In a piece on the Obama team’s approach to the economy, The New York Times noted that, “The change in emphasis [from stimulus to recovery] reflects a realization that words matter.”
As The Times put it:
Architects of the $700 billion Treasury Department program concluded too late that something unabashedly promoted as a Wall Street “bailout” conjured images of well-heeled suspects sprung from jail or water feverishly tossed from a rapidly filling boat. By the time officials tried to rebrand it as a Wall Street “rescue,” the bailout’s reputation was sunk.
And “stimulus” — a buzzword from earlier this year — combines bureaucratic wonkiness with the concept of shock therapy, Democrats worried.
But “economic recovery,” they figured, somehow sounds more substantial and optimistic — We can lick this thing — and stirs thoughts of successful New Deal initiatives.
That such is the case should not be a surprise (it is something that students in SMPA 150, section 10 at George Washington University have already gone over in some detail). Metaphors help guide thought, they tell us the “thisness” and “thatness” of a thing. As Kenneth Burke wrote, and as I’ve often quoted in this space, all language is necessarily persuasive because all language is necessarily a selection, reflection and deflection of reality.
The misstep comes from incoming White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel:
“ ‘Stimulus’ is Washington talk, and ‘economic recovery’ is how the American people think of it,” said Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff for the incoming White House team.
Emanuel makes a predictable error. Most of us think we get something that fools others (the third person effect for those keeping score at home); for example we say that we aren’t effected by slick political ads but our less clever neighbors are. This claim, while it may make us feel better about ourselves, may not be accurate. Emanuel is arguing that clever Washington insiders like him know the truth of the situation and react to it objectively and clearly, but the poor saps who don’t subscribe to The National Journal and have the misfortune of living outside the beltway, are fooled by language. As one of those insiders, I would like to agree with Emanuel. But I can’t. Inside the beltway and out, we are all bears of little brains.
As Mark Schlesinger and Richard R. Lau write, “elites and the public share a common understanding of policy metaphors.” (“The Meaning and Measure of Policy Metaphors” The American Political Science Review vol. 94 no 3 Sept. 2000). Schlesinger and Lau examined health care policy metaphors and found that not only does the general public form “coherent assessments of policy options” but that these assessments – and the metaphors that shape them – are shared by policy elites as well. In other words, when it comes to the words of the policy, Emanuel is just as guided as the rest of us.
Thanks to Andrew Elwell of the aforementioned GW class for brining this article to my attention.
