UPDATE 1: Removed "Science" from the title. It was a term of art, but too many comments railed against even a suggestion that there's any connection to science. Corrected. But I don't have a replacement word. I would use "linguistics" but then I'd go from frying pan to fire.
UPDATE 2: The diary was poorly written, originally a one-on-one comment that I then posted as a diary -- the main point being we our leaders need to get trained in Media Communication. That got obscured by a thruline I used to show from where some of the techniques used by GOP Wurlitzer are derived. My bad. It threw off the discussion that ensued.
UPDATE 3: The criticism of Harry Reid is not for his accurate statement: The Iraq War is lost. It's for equivocating afterwards after criticism. That's bad. Stop equivocating and modifying. That's weak.
UPDATE 4: Here's more of what I wish he'd say, and others as well:
American troops won the mission to take out Saddam. We brought him to justice. Bush changed the mission without a plan, created an Arab Civil War and now our troops are left holding the bag.
He needs to be a grownup, admit his mistakes, take responsibility for turning American victory into an Arab Civil War, and if he doesn't do it, Congress will pull the plug on this misallocation of our military resources.
But that framing language is not the subject of this diary. The diary as originally written follows below. But a better use of time would be to read this Summary compiled by "businessdem" here.
It fixed all of my errors, omissions, and clarified the context. A great job -- and he or she has great talent.
I saw some feedback in the comments which mis-interprets your main message. Coming in a bit late, but my 2 cents:
* You are not suggesting that Dems lie or tell partial truths.
* You're not claiming one way or the other that NLP is a science. In fact you specifically refused to be drawn into this argument. (and for good reason. even without the diarist staking a position, some posters have tried to use this non-issue as a straw man)
* You do suggest that the repubs are strategic and disciplined in their use of stimulus>response hammered home via repetition, and that their use of these tools has often been effective. Examples such as "flip-flop" and swift-boating are as clear as any.
* You stress that at very least we should be aware of these tactics so that we can aim to derail them when they are used against us (i.e. the scratching the record example).
A few other notes:
* One point that I thought you made clearer in one of your comments vs. the diary itself is that this is not just about "framing." Indeed: framing is just one tool to use, one part of the equation.
* You are right: we must at least be aware of the tools in use. For those of us (including myself)who prefer to look through the lens of marketing vs. NLP, the swiftboating was basically a loathsome if disciplined example of an integrated marketing campaign. They had the band-aid stunt, TVC's, a "non-fiction" book complete with its own book tour, etc. Do naysayers to your diary believe that these activities were not co-ordinated by repub strategists? That would seem to be a hard position to support. Or do they believe that these techniques are so ineffective that they are not worthy of our comments? Again, I'd say that would be a hard position to support. An argument was made that these are rhetorical tools vs. NLP (or NAC). I'd say that the way we define this is the least of our concerns.
* There is nothing sleazy about having a strong communication strategy. Educators and activists as well as successful politicans understand this, and there's just nothing underhanded about it. The confusion comes when underhanded people mis-use these tools, which leads some to an instinctive "if we use those tools, we'll be just like them" reaction. This is far from the truth. Can we all agree that there are successful campaign ads and there are unsuccessful ones? That there are ways of expressing a position or a vision which are more persuasive than others? Once we've agreed on these basics, it's not much of a stretch to accept that these same basic principles are also in effect in non-advertising communications.
* This diary as I understand it is fully supportive of adherence to the truth. That's why it's all the more frustrating to see how some repubs who clearly are trying to block a real discussion of important issues are able to win people over to their side via use of these tools. How else to explain how people vote for candidates whose entire platform would be disadvantageous to them? The point is that if undecided voters repeatedly see a message from the other side which, although misleading, is easy to visualize and emotionally accept, whereas from our side they are presented with an honest, good faith position which is expressed without key visuals, imagery, emotion, consistency, continuity, or other simple communications tools, we are not really taking full responsibility for winning these voters and winning elections. What's so underhanded about trying to make people feel, visualize, and empathize with our positions?
* A final note to the diarist: your points are important and in general well made. I'd advise to stay away from the "walking on coals" motif, and reduce the Tony Robbins emphasis. I've walked on coals myself without any mental preparation at all (tourist at a Japanese temple during a festival), and they felt lukewarm. Tony Robbins is a bit of a stereotype who himself seems to trigger a gag reflex among many (myself included). Your basic points are strong enough.
by businessdem on Mon Apr 23, 2007 at 12:38:50 AM PDT
A diary last night came and went. It was called "We won the war -- and lost the peace", authored by Roadette, and the discussion was about the common struggles we all have to frame this Iraq thingamjig -- War, Occupation, We've Lost It, We Can't Win It, It Never Was a War, It was a Pre-emptive Invasion to Take Out Saddam, etc. It's a very important dialogue. But we're not winning it. And, unfortunately, Soft Harry doesn't help when he applies language unskillfully, without deep knowledge of all that gets triggered with it... and then, worst of all, he gets called out, modifies what he said, and looks like the total wimp that he really isn't -- yet sounds like.
As Howard Dean said so often: We can do better.
I'll tell you one way how. But it requires a whole curriculum.
Roadette asked me to explain a series of my comments re my suggested usage of "Arab Civil War" as a better frame, because it instantly creates a visceral reaction from an American "what are we doing there?" But that specific frame is not the subject of this diary. This is a macro subject about the art & science of influence messaging.
Within that diary, the diary author asked me some questions about what I meant by "neuro-associative conditioning" and how could she find out more about it. This blog entry is my answer to her. Please excuse me if it's a little rough. I wrote it on the fly -- and it went down several tributaries before I completed my thoughts. I'd rather publish it here and see if it draws any discussion, rather than re-writing it, editing it, presenting it as some mini White Paper. Thank you.
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I haven't looked but I imagine Wikipedia would have a write-up of it, and it could be a starting point if you wanted to explore further.
These are the more formal terms to search for:
NLP
or
Neuro-linguistic Programming
It's a specialty field that's been around since I don't know, the 60's maybe, or maybe the 50's i don't recall at moment -- and there ARE people who refuse to call it an actual science. I'm not going to argue for or against that issue. Because after doing some formal study of it many years back, while coincidentally working in advertising, I saw how they all lined up perfectly.
2nd citation to explore, but with warning (!). Like in most fields that are a bit obscure, there are always practitioners who come along and re-package the whole thing, modify it a bit and then trademark their version of it, that's exactly what happened here:
Maybe you've heard of personal-development guru Tony Robbins (Anthony Robbins)? He built an industry off of his re-packaging... and to be fair, he did a good job of it. He made the whole concept and application of it all way more accessible to those interested in the tools & techniques... And as a result of his true expertise, he became a consultant to the Stars, in addition to building and running his highly profitable business.
Bill Clinton worked with him -- and I have no doubt this is how Bill combined his natural charisma with some further tools to help influence people, generally in a good way.
Many major athletes have been his clients, and, conversely, this is a field where NLP is applied very frequently. So people maintain focus and don't choke under presuure.
After years of success with several audio tape series, Tony Robbins took his show on the road, live, in very dramatic Firewalk Weekends -- where he instructed huge audiences how to learn mind over matter techniques to enable them to walk across 50-feet or so of hot burning coals, and not get burned. I know because I did one of these, and I'll be damned -- it worked. The doing of it wasn't the whole point of the weekend training, but it was bizarre to see 300-500 people successfully walking over hot coals and burning embers.
He's a very smart and shrewd guy, on top of his game, he's not just feeding snake oil or lines of bullshit. But whenever you turn these kinds of things into an industry, that comes with a slime factor. The guy is known for masterful marketing -- whereby you learn the level 1 secrets -- and it really is pretty powerful. Then they market to you that "if you REALLY want to absorb this stuff and put it into action, you need to go to a live workshop." (I stopped after that; it was more than adequate).
But no, they're not done. THEN, if you really REALLY want to take it to the next level, you can do a series of seminars... And for the cream of the crop, for those who absolutely want to take it all the way for maximum benefit? ... for you? There's Mastery University. Where you fly to some exotic island like Maui, and there they assemble an all-start team of headliners to coach you in various aspects of life, while you "reinforce" all of that with unforgettable experiences, like Swimming With The Dolphins (TM) ... (i jest about the trademark, but for all i know there is a comparable phrase that's been trademarked)
Once you are on their mailing list, you can almost forget about getting off of it! So, years ago I remember receiving marketing crap about a Mastery University event -- with headliner Norman Schwartzcoff (sorry, i know that's wrong spelling) ... But that's the whole idea. I wouldn't be surprised if people like Colin Powell have participated in other events of that kind.
The RIGHT has been fully conversant in these techniques and tools for decades. And this is why they kick our asses routinely in the media wars, and political TV ads. Swiftboating comes DIRECTLY from these understandings and application of tools of influence messaging.
The thing is -- this stuff truly is like nuclear energy -- it can be used for "good" -- as in improving your golf game so you can go to the Masters -- or, more significantly, reconditioning a broken personality or low/no self-esteem or recovering from a childhood abuse, or other trauma that's scarred a person's ability to get past those events and situations...
And then there's the bad, as in learning how to manipulate people -- and condition a mass audience.
Robbins called his spinoff, more accessible version of NLP, "NAC" -- so he could trademark that name, and to some extent, that process. "NAC" stands for "Neuro-associative conditioning" -- and I actually agree with Robbins that it is a far more accurate name for the process, because, he claimed, the word "programming" was deceiving. It gave the impression that you could "set it and forget it". Not so, he claims. It must be conditioned with tremendous repetition, in order for it to continue working.
The best analogy he uses -- which is now technologically obsolete, so who knows what he uses now -- is this:
We as humans respond to stimuli in a variety of ways. Some are memorable, others fleeting. But the way to keep a response predictable, is to install an emotional association with that stimulus.
Let's say you want to take the word "liberal" -- and absolutely pollute it so that it ALWAYS, forever after, will trigger the phrase "tax and spend liberal",. and further, will trigger all sorts of negative and repellent feelings. That's their goal. And the GOP does it all the time, with every phrase they concoct in their think tanks:
Flip-flopper
Cut and run
emboldening the enemy
we're turning the corner
Basically, every single phrase that The Daily Show has compiled clips of in an endless series of GOP Talking Head repetition? ALL from thinktanks using the basis of NLP to trigger associations in you.
The key to "NLP" and its many cousins is that emotions are far more powerful and influential than logic or facts or rational debate or even science. The GOP has known this for decades -- whereas it took decades until in 2004 George Lakoff was able to pound it through Democrats' thick heads that the very use of logic and reasoning in the REASON we lose, the reason we can't convince the other side. It's exactly the WRONG tool to be using if you want to influence, or open a mind.
Anyway, in order to trigger a predictable response -- in the case of GOP -- to associate everything Democratic as weak and anti-American and tax & spend, etc etc ad nauseum -- and conversely to trigger feelings that GOP is strong and courageous and TOUGH and they won't yield to opinion polls -- see, they are PRINCIPLED, unlike those lying Democrats who will say anything just to Bash Bush... and so on...
So, (1) predictable stimulus -- to trigger the (2) conditioned response. (3) The INSTALLATION period of planting those visual, audio, and emotional associations in your head and heart and gut through (4) CONSTANT REPETITION (get the picture?).
But that's just the beginning!
Suppose you could take that whole process and assign it a shortcut, say like < F 10 > on your computer, to save a process you use routinely. Same thing here.
After you've installed -- and then conditioned with repetition -- the desired stimulus-response pair, then after a while, you can abbreviate it all with just the trigger-words, WITHOUT, then, the accompanying emotional and visual associations you had to use to PLANT those reactions.
Hannity has it down, and is a master of use of the trigger words. So is O'Reilly, with his "culture warrior" and "war on Christmas" and "media elite" and "Hollywood liberals" and on and on, it's just endless at this point. They have so polluted the water supply that the lake is filled to the brim with all these memes swimming around -- it's impossible NOT to bump into them every day in life. They are so thoroughly pervasive.
None of this is haphazard or accidental. It is all planned and orchestrated fully. And as I say all the time here, OUR SIDE is so untrained in all of this. This is why Harry Reid is so terrible at this stuff.
See, he thinks, as do most beginners, that it's the "magic words" that the GOP has identified. NO. They for sure find the optimal words, but the words are meaningless unless they are accompanies by massive installation process of visual and audio and emotional associations. And it MATTERS how you say the words.
Harry, bless his heart, is so clued out on this, that he "got" the concept of "Culture of Corruption" -- which is one of the first potentially effective competitors OUR SIDE has developed... along with Rubber-Stamp-Republicans -- both excellent trigger phrases!... But Harry thought, and still thinks, because he has not been trained otherwise, that you just start using the phrase and it starts to stick. WRONG.
They didn't VISUALLY and emotionally paint the picture of what that looks like, what it feels like, how corruption is REPULSIVE... Nope, he just used the word. And in so many speeches and TV photo ops, he used his, ironically, very INEFFECTIVE "speak softly and carry a big stick" voice, which people to this day constantly believe is his strength. It's not. It it to US. we like to hear it, because it sounds like Dirty Harry -- doesn't have to raise his voice to get his deep consequences meaning across.
Sorry, but that "effect" was only created after we SAW, time and again, how Dirty Harry ACTS when you cross him, or violate the line he told you not to cross -- you friggin get blown away and you're dead. THAT's what enables Dirty Harry to evoke that kind of power with his "soft inaudible" voice. Not so with "Soft Harry Reid". because he has never ever ever demonstrated the real consequences of crossing his lines.
Thus he is seen as a joke, who is hailed as a strong leader on our side -- yet THEY see a pathetic wimp who tries to make strong statements "Mr. President, the Iraq War is lost" ---- but then immediately upon scorn and criticism from the Right Wing Noise machine, Wimp Harry always backs off and refines what he said. Picture Dirty Harry saying
"Well, come to think of it, when I said "Go ahead, make my day", what i really meant was IF you try it, you better be prepared for the consequences which MAY come, and you really don't want to take that chance, do ya? Well do ya?
And then if the bad guy says
"YEAH, I do, Wimp Harry, I do want to take that chance. I think you're full of shit and will back down!"
and then Harry says
"Well, go ahead but I can't tell you yes or no whether you'll actually make my day because making one's day could mean any number of things".
Jesus Christ, the villain would shoot Dirty Harry dead on the spot, which is what the Right does to Wimp Harry all the time!
MORAL: The PHRASES only have meaning and power when (1) they are first installed -- and have many many associations accompanying the installation, and then (2) Delivered with the right emotion to convey that message and trigger the response you want that phrase to generate.
Harry, and I'm sorry to pick on him, has no training in this. So his soft-spoken non-emotional invokings of "Culture of Corruption" were always limp on arrival.
---
I just realized I never actually told you the analogy Robbins used to use, which is now obsolete technology.
It's the LP vinyl record. Every time you play it, when the needle hits the first groove, it then follows a complete pathway that has been carved into the vinyl, such that you can be assured that when you start that record, the needle will travel down the pathways and produce the same response every time.
Those are the neural pathways in our brains.
And here was something that really helped me understand this, and I credit Robbins with his analogy -- it makes something very complicated very simple to understand:
You can never erase a neural pathway that has been created. Emotional-stimuli which trigger entire complex responses in our bodies can never just be deprogrammed, or have the linkages broken. They're burned in -- which is why habits are hard to break. Once the needle hits the first groove of the record, if something doesn't intercede, you can be sure it will play all the way til the end, following the precut neural pathways.
The only way, he said, to get that record to be unplayable is to SCRATCH IT. That is, take a nail and at the first groove swipe a deep scratching arc across the grooves, one that is deeper than the grooves themselves.
It instantly becomes clear for anyone who's ever played an LP record that had scratches. The needle encounters the scratch-groove, and follows it, derailing it from the playing of the music that is still burned into that record. The grooves didn't go away... they just had a stronger neural pathway cut across them that diverted the stimulus response passage, creating a NEW RESPONSE.
That's the whole goal of NLP, or NAC -- create a different response to the stimulus. And that can be used for GOOD or for bad, the brain doesn't care at all.
---
hope this was helpful. And I wrote all of this because you took the time to ask. I've posted about this stuff for years here, at Smirking Chimp, at Gilliard's old forums in 2000-2001, many many places. And very rarely does anyone pay attention at all -- because these are complex and long and instructional.
So, since you asked, I wanted to keep going to give you a mile high view of it all. It's so important that I have recommended before that the DNC fund a Media Training Program which has a full year curriculum whereby our leaders can get ongoing instruction and practice in how to DERAIL the GOP memes -- and how to cut our own pathways that carry with them very powerful emotional associations that resonate with the American public. That's how to push policy, and that's how to win elections :)