(Published in Words That Work: Messaging for Economic Justice, a joint project of Tides Foundation and Spin Project)
Today, success in promoting economic justice demands that we speak honest American. To be heard above the public din, we need to be able to reframe our own messages as part of the best American story. We must tell the story of our own American dream–a fair nation that consistently fosters equality of opportunity for all. We can learn to use with integrity the familiar images and metaphors that convey these values in our daily work.
Hard Work, Horatio Alger and the American Dream
Hard work is highly valued in America. This value is evident in the well-known work of early American author Horatio Alger, who wrote stories about the American dream and the triumph of the individual over struggle. The so-called ‘individual responsibility frame,’ or Horatio Alger story -in which one struggles through hard work and determination to escape poverty — still plays a major role in American thinking.
In order to counteract the damaging effects of this frame -which places both the causes of and responsibility to move beyond poverty squarely in the lap of the poor — we need to do two things. First, we must use what we can from it and then we must combine it with other American frames that modify and counteract its most damaging aspects.
The Horatio Alger story serves a variety of functions in American society. Its most important role is to keep hope alive. It fits the fundamentally optimistic American temperament and our pragmatic, ‘can do,’ experimental approach to problem solving. As a nation of individualistic rebels, we like to believe that we control our own destiny and opportunities in life.
However, there is a way out of the Horatio Alger ‘individual responsibility’ trap. Other core American ideas that can counter it include the following:
- The importance of guaranteeing equality of opportunity,
- Preventing unfair advantage
- Leveling the playing field
- Government as an honest referee
- The value of helping individuals who have been the victim of bad luck or circumstances ‘through no fault of their own.’
Rules of the Game
A lot of this sounds like the great American sports metaphor–that is what it is. Sports metaphors can be useful in translating concepts of economic justice–they are the chief carrier in American public storytelling of many of the values we hold most dear. {The sports metaphor} also carries many of Americans’ most common operational assumptions about how best to bring those values into reality. Working together as an American team to help all individuals fulfill their potential is very important to Americans right now. And, ironically enough, to get economic justice, we have to stop talking about it using the abstract phrase ‘economic justice.’ Instead, we need to use language that can convey our values and goals in short, easily understood bits of national story.
Small Town Security
Another moderating American frame much in the news right now is whatBusiness Week on May 16, 2005 dubbed the ‘safety net nation.’ Business Weekfound that supporters of the Bush Administration are too worried about their futures to want drastic changes in our familiar national safety net, Social Security. The phrase ‘safety net nation’ is just another way of invoking a set of traditional American story elements I call ‘small town security.’ This cluster of ideas includes co-operation, mutual assistance, protection, common sense, practical problem solving, and being moderate‚ the kinds of traditional values found in our ideal of the small American town.
These ideas are clearly reflected in the stories Business Week recounts of how ordinary people see the pension issue now. From a safety net nation with pensions, it is just a small step to calling for a safety net nation while people are still in the work world. For example, we can talk about a safety net that begins with guaranteeing equal opportunity to all individuals who are trying to ‘do better and move forward.’
American Metaphors, American Stories
Horatio Alger, sports and small town values are each key elements of the American stories we tell each other each day in our society. By examining our stories and the metaphors we use to tell them, we engage in a systematic pursuit of economic justice. We can create positive new messages that play on core American images, themes, and stories to carry the values of economic justice.
