There’s a by now well-proven fact that “bad is stronger than good” – it’s been proven in all kinds of ways, like the fact that you need five good interactions for every bad interaction in order to prevent a divorce, and much other research. It’s been very well demonstrated in politics in several major ways:
* Negative campaigning – much much more effective than positive campaigning (we’ll get to some examples why in a bit)
* The right wing political positioning. Note that it’s all in terms of negatives, at least the main positions – “taxes are bad”, “government is bad.” The main message is a bad message, even if it’s backed up, rhetorically, with good messages – “lower taxes create jobs” or whatever it might be.
* The left wing political position – almost always in terms of good – “we need higher taxes in order to pay for things that are good for you,” “the Jobs Bill is good for jobs.”
* And of course the news industry. There is no good news in the news industry – it doesn’t sell, no one reads or watches it! If there’s no bad news today, we’re not going to talk about the good news of the day, we’re going to talk about the anniversary of the last bad news. (I would love to credit the person who gave me that line, but I don’t remember who it was!)
So, what can we learn from this? Especially if we actually want to have a positive political position in general? Read on...
Some Examples
First, our favorite example of a great positioning statement – “Taxes are bad.” Let’s try simply turning that around – “Taxes are good.” Not very compelling is it? Sounds kind of stupid, actually. And that illustrates the problem perfectly. What can we do instead? Well, how can we turn this good into a bad? That is, how can we say something good in a way that makes it sound like we’re against something?
Well, the opposite of taxes is what? Not easy to say, so it’s not going to work to say “[The opposite of taxes] are bad.” (Again, the right wing wins!) But we can do something. What do lower taxes cause? Worse services, for one. Who cares about that? Everyone. So we can say something like “Lower taxes cause crime.” That’s not exactly true, but it’s as true as the “taxes are bad” statement for sure. Let’s run with it, see where we end up. Remember, truth is not our highest cause, “directionally true” is more what we’re going for. (Hold your guns! I'll explain "directionally true" in a future diary coming soon - it's a critically important point.)
So, “Lower taxes cause crime.” What if someone asks you to defend that statement? It’s pretty easy – “Who pays for your police force, the FBI, border patrol? It’s your taxes that pay for that. You cut taxes, you have to cut those guys. Is that what you want?”
Or, “Lower taxes cause lost jobs.” What’s that one about? “When we lower taxes, the first to suffer is not the rich, but the kids, the ones in school whose teachers are laid off, who don’t get textbooks, and who will end up losing their jobs to kids in China or India.”
The point is that, while these positions are a little extreme, they have the great benefit of being a) about bad news, and b) being directionally true. And this kind of thing can be applied to all kinds of political arguments.
Bad Is Stronger Than Good Illustrated By Occupy Wall Street
(This section is slightly historical at this point - the original draft was from several months ago.)
There are two competing examples of Bad is stronger than Good showing up at OWS. The first is the overall focus of the movement on the 99% and the 1%. The 1% is “bad” – that’s a central tenet. In fact, it’s not so much that they are bad, but that the system is corrupt that allows the 1% to amass so much wealth, while the 99% suffer. So there are two bads here – the system that led to the 1%, and the plight of the 99% – that’s “news” in the sense that it’s bad news. At any time the media can run a story on “This person is a recent college graduate and cannot get a job though he/she has been looking non-stop for six months, eight months, a year, and has had to finally go to work flipping burgers.” (Or whatever the story is – the point is that stories like that, in America, are news – that’s not supposed to happen here.)
And the story of the multi-millionaire who foolishly put gold-plated bathroom fixtures in the six bathrooms of his/her Manhattan penthouse is also always a story.
The images of old ladies being pepper-sprayed, the police hauling off peaceful protesters from Zuccotti Park, and Iraq veterans being sent to the hospital by the police – also all Bad, and all serving to legitimize OWS.
But there’s another side of Bad being stronger than Good at OWS. Back in October, there was an Occupy-related march in San Francisco, and one of the marchers was a completely naked man. I have no intrinsic problems with a naked man, but some people do, and they consider it bad. For those people, the bad-ness of a naked man at an OWS event can completely overwhelm the 1%-99% *bad-ness.” And that means that being naked at OWS is a tactical mistake, if you support OWS. BTW, nakedness is a bigger bad than 1%-99%, and it might be bigger than pepper-spraying an old lady, if the old lady was, for example, cursing at police.