. Everybody who works deserves to have a reasonable standard of living for their work.” These are ideas that are progressive or liberal ideas, and progressives aren’t getting them out there enough.
What progressives are promoting is not elite at all. Progressives ought to be talking about the conservative elite. They shouldn’t be complaining about “tax cuts for the rich,” they should be complaining about “tax cuts for the conservative elite,” because that’s who’s getting them.
And I especially like his (Lakoff’s) pithy quote to sum up his philosophy:
Frames trump facts.
Comments (5)
what’s insightful about that quote? it’s actually quite simplistic and biased to me.
there is a conservative elite and a liberal elite. the conservative elite are people who are rich and powerful, want more of it, and don’t feel guilty about it at all. the liberal elite are people who are rich and powerful, want more of it, but feel guilty about their wealth and status, so they impose their guilt on everyone else by supporting higher taxes to pay for social programs to help the people who they feel guilty about having more than.
now that’s an insightful statement, in my not-so-humble opinion.
Conservatives aren’t elitist like liberals are. This is a fact. No matter how rich conservatives are, they still drink Budweiser and watch Monday Night Football, go bowling and fly fishing. They got the common touch. Liberal elites are effete intellectually New Yorker subscribers who wear a lot of black turtlenecks and avant garde rectangular glasses. They tend to believe that God is dead and they read Sartre and de Beauvoir. They eat organic food and crepes. Now you can see why the “elitist” label sticks better to the liberals. Ha ha
here’s an interesting op-ed piece on the wsj about this
That’s a good article — thanks.
wow.. that business card cube is pretty cool… ;P