Lakoff via Burke: Hillary, Bernie, and the Narrative Challenge to the Metaphor
Stephen Morrison, South Texas College
Abstract
This paper situates Lakoff’s metaphoric theory of political affiliation within Burke’s classification of poetic forms, and finds that Lakoff’s strict father and nurturant parent worldviews align with Burke’s tragic and comic forms. However, applying this to the 2016 Democratic debates complicates Lakoff’s view of political identity, and suggests that such identities are still better understood through the full range of Burkean identification, in which narrative and metaphor play important, but not singular, roles.
Built on a substantial foundation of scholarly articles and books, six popular books with at least one selling more than half a million copies, numerous media interviews, and two organizations offering specific application of his ideas, George Lakoff’s argument that political ideology is rooted in differing conceptions of the Nation-as-Family metaphor is extensively cited in academic research and also widely known outside of academia (Lakoff, “New Book”). The left, he argues, sees the nation as a nurturant parent, while the right sees it as a strict father. As a consequence, partisans on each side support institutions and policies that align with their understanding of the proper role of government.
While research on metaphor remains the foundation of his academic scholarship, his more recent work focuses on the persuasive role of framing in political communication. Such framing, he asserts, has the ability to alter the metaphor through which an audience views the political world, which in turn drives this audience to adopt the ideological perspective associated with that metaphor, and so persuades even strong partisans. Lakoff discusses a range of framing techniques, but states that one of the most effective forms is narrative (The Political Mind). However, he does not offer a systematic account of how narrative forms or formal elements align with metaphoric worldviews and so drive such framing, nor does he integrate his ideas into the extensive rhetorical scholarship on narrative.
This paper begins to address these issues by situating Lakoff’s discussion of metaphoric worldviews within Burkean scholarship. It can be seen that Lakoff’s liberal nurturant parent view of the Nation-as-Family aligns with key dramatistic elements of Burke’s poetic form of comedy, while the conservative strict father worldview aligns with Burke’s tragic (or possibly melodramatic) form (ATH). This alignment permits the use of Burke’s more detailed work on forms to supplement Lakoff’s discussion of framing. The greater “resolution” of this approach broadens potential subjects of analysis: while Lakoff focuses on major distinctions between the political left and right, a more detailed dramatistic formal analysis permits an examination of framing by competing candidates within a single political community.
In the following sections, I first situate Lakoff’s discussion of Íthe primary metaphoric worldviews of the left and the right within a dramatistic frame, building from Appel’s analysis of elements of Burkean poetic forms. Next, I apply this analytical frame to the 2015–2016 Democratic primary debates between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, which offer an interesting challenge to Lakoff’s view of framing and partisan identity insofar as they feature two candidates with broadly shared policies (at least as contrasted with their Republican opposition) and general agreement on the communities with whom—and against whom—they identify. Despite this, the nature of any primary contest demands that candidates frame their policies—and indeed themselves—in a way that differentiates them from others in the field. In other words, while the primary created a rhetorical situation that would seem to require the candidates to adopt contrasting narrative frames, Lakoff would suggest their similar policy positions should arise from similar framing that activates the same nurturant parent view of the Nation-as-Family metaphor.
The results of this analysis complicate the reductive clarity of Lakoff’s argument. What will be seen is that these narrative frames, and the metaphoric worldview with which they are associated, do not merely divide left from right, as Lakoff suggests, but also divide factions within political communities. This challenges Lakoff’s view of the relationship between narrative surface frames, metaphorical worldview, and ideological identity, and ultimately suggests political affiliation is still better understood through the full range and complexity of Burkean identification, in which both narrative and metaphor play important—but not singular—roles.
A Burkean Approach to Metaphor
Lakoff began his approach to political identity with an attempt to find an underlying coherence behind the seemingly unrelated policy positions of the political left and right (Moral Politics 25). He found this coherence in metaphor, arguing that different conceptions of the Nation-as-Family metaphor lead to differing prioritizations of the approximately two-dozen “foundational metaphors” that are possessed by everyone, rooted in the physical experience of the world, and underlie all morality (“Metaphor, Morality, and Politics” 184). The left, he argues, sees government’s role in this family primarily as that of a nurturant parent, while the right sees it as that of a strict father. These, he further suggests, are unconscious worldviews, “deep frames” as he calls them, and operate in a schematic fashion (Moral Politics 36).
However, Lakoff later revised this basic idea, presenting a role for persuasion through framing. Most people, he argues, have both strict father and nurturant parent worldviews, and though they may favor one, they understand and sympathize with both (Thinking Points 14). For Lakoff, then, framing (via surface frames) is persuasive insofar as it activates the “deep frame” of metaphor and causes the audience to prioritize certain metaphorical worldviews over others (Don’t Think of an Elephant 20-21). This, he believes, leads the audience to an ideology logically derived from that metaphoric prioritization, and ultimately to the decision to align one’s self with the political party that supports policies aligned with that ideology.
Lakoff offers an example of such narrative framing in his discussion of the justifications offered to support the Iraq war, which he argues relied on two narratives adhering to the structure of fairy tales: “the self-defense story and the rescue story. In each story there is a hero, a crime, a victim, and a villain. In both stories the villain is inherently evil and irrational: The hero can’t reason with the villain; he has to fight him and defeat or kill him. In both, the victim must be innocent and beyond reproach” (71). Even in this brief passage several clear elements of Burke’s poetic forms can be seen: the emphasis on the “tragic (sometimes melodramatic) names of ‘villain’ and ‘hero’ [rather than] the comic names of ‘tricked’ and intelligent’” (ATH 4-5), the hierarchical organization of characters that justifies unequal power by claims of unequal worth (LSA 15), and perhaps most essentially, transcendence through the Freudian substitution of guilt displaced to a “perfected” enemy scapegoat (18).
For a more structured framework through which to view Lakoff, I turn to Appel’s dramatistic classification of Burke’s poetic forms. Writing in response to Schwarze’s discussion of the benefits of environmental melodrama, and specifically to the assertion that melodrama is a subset of Burke’s “factional tragedy,” Appel offers a dramatistic classification of tragedy, melodrama, burlesque, and comedy, ultimately arguing that melodrama merits its own category, distinct from tragedy. Below I include Appel’s classification scheme, organized into a table for clarity, and omitting the burlesque form, which is essentially unused by Clinton or Sanders.
Table 1 Appel’s Dramatistic Classification of Burke’s Poetic Forms |
|||
|
Tragedy |
Melodrama |
Comedy |
Morally Disordered Scene |
crimes and evils |
binary polarizations of good and evil |
mistakes or impediments |
Guilt-Obsessed Agent |
god-like mythic hero |
hero, but not so god-like |
competent leader |
Guilty Counteragents |
diabolical total enemies |
villains, but not devils |
mistake-prone klutzes |
Sacrificial Act |
severe punishment, permanent banishment, or death |
categorical defeat of opponents and their policies, in the legislature and at the polls, expressed in the idiom of moral outrage or offense, often on behalf of innocent victims |
slap-on-the-wrist instruction and correction, temporary social distance |
Redemptive Purposes and Means |
utopian goals and strategies, total salvation |
triumph of transcendentally |
imperfect improvement, or mere restoration of the status quo, better not best |
Source: Appel 191
A close reading of Lakoff within this context reveals that the strict father worldview aligns with Burke’s tragic or melodramatic forms, while the nurturant parent worldview aligns with the comic form.
Scene, Agents, and Counteragents in Lakoff
To examine the operation of these three elements in Lakoff it is first useful to return to Appel’s descriptions of the morally disordered scene, in which tragedy is characterized by “crimes and evils,” melodrama by a “binary polarization of good and evil,” and comedy by “mistakes or impediments” (191). I would suggest this phrasing indicates scene is best understood as the conflation of two sub-elements: stakes, and scene-agent ratio. Consider, in particular, the distinction between “crimes and evils” and “mistakes and impediments.” On one hand these differ in degree: an impediment connotes a problem—a scenic imbalance driving the narrative—that is significantly less dangerous than a crime or an evil. As such, tragic narratives are in part defined as having significantly higher stakes than comic narratives. However, the implications of these terms about agents and agency are much more important. Crime and evil both imply the existence of an active counteragent. An impediment, on the other hand, requires no active agent at all, and indeed is an agency-reducing term, implying that the driving problem of the narrative is either embedded in the scene or driven by some “mistake-prone klutz” (191). Consider, for example, the difference between an argument that inequality is driven by the tax system, and an argument that inequality is driven by billionaires influencing tax laws. The difference is not merely that the second seeks a more fundamental cause, but that the second offers an embodied cause—one “that has connotations of consciousness or purpose” (Burke, GM 14). We see then that Burkean tragedy and melodrama are primarily agent-driven forms in which the central problem of a given narrative is the result of deliberate activity by a villainous counteragent who is perhaps “diabolical,” or perhaps simply a villain who is not quite a devil, but either way is the cause of the narrative imbalance (Appel 191). Comedy, on the other hand, is often a primarily scenic form in which characters struggle with problems that are inherent in the situation or driven by accident and misunderstanding.
Evidence of this same distinction can be found in Lakoff, with his explanation of the conservative strict-father worldview aligning with the agent-driven forms of melodrama and tragedy, and the liberal nurturant parent worldview aligning with a scene-driven form of comedy. He argues that one consequence of the strict father view of the Nation-as-a-Family metaphor is that the metaphor with the highest priority is Moral Strength, in which “evil is reified as a force, either internal or external, that can make you… commit immoral acts. Thus, to remain upright, one must be strong enough to ‘stand up to evil’” (“Metaphor, Morality, and Politics” 184). Lakoff further divides this metaphor into two forms: courage, which is the strength to stand up to external evil, and self-control, which is concerned with internal evils (185). However, Lakoff’s subsequent discussion of Moral Essence suggests that for conservatives, internal conflict—associated with the struggle for self-control—is largely limited to children. By maturity, one’s essential character is set. Thus the behavior of adults does not define their morality, but rather reveals it. Good characters are not good because they behave well; they behave well because they are good. One inverse of this, of course, is that once a character’s essential goodness in known (as with strong partisans’ view of their group’s leaders), the goodness of their actions follows automatically and inevitably. Strict father adherents thus believe that adults live in a world of external conflict, struggling not with their own less-than-virtuous tendencies, but rather with outside enemies. They see a world in which problems are caused not by abstract circumstances or by otherwise decent people making poor choices, but by embodied external evil. Crime, for example, is not caused by poverty or lack of opportunity, or even by a single poor choice, but by criminals who are fundamentally criminal in nature. Brock et al. make a similar point, arguing that agent-driven narratives and images “permeate conservative discourse,” and underlie the anti-government ideology of the right (86-87).
In contrast, Lakoff’s description the nurturant parent worldview suggests a narrative that promotes the influence of the scene and diminishes the power of agents. Those who have such a view see a world in which we all struggle for goodness, and succeed largely as a result of our environment. Lakoff, for example, states that nurturing, questioning of others, and frank self-examination “are all seen as necessary for the development of a self-conscious and socially conscious person” (Moral Politics 111). More essentially, for the left, “the world must be as nurturant as possible and respond positively to nurturance” (112). This emphasis on the world—the scene—deemphasizes agency, as well as any moral judgment of a given act that might attach to the agent. Instead, it is one’s environment, manifest in the “support of and attachment to those who love and care about you,” that is to be judged (“Metaphor, Morality, and Politics” 197-198). Evil, in other words, is not an innate product of one’s character, but rather the consequence of interaction between agent and environment. Again, Brock et al. make a similar point, arguing that “liberals’ major rhetorical strategy argues from the situation or scene” (87). Or, as Lakoff states, “In the nurturant parent model, causation is sometimes direct and individual, but just as often it is systemic” (The Political Mind 188). Lakoff would therefore argue that the typical liberal position would be to suggest that society cannot merely condemn criminals, for example, without also examining the scene in which such criminals exist.
Sacrificial Act and Redemptive Purpose and Means in Lakoff
A consequence of the agent-driven nature of the tragic and melodramatic forms is that villains deserve literal, or at least functional, destruction. Their pure nature—the moral essence of villainy that defines them—means they must be killed, or at the very least driven from society, as they cannot be reformed. Additionally, the fact that the central disorder driving the narrative is itself a product of these villains means their removal must inevitably resolve the central problem. Thus the severe sacrificial act is inherently connected with “a perfected redemptive outcome: ‘Total salvation’” (Burke, LSA 21). On the other hand, the scene-driven nature of the comic form implies first that the sacrificial act must be limited or even nonexistent. After all, the worst villains in such narratives are merely guilty of mistakes, and in many cases the real “villain” is a lack of understanding, or even the innate structure of the society itself. Furthermore, because the problem is driven by the situation—which generally cannot easily be fixed—the redemptive purpose and means tends toward mere imperfect improvement.
Again, this same distinction can be seen in Lakoff. He describes strong-father narratives, which prioritize the metaphor of Moral Strength, as driven toward an absolutist approach to the resolution of a given conflict. “The metaphor of Moral Strength,” he writes, “sees the world in terms of a war of good against the forces of evil, which must be fought ruthlessly… Evil does not deserve respect, it deserves to be attacked!” (Moral Politics 74). Because the problem is caused by an embodied villain, the scene is rebalanced only by the defeat or destruction of the villain. Likewise, the destruction of the villain is synonymous with the resolution of the problem.
In contrast, the scene-driven nature of the nurturant parent worldview tends to result in narratives with resolutions that offer “imperfect improvement, or mere restoration of the status quo, better not best” (Appel 191). This is implied first by the tendency of such narratives to focus on empathy, which must be directed not at the villain but rather at the victim (Lakoff, The Political Mind). The natural response is thus to protect the victim rather than to attack the villain. Additionally, the possibility of moral growth and complexity means the left tends to see even villains as possessing redeeming characteristics. Most essentially, though, the nurturant parent narratives’ high scene-agent ratio means such imperfect solutions are simply the only ones available. Scenic problems are often beyond most human agency; they are vast, pervasive, complicated, and possessed of immense inertia. In some cases the only possible answer is to mitigate harm, offering aid to the afflicted. In other, more tractable cases, some limited progress may be made, but this generally requires the sustained effort of a large group, not simply the heroic actions of an individual. It is thus not surprising that the nurturant parent narratives of the left call on the resources of the government, which is, after all, the embodiment of collective agency. Even then, however, it is rare to see the left assert that government can eliminate a problem. Instead, it is seen as the tool that might enable some restructuring of the scene. Government can, for example, offer care and compensation to those victimized by corporate pollution, and can alter the regulatory environment that permits much of this bad behavior. However, even the fiercest advocates of strict regulations will freely admit they will not halt all such pollution. Still, this is sufficient; the left seeks improvement, not paradise.
Applying the Narrative Model
What we can see then is that Lakoff’s two primary metaphoric worldviews map onto Burke’s poetic forms. This allows us to use Burke’s more detailed discussion of formal elements to examine Lakoff’s notion of framing with considerably greater resolution. Framing, Lakoff argues, is effective insofar as it activates a specific metaphoric worldview. Therefore, should Lakoff’s model of ideological affiliation hold, we should see on the right a tendency to use elements of tragedy or melodrama, and on the left a tendency to use elements of comedy.
Broadly speaking—accounting for what Appel terms the “taxonomic confusion” of existing narrative studies (187)—research has tended to support this, noting in particular the frequent use of identifiably tragic or melodramatic forms by right wing individuals and media outlets. Lewis, in his study of Reagan’s use of narrative, concludes that throughout his presidency Reagan created a mythical narrative that aligns with tragedy or melodrama: “a story with great heroes…with great villains…and with a great theme” (316). Dobkin argues that in an attempt to gain audience commercial news networks end up promoting military action by structuring events into romantic quests, which she describes as “two-minute morality plays with heroes and villains and a tidy moral to be summed up at the end” (146). West and Carey note a mythical form in George W. Bush’s post 9/11 political narratives, which echoes Nossek and Berkowitz’s assertion that all news structures events into “mythic quests” (691). Simons describes Bush’s use of melodramatic narratives involving “two-dimensional characters,” representing a “valorized ‘us’ and a dehumanized or demonized ‘them’” (338). And Anker, in her study of Fox News programming, also notes the extensive use of melodrama in the reporting on the 9/11 attacks.
Once again, though, the more interesting application of this connection between Burke and Lakoff is in the added detail afforded by Burke’s deeper discussion of formal elements. The narratives of Trump and Clinton may be easily distinguishable and recognizably aligned with Lakoff’s theory, but can this same theory help us characterize the difference between factions within a single community? To address this I turn to an analysis of the nine Democratic primary debates from 2015 to 2016, noting all the instances in which a response by either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders uses formal elements aligned with Appel’s dramatistic classification. Again, the expectations per Lakoff are not entirely clear. To the extent that both Sanders and Clinton have the same general left-wing nurturant parent view of the role of government—regulate industry, promote equality, ensure opportunity—we would expect both candidates to use comic framing. However, as noted earlier, the nature of any contest demands distinction, if not outright dispute, and the animosity between the candidates and their supporters, which continues even to this day, suggests this distinction was present.
The most obvious path to such distinction would be for the candidates to cast themselves as the true comic hero, while undermining their opponent’s attempt to do likewise. Indeed, when discussing a wide range of topics, this “heated agreement” is precisely what we see. However, approximately half the time—and generally only when discussing a set of characters I collectively describe as “corporations, banks, or billionaires”—Sanders turns to the tragic or melodramatic forms associated with the conservative strict-father view of the Nation-as-Family. The implications of this are striking. Reckoning by way of Lakoff, we would expect such framing to undermine Sanders’ left-wing policy proposals. Instead, he consistently gained support throughout the primary, and though he ultimately lost the contest, his run was far more effective than anticipated.
In the sections that follow I first present the summary results of the analysis of all nine debates for each formal element, and then offer some brief examples to illustrate the narratives in practice.
Morally Disordered Scene
The presentation of problems as agent-driven or scene-driven is likely the most essential difference between the candidates. Indeed, it is so central that it may well be the seed from which larger distinctions in narrative form arise. Furthermore, because tragedy and melodrama share key characteristics that distinguish both from comedy, they are considered together here.
Table 2 |
||
Number of References |
Percentage |
|
Total |
202 |
|
Comic (scene driven) |
142 |
70% |
Tragic or Melodramatic (agent driven) |
60 |
30% |
Source: see note 1
Table 3 |
||
Number of References |
Percentage |
|
Total |
191 |
|
Comic (scene driven) |
74 |
39% |
Tragic or Melodramatic (agent driven) |
117 |
61% |
Source: see note 1
What is first notable is the near inversion of the results, with Clinton primarily relying on the lower-stakes scene-driven framing of the comic form, while Sanders more often relies on melodramatic or tragic framing. Consider, for example, Clinton’s opening statement in the first debate, in which she says she will focus on “ways to even the odds to help people have a chance to get ahead,” “make the tax system a fairer one,” and take “the opportunity posed by climate change to grow our economy” (“CNN Democratic Debate”). In each case the comic framing is clear: the stakes are moderate and the problems are a product of the scene rather than of some villainous counteragent. People can get ahead now, she implies, but she would simply like to improve their chances of doing so. The tax system is not fundamentally corrupt, but merely not sufficiently fair. And even climate change, a problem that might seem to involve innately melodramatic stakes, is described as an opportunity. Furthermore, in no case does she mention any villain causing the problems she seeks to address. As with taxes, “the system”—the morally disordered scene itself—is the problem.
Sanders, on the other hand, utilizes a melodramatic or tragic form far more frequently, framing situations as having extreme stakes in which classes of people, or even the nation itself, are in danger. So, in his opening statement at the same debate, Sanders begins by stating that the U.S. faces “a series of unprecedented crises.” He goes to note that “the middle class of this country for the last 40 years has been disappearing,” “our campaign finance system is corrupt and is undermining American democracy,” and that without action on climate change the planet itself will not be “habitable” for our children and grandchildren. Furthermore, the problems he identifies are much more often presented as the consequence of deliberate actions by villainous counteragents. The disappearance of the middle class and the loss of democracy are not merely terrible consequences of the system, as a comic frame might suggest, but are instead the result of “millionaires and billionaires [who] are pouring unbelievable sums of money into the political process in order to fund super PACs and to elect candidates who represent their interests, not the interests of working people.”
Agents
As with their scenic constructions, the candidates’ use of narrative agents has important differences, particularly in the specific characterizations of both themselves and of the United States. However, in one essential way—their characterization of government—a vital point of overlap remains.
Table 4 |
||
Number of references |
Percentage |
|
Total |
639 |
|
Clinton (on herself) |
375 |
59% |
Government |
121 |
19% |
Democrats or Obama or liberals |
72 |
11% |
U.S. |
31 |
5% |
Other nations or allies |
20 |
3% |
Other |
19 |
|
Source: see note 1
Table 5 |
||
Number of references |
Percentage |
|
Total |
562 |
|
Sanders (on himself) |
222 |
40% |
U.S. |
188 |
33% |
Government |
55 |
10% |
Democrats or Obama or liberals |
48 |
9% |
Average people or Sanders supporters |
29 |
5% |
Muslim nations |
11 |
2% |
Other |
9 |
|
Source: see note 1
Both candidates frequently present themselves as the hero of the story. However, the primary heroic characteristics they assign to themselves are quite distinct. For Clinton, the single largest category, comprising 31% of her 375 references, focuses on her experience and her plans: a typical “competent leader” of the comic form (Appel, 191). Indeed, the word “plan” and its associated variants appear a striking 88 times in Clinton’s responses, but a mere 8 times in Sanders’. On the other hand, and in what may at first seem at odds with the stereotypes of his campaign and its online supporters, Sanders actually makes fewer references to himself as the heroic agent than does Clinton. The most frequent category of such references, though, comprising 34% of the total, are those that attempt to define himself as strong, uncorrupted, and opposed to the key counteragent of corporations, banks, and billionaires. He describes himself as having the “courage to stand up to big money” (“The Brooklyn Democratic Debate”), and repeatedly notes that he doesn’t take donations from “Wall Street.” Thus Sanders, in a clear echo of Lakoff’s notions of Moral Essence and Moral Strength, foregrounds his virtue and power (as opposed to his competence), and does so by focusing not on what he will do, but rather on who he will defeat.
Equally interesting is the two candidates’ respective characterization of the United States as a heroic agent. Sanders’ 188 references to the U.S. are immediately striking when compared to Clinton’s mere 31 references. When examined more closely, though, what can be seen is that 163 of Sanders’ references focus on problems the nation faces such as the lack of universal health care, a flawed criminal justice system, poverty and inequality, and the cost of college. Certainly some potential for heroic agency remains in his narrative, as indicated by his other 25 references, but taken as a whole, what emerges is less the U.S. as a flawed hero, than as a profoundly damaged victim: an agent shorn of agency. No doubt this is in part driven by Sanders’ status as the outsider and candidate of change, but this in turn suggests the potential for synergy—or its inverse—between a campaign’s narratives and its relationship to the existing power structure.
Despite these distinctions, however, what is equally important is Clinton’s and Sanders’ shared focus on government, as this demonstrates that both possess a belief in regulation that stands in direct opposition to Lakoff’s strict father worldview, in which government is “the dragon to be slain and overcome,” and the hero one enlists for this task is “the entrepreneur, the individual who starts a business, which might turn out to be a multibillion-dollar corporation” (Whose Freedom? 151, 153). In other words, despite the key differences in narrative framing discussed in this paper, both Clinton and Sanders in many ways still fit the nurturant parent view of governance.
Counteragents
In examining the counteragents discussed by Clinton and Sanders, it became apparent that rather than constituting the self in contrast to a singular counteragent via identification by antithesis (Burke, “The Rhetorical Situation”), both candidates utilize a two-tiered hierarchy of counteragents, with a primary counteragent depicted as the cause of the scenic disorder, and a secondary counteragent—typically the political opposition—depicted as the enabler, permitting the actions of the primary counteragent due to foolishness, corruption, or weakness. In effect, such a construction melds the tragic and comic, permitting the perceived civility of the comic form to be married to the jingoistic lure of the tragic. The candidates’ secondary counteragents are quite similar, but the difference in their discussion of primary counteragents is significant and revealing.
Table 6 |
||
Number of references |
Percentage |
|
Total |
189 |
|
Corporations, banks, billionaires |
90 |
48% |
Other nations (various) |
42 |
22% |
Terrorists |
37 |
20% |
NRA or gun makers or guns |
20 |
11% |
Source: see note 1
Table 7 |
||
Number of references |
Percentage |
|
TOTAL |
364 |
|
Corporations, banks, billionaires |
288 |
79% |
Other nations |
28 |
8% |
Terrorists |
24 |
7% |
Other |
24 |
7% |
Source: see note 1
As can be seen, both candidates focus on the same general cast of counteragents, which again demonstrates their broadly similar community identity. That is, just as both candidates constitute their own political identities by identifying with a largely shared set of agents, so too do they define themselves through their opposition to a largely shared set of primary counteragents: big banks, rogue nations, terrorists, and so forth. However, Sanders makes nearly twice as many references to this group, and nearly 80% of these are to large businesses or extremely wealthy individuals, a conglomeration of actors I again classify under the heading “corporations, banks, and billionaires” (CBB). Sanders, in fact, makes approximately one hundred more references to this collective counteragent than Clinton does to all primary counteragents combined. Furthermore, 127 (44%) of Sanders’ references to CBB emphasize their power and control over government, which promotes their agency, 80 (28%) focus on their criminal or deceptive behavior, while 78 (27%) focus on the specific harms they inflict. In contrast, of Clinton’s 90 references to CBB, only 15 (17%) focus on their power or control, and 12 (13%) focus on their criminal or deceptive behavior, while 53 (59%) emphasize the specific harms they inflict. Thus Sanders’ primary emphasis is on the agency and villainy that underlie melodramatic or tragic narratives, while Clinton’s is on the scenic impact that is the moral focus of her comic narrative.
Sacrificial Act
Just as the candidates’ differing views of the scenic disorder lead to differences in their selection and characterization of the primary counteragents against whom they identify, so too does it lead to a difference in the sacrificial act each proposes. Agent-driven narratives demand the elimination of the villain. In one fails to eliminate the villain—through, for example, solutions focused on helping victims—the problem will inevitably recur. Scene-driven narratives, though, require scenic solutions. If the problem is the tax system itself, then breaking up the banks will have little effect, as new entities will spring up to take advantage of the still-flawed system. As such, comic narratives inevitably have much less emphasis on a sacrificial act. In cases of villains committing mistakes, there may be some attempt to provide the “instruction and correction,” or “temporary social distance” Appel describes, but in other cases there is simply no villainous counteragent at all, and so no sacrificial act is required (191). The effect of these differences can be seen in each candidate’s preferred sacrificial act.
Table 8 |
||
Number of References |
Percentage |
|
Total |
84 |
|
Comic |
61 |
73% |
Melodramatic |
13 |
15% |
Tragic |
10 |
12% |
Source: see note 1
Table 9 |
||
Number of References |
Percentage |
|
Total |
118 |
|
Comic |
60 |
51% |
Tragic |
36 |
31% |
Melodramatic |
22 |
19% |
Source: see note 1
The results here are largely in line with what one would expect. Sanders, with his greater reliance on agent-driven narratives, not only proposes more total sacrificial acts than Clinton, but more importantly proposes far more tragic or melodramatic acts and a far higher percentage of such acts than Clinton. In some cases such references are tied to terrorism, as when he states that “this country will rid our planet of this barbarous organization called ISIS” (“Democratic Debate Transcript: Clinton, Sanders, O'Malley in Iowa”). In most cases, though, the most extreme sacrificial acts focus on his central counteragent of CBB. Indeed, in the sentence immediately after his reference to ISIS, he returns to a focus on the “rigged economy,” and proposes a “political revolution.” As such, it can be seen that this is not (or at least not only) a product of a general preference for the tragic or melodramatic forms, but rather a function of a preference for these forms when focused on the particular “character” of corporations, banks, and billionaires. Clinton, for instance, makes a total of 41 references to a sacrificial act associated with CBB. Of these, 71% align with a comic form, 17% are melodramatic, and only 12% are tragic. In contrast, Sanders makes 63 total references to a sacrificial act associated with CBB, or half again as many as Clinton. Furthermore, of these, only 38% are comic, while the rest are either tragic (37%) or melodramatic (25%). Thus, when discussing a sacrificial act, Sanders makes 50% more total references to CBB than does Clinton, and while approximately two-thirds of Clinton’s references are comic, approximately two-thirds of Sanders’ references are tragic or melodramatic. Notably, a large percentage of the remaining tragic/melodramatic sacrificial act references for both candidates are focused on terrorism. In other words, for Sanders (and at times for Clinton), corporations, banks, and billionaires occupy the same rhetorical space as terrorists.
The role of the tragic sacrificial act is so central to Sanders, in fact, that it became something of a catchphrase in his campaign. As he states in the ninth debate, “banks, in my view, have too much power. They have shown themselves to be fraudulent organizations endangering the well-being of our economy. If elected president, I will break them up… end of discussion” (“The Brooklyn Democratic Debate”). The solution he offers, “break up the banks,” flows inevitably from his agent-driven view of the scenic disorder. Because, as he argues, CBB have total agency over government itself, no government regulation can ever restrain them. To attempt such an approach, or merely to focus on helping those facing economic suffering, will inevitably be insufficient, as the cause of the problem will remain.
Clinton, however, even when discussing the shared villain of CBB, tends to adopt a scene-driven comic frame, and so proposes the “slap-on-the-wrist instruction and correction” Appel associates with the form (191). She suggests the best way to address the problem is to help those who are having trouble getting ahead, and to pay for it by “taxing the wealthy more, [and] closing corporate loopholes, deductions and other kinds of favorable treatment” (“Democratic Debate Transcript: Clinton, Sanders, O'Malley in Iowa”). A scenic problem, she suggests, should have a scenic solution—a restructuring of the system that involves a moderate increase in taxes for CBB, and an effort to “rein in the excessive use of political power to feather the nest and support the super wealthy” (“Democratic debate transcript: Clinton, Sanders, O'Malley in New Hampshire”). The solution is not to eliminate those using this political power, because for Clinton this is merely a consequence of the structure of the system.
Even in those cases where Clinton does adopt a tragic frame, she retains elements of scene-driven comedy. For instance, in the final debate she offers the following approach to bank regulation: “I will appoint regulators who are tough enough and ready enough to break up any bank that fails the test under Dodd-Frank. There are two sections there. If they fail either one, they're a systemic risk, a grave risk to our economy” (“The Brooklyn Democratic Debate”). Despite picking up Sanders’ “break up the banks” phrasing, she describes it as a consequence of the regulatory process, and in particular a consequence of her proposed scenic reforms (a revision of the Dodd-Frank law). Furthermore, while Sanders calls banks “fraudulent organizations” and endows them with great agency, Clinton uses the passive description of banks as “a systemic risk,” reducing their agency even as she suggests some may be broken up. Thus we see Clinton nudged toward melodrama or tragedy—perhaps as a consequence of a preexisting Democratic view of banks, or perhaps as a consequence of what Desilet terms the media “feedback loop” which makes melodrama rhetorically “contagious” in a way comedy is not— but still largely holding to her comic tendencies (170).
Redemptive Purposes & Means
Appel’s description of the redemptive purposes and means is most clear when distinguishing the comic from the tragic or melodramatic, and again ties to the scene or agent-driven nature of the central issue at hand. As noted earlier, agent-driven narratives tend to suggest the solution is simply the elimination of the villain, with a consequent tragic or melodramatic conditions of “total salvation,” or at the very least the “triumph of transcendentally virtuous values” (191). Scene-driven narratives, however, involve problems that are often profoundly difficult or impossible to completely solve, and so the redemptive purpose is generally characterized by the comic “imperfect improvement.” This may involve some restructuring of the scene, and perhaps some effort to offer support to victims, but in virtually every case the emphasis is on better, not ideal.
Once more, though, distinguishing between tragedy and melodrama is often a difficult task. Appel offers the following distinction: “Redemptive purposes in the melodrama of democratic party squabbling will, too, be a bit less grandiose: not quite so perfected, less than utopian. Those visions will be grand. We will not hear often, though, about the likes of a Thousand-Year Reich or heaven on Earth” (190). As the last sentence makes clear, the standard for tragedy is high. As a result, no statement by either Clinton or Sanders qualifies as tragic, though some, particularly those from Sanders, might come close. For instance, in the first debate Sanders suggests the election will determine “whether we're going to have a democracy or an oligarchy” (“CNN Democratic Debate”). Clearly this is at the very least melodramatic insofar as it is an expression of transcendentally virtuous values. But is it tragic? Perhaps, though it does not meet Appel’s standard of the “Thousand-Year Reich.” One might argue Appel’s standard for tragedy is excessive, but I would suggest there is less a sharp division between forms than a continuum. Therefore, I would likewise suggest that the most useful metric in this particular case combines the tragic and melodramatic, and then compares that sum to the comic.
Table 10 |
||
Number of References |
Percentage |
|
Total |
180 |
|
Comic |
160 |
89% |
Melodramatic |
20 |
11% |
Tragic |
0 |
0% |
Source: see note 1
Table 11 |
||
Number of References |
Percentage |
|
Total |
168 |
|
Comic |
106 |
63% |
Melodramatic |
62 |
37% |
Tragic |
0 |
0% |
Source: see note 1
Several points of note stand out. First, while the comic form is the most prevalent for both candidates, Sanders uses a melodramatic formulation far more often than Clinton. Furthermore, 76% of Sanders melodramatic references focus on CBB, compared to only 35% for Clinton’s. Additionally, even Clinton’s comparatively rare melodramatic references tend to keep their scenic emphasis, focusing on improving the lives of the victims. Thus, in the fifth debate, she offers a largely scenic view of the problem coupled with a comic goal, and only slips in the “transcendentally virtuous value” phrasing of melodrama in the last line:
Yes, of course, we have special interests that are unfortunately doing too much to rig the game. But there's also the continuing challenges of racism, of sexism, of discrimination against the LGBT community… I want to imagine a country where people's wages reflect their hard work, where we have healthcare for everyone, and where every child gets to live up to his or her potential. (“Transcript: MSNBC”)
This can be classified melodrama, but only just, and a melodrama built from a proposed restructuring of a complex and problematic scene on behalf of innocent victims, rather than from the destruction of a dangerous villain. Indeed, this is Clinton’s general approach, and we see something very similar in the next debate as she proposes to “knock down all the barriers that are holding Americans back, and to rebuild the ladders of opportunity that will give every American a chance to advance, especially those who have been left out and left behind” (“Transcript of the Democratic Presidential Debate”). Again, the solution is a restructuring of the scene on behalf of the victims, and a restructuring that only slips into melodrama insofar as it promises universal transformation rather than incremental progress.
While Clinton’s few instances of melodrama thus teeter on the edge of the comic form, Sander’s far more frequent instances of melodrama verge on the tragic. Moreover, as in his frequently stated desire to “break up the banks,” his ideal redemptive purpose and means of “revolution” becomes an iconic catchphrase, repeated—often multiple times—in virtually every debate. In the first debate he describes his own campaign as exemplifying “a political revolution” supported by people who want “real change in this country” (“CNN Democratic Debate”). Similarly, in the fourth debate he proposes specifics such as eliminating Super PACs and overturning the Citizens United court decision, but frames those specific (and incremental) actions as elements of “a political revolution which revitalizes American democracy” (“The 4th Democratic Debate”). Again we nearly see the utopian goal of tragedy, lacking only the thousand year timeframe.
What is particularly interesting, though, is that Sanders’ melodramatic goals are so frequently coupled with specific policies that are fundamentally comic in their incrementalism. For instance, he begins one comment by stating his campaign is about “thinking big,” which involves universal health care, a $15 per hour minimum wage, a plan to rebuild infrastructure, and a tax system that requires the wealthiest people to “start paying their fair share of taxes.” However, he then suggests these specific reforms will be transformative, making “a government that works for all of us, and not just big campaign contributors.” Similarly, he later suggests that we need “a revolution in this country in terms of mental health treatment,” which translates to adding insurance coverage for mental health care. Perhaps the strongest example of this might be in the final debate, when discussing climate change he attacks Clinton’s ideas, stating that “incrementalism and those little steps are not enough” (“The Brooklyn Democratic Debate”). His solution, though, is a carbon tax, which is itself fundamentally incremental insofar as it would merely reduce fossil fuel use by making it somewhat more expensive. What we see then is that while narrative is tightly bound to the specific communities, it is not inevitably bound to policy. It is quite possible, in other words, for two candidates with identical policies to justify these policies with profoundly different—perhaps even incompatible—narrative worldviews.
Implications
An analysis rooted in Burke’s poetic forms thus helps illustrate the fault lines within political communities, rather than just between them. Furthermore, it reveals that Sanders effectively uses the tragic and melodramatic forms associated with Lakoff’s strict father worldview, but does so to promote liberal/progressive policies that Lakoff asserts should only arise from the nurturant parent worldview. This suggests that the link between metaphoric worldview and political ideology is less straightforward than it appears. One can, it seems, be a strict father liberal, or, presumably, a nurturant parent conservative.
Sanders’s promotion of fundamentally incremental policies through the use of a tragic or melodramatic redemptive purpose and means likewise suggests a remarkably flexible relationship between narrative and policy. It seems self-evident that candidates’ policies and their narrative framing of those policies must be at least loosely aligned if such framing is to be accepted by the audience. But like his strict father liberalism, Sanders’ “revolutionary incrementalism” was clearly a successful rhetorical strategy.
Taken together, this first helps explain factional divisions within the political left. Despite the often-fierce disputes between their supporters, many of the policy proposals of Sanders and Clinton differed more in degree than in type. It may be that the distinct narrative worldviews within which each candidate contextualized these policies served to amplify even small differences. Indeed, it may be that in some cases it is the narrative framing itself, and not policy disputes at all, that drove the candidates’ competing public identities and fueled the animosity between their supporters. At the same time, Sanders’ framing in particular reveals surprising narrative connections between elements of the left and the right—connections that defy their profound policy differences. Sanders’ agent-driven conflicts, his discussion of a deeply flawed—even victimized—United States, his focus on moral strength and his demand that counteragents be destroyed: all are the hallmarks of typically conservative framing, though used in the service of truly progressive goals. Sanders and Trump may not agree on the heroes and villains of the American story, nor on the solutions that should be pursued, but to a surprising extent they do agree on the kind of story it is.
While the role of metaphor in political identity would seem to be complicated by this finding, it may be that this complication can best be understood by once again returning to the full complexity of Burkean identification through consubstantiality. Lakoff himself states that “narratives and melodramas are not mere words and images; they can enter our brain and provide models that we not merely live by, but that define who we are” (The Political Mind 231). Narrative, in other words, and perhaps even metaphor, may be better understood as a marker of partisan consubstantiality rather than as a singular driver of ideology. Such a claim recalls McClure’s discussion of Fisher’s narrative paradigm, and in particular his conclusion that Fisher’s approach “narrowed Burke’s notion of identification, wedding it too tightly to normative conceptions of rationality” (191). Lakoff too seeks an underlying rationality for identity, and perhaps in so doing, he also “limits the range and descriptive utility of identification,” offering a prescriptive simplicity that obscures the profound complexities comprising partisan identity and political ideology (191). Recognizing such complexities—the narrative and metaphorical worldviews that not only separate factions within communities, but also provide surprising links between ideologically distinct communities—may complicate the perception of political identity, but can only improve political communication.
Notes
- Sources for Tables 2-11: “The 4th Democratic Debate Transcript”; “The Brooklyn Democratic Debate Transcript, Annotated”; “CNN Democratic Debate”; “Democratic Debate Transcript: Clinton, Sanders, O'Malley in Iowa”; “Democratic Debate Transcript: Clinton, Sanders, O'Malley in New Hampshire”; “Transcript: MSNBC 2016 Democratic Candidates’ Debate”; “Transcript of the Democratic Presidential Debate in Milwaukee”; “Transcript: The Democrats’ Debate in Flint, Annotated”; “Transcript: The Post-Univision Democratic Debate, Annotated.”
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