Label Makers
There’s nothing more important in retailing than labeling. A catchy name or logo or slogan can move products off the shelves and create an identity that can imbed a product into the public’s consciousness. The same is true in the world of politics, and that’s why candidates and causes and organizations spend so much time and effort trying to label themselves and, perhaps even more importantly, others. If these efforts work well, the new label spreads into the society as a whole, often abetted by the media echo chamber.
When Ronald Reagan proposed funding for research on a space-based laser shield against nuclear weapons, he called it the Strategic Defense Initiative. Opponents who were already furious with Reagan’s defense buildup, and who feared an escalating arms race, began referring to SDI as Star Wars, an obvious attempt to ridicule the idea as nothing more than something a delusional president might see in a science fiction film. The ploy worked. Soon, the term Star Wars became the common reference to the initiative.
More recently, environmentalists found they were having a tough time scaring people when using the term global warming, in part because the earth wasn’t cooperating by adhering to their computer models. As a result, they simply relabeled the issue as climate change, and the press went along. And it’s a much more effective label, because how can you argue that the climate isn't changing? They also created a label for those who looked skeptically on their theories: deniers. You were not an opponent or a skeptic; you were a denier. A denier, you see, refuses to believe what's right before his eyes. As a bonus, it managed to equate climate change deniers with Holocaust deniers. A labeling twofer!
The Left has also had some success with a similar kind of labeling for those who question President Obama’s citizenship. They have become birthers. The effort to change Tea Party members to teabaggers has been somewhat less successful in the mass media because of the vulgarity of the reference. It may get a smirk out of Anderson Cooper, but a lot of editors seem uncomfortable with the term.
Both sides on the abortion issue have been fighting labeling wars for years. Anti-abortionists prefer pro-lifers, while the pro-abortion faction prefers pro-choice. In both cases, the goal is to cast the most positive light on yourselves and the most negative on others. The press is all over the place on this one, but most news outlets appear to have settled on pro-life and pro-choice.
On the Right, the effort to replace Democratic Party with Democrat Party has had only limited success, but there have been some labeling triumphs, most notably with the term Obamacare, which has made its way into the modern lexicon. It was obviously designed to paint the whole health care reform package as the creation of one megalomaniac. Like all of these naming wars, one side would call it dirty pool, I suppose, while the other would simply call it “truth in labeling.”
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Comments:
Aug '10
Re: Label Makers
Well stated, Pat. It's Classic Saul Alinsky, from his book Rules For Radicals. His Marxism was adjusted for the 20th Century and modern media. For him there is no such thing as truth. All things are "narratives" and "perceptions" Under Chapter 7, Tactics, he writes:
"13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict tactics there are certain... universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and 'frozen.'... When your 'freeze the target,' you disregard these [rational but distracting] arguments.... Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your attack, all the 'others' come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible by their support of the target... One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other."
Alinsky dedicated this book to the Devil: “Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history... the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer."
Feb '11
Re: Label Makers
"They are trying to kill Big Bird" is not inherently better than "Keep Big Bird's claws out of my pocket." The difference is one is being used and one isn't.
May '10
Re: Label Makers
Obamacare is indeed a political label, but so is the official name: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Don't forget "homophobia" and "Islamophobia". Blatant ad hominem like immediately tags the speaker as unreasonable and not worth debating.
Re: Label Makers
Pat Sajak:
The effort to change Tea Party members to [expletive deleted] has been somewhat less successful in the mass media because of the vulgarity of the reference. It may get a smirk out of Anderson Cooper, but a lot of editors seem uncomfortable with the term.
I'm uncomfortable with the left's efforts to use sexually perverted language to label people or policy items they dislike. The examples abound, but because I find them unseemly, I shall refrain from printing them all.
Mar '11
Re: Label Makers
Gosh. Do you think we could rebrand Income Redistribution and Social Justice with something short and snappy like...........Theft ?
May '10
Re: Label Makers
The move to stop calling things "evil" when they are has been a real triumph for the other side.
Jun '10
Re: Label Makers
Aaron highlights a related problem: the grossly misleading names given to congressional bills. A more accurate name for Obamacare would be: "The Rationing, Patient Insecurity, and Unaffordable Care Act."
Or TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which makes it sound like a program designed to prescribe Prozak for assets with psychological problems. A better, more accurate name, would be "The Giving Money to Bankrupt Car Companies and Screwing Their Bondholders Act."
Edited on April 11, 2011 at 7:31pmDec '10
Re: Label Makers
I'm uncomfortable with the left's efforts to use sexually perverted language to label people or policy items they dislike. The examples abound, but because I find them unseemly, I shall refrain from printing them all. --- Geez Diane. You ACTUALLY keep a list? Teasing of course...!
I find it interesting that the left continually goes for the profane and edgy humor to deride something they are against. So much for "progressive values"
Nov '10
Re: Label Makers
Indeed. The misuse of the root "-phobia" has been one of my biggest pet peeves for quite some time now. By definition, a "phobia" is an irrational fear which is not to be taken seriously by the non-mentally ill. The clear implication is that the homophobe's concerns about the unforeseen consequences of redefining the concept of "family" is no more worthy of consideration than the agoraphobe's insistence that there are zombies waiting outside the door.
Mar '11
Re: Label Makers
My one-man assault on the term "teabagger" to refer to tea partiers involves immediately calling the person a vulgar sex term that involves the symbol of the Democrat party. By this I mean, they say something like "Those stupid teabaggers are just after Obama 'cause he's black." to which I reply, "It's not about race. Obama and all the other [expletive deleted]s are spending this country into the grave." Nine times out of ten they react in disgust and horror to my term and become very annoyed when I point out that they started the vulgar name calling bit. They often bring out the old canard of "Well, if they didn't want to be called teabaggers then they shouldn't have called themselves that!" Depending on how much I like the person I either ask if the teapartiers could have called themselves anything without the media perverting it or I make up a vulgar perversion of their own name and say if their parents didn't want someone calling you that, they shouldn't have named you X. They usually stop annoying me at this point.
Edited on April 11, 2011 at 9:35pmMar '11
Re: Label Makers
The term "teabagger" was used in a "Letter to the Editor" in our diocesan newspaper, as well as in an editorial retort to said letter. After a deluge of irate missives, the editor denied any knowledge of such acts and granted a hilarious mea culpa.
Sep '10
Re: Label Makers
Sep '10
Re: Label Makers
I sometimes wonder why the right lets the left get away with the term "pro-choice." "Pro-abortion" is the more accurate term while "baby killers" would be the perjorative term.
Why do we on the right let the left frame the debate most of the time? Last week we heard from people like (up)Chuck Schumer talk about "women's health issues" when what he was really talking about was abortion. Isn't it time we started calling them out? Perhaps we should use the perjorative term more often, so that the compromise would be the more accurate one.
Jul '10
Re: Label Makers
So Right, Standfast. There isn't a more "anti-choice" group of people than "pro-abortionists," because their "choice" is always abortion.
Jul '10
Re: Label Makers
I take that back. I'm "anti-choice" too, and rather vehement about it.
Mar '11
Re: Label Makers
Ditto River -- Well said, Pat. Crucial ground can indeed be won or lost over the choice of terminology. The words we use define the battleground and frame the debate -- a fact our ideological opponents know well and use effectively to great advantage, including all the tiresome browbeating about "phobias" that Aaron and Charles refer to. I think the term "eleutherophobic" is worthy of growing legs. It seems an apt characterization of those who seek central economic planning, social engineering, and promises of security over risk and the uncertain, animating contest of Liberty. I also don't mind reminding folks on the left that they *are* "The Man" now. And they're harsing my libertarian mellow big time.
Edited on April 12, 2011 at 7:29amMar '11
Re: Label Makers
Some big-ticket items I overlooked: Like Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell (greatly elevating myself by the comparison -- neat trick, huh?), I'm loath to cede the term "liberal", which ought to describe devotion to the idea of a permissive society that champions individual freedom of action, even though I suspect getting that term back is probably a lost cause. Then there's "progressive", the greatest political label coup I'm aware of. By implication, the rest of us are against *progress*, and we've lost the battle of ideas before it's even entered the realm of substance. An archaic meaning of "sinister" is "left-handed" or "on the left side" (the opposite of "dexter"). Would it be fair game to revive the word in reference to those on the political left? e.g. "the sinister George Soros". Try it in a sentence. You'll like it.
Mar '11
Re: Label Makers
How do others feel about the label "conservative", which the left has fairly successfully branded as meaning "reflexively opposed to anything new"? (I know that's what I foolishly believed the right was about, back when I was on the left.) I've grown somewhat comfortable with the term, for the good company I've found it puts me in, but I occasionally wonder about the wisdom of embracing it, for the vey reasons that Pat's post is concerned with. What beat us in 2008, after all? A blank-slate candidate (as far as a remarkably un-inquisitive press was concerned) and a strategy that positioned vaguely specified "Change" against an implicit straw-man alternative of stasis. Is "conservative" really an apt label for a philosophy that encourages diverse, decentralized local problem-solving and embraces the most adaptive, dynamic, innovation-friendly economic system the world has known? Is there hope for a better term of our own choosing to gain purchase? What would it be?
Nov '10
Re: Label Makers
The problem with the "conservative" label is that it describes a temperament rather than an ideology. A conservative American has very little in common with a conservative Pakistani, or a conservative Chinese, or even a conservative Frenchman (remember Jacques Chirac was considered a center-right politician.) Part of the problem the American right is having with David Cameron and co. is that we tend to underestimate just how un-conservative Lady Thatcher is from the British perspective.