This article was originally published by George Lakoff of the
Rockridge Institute on Tuesday February 14, 2006. An
introduction to framing and its uses in politics. Carry out the
following directive: Don’t think of an elephant! It is, of
course, a directive that cannot be carried out — and that is the
point. In order to purposefully not think of an elephant, you
have to think of an elephant. There are four morals. Moral 1.
Every word evokes a frame. A frame is a conceptual structure
used in thinking. The word elephant evokes a frame with an image
of an elephant and certain knowledge: an elephant is a large
animal (a mammal) with large floppy ears, a trunk that functions
like both a nose and a hand, large stump-like legs, and so on.
Moral 2: Words defined within a frame evoke the frame. The word
trunk, as in the sentence “Sam picked up the peanut with his
trunk,” evokes the Elephant frame and suggests that “Sam” is the
name of an elephant. Moral 3: Negating a frame evokes the frame.
Moral 4: Evoking a frame re