Here is an interesting speculation on the “framing of an issue.” The front page of the Globe and Mail has a piece by Sinclair Stewart an“expose” on Democrat aspirant for Presidential nominee Barack Obama.
The Obama official campaign image of the “charismatic, youthful vigour and sex appeal that hasn’t been seen in their party (Democrats) since the days of John F. Kennedy” is threatened by some cognitive dissonance.
Why? Because Barack Obama is a smoker!
The fact that he smokes is front page news in a national Canadian newspaper! This factoid apparently trumps other potential framing characterizations of candidate Obama. For example, that he is serious black contender, experimented with drugs as a kid, the victim of a viral spreading of misinformation in fringe media and the blogosphere that had attended an Islamic madrassa during his childhood in Indonesia. And the misguided musings of “I coulda been a contender,” Senator Joe Biden’s comment about Obama being a “clean” black man.
The open question has now been stated. “Can a cigarette smoker win a presidential election?” The answer appears to be NO! Not in this day and age. “There will be people who are turned off because that’s a sign of addiction” according to American political strategist Jennifer Beylin. She goes on to say the real questions about Obama are “…is he electable (the black question?)…and…is he experienced enough?” (Youthful vigour is perhaps a two-edged sword.)
The article also frames the smoking issue aggressively. “Cigarette addiction, which not so long go was perceived as a mere psychological weakness, has suddenly come to signify a moral lapse, if not reckless endangerment.” A deeper context around smoking is expressed by McGill professor Jarrett Rudy. He frames the social values context of smoking in public places has come to be “…seen as a sign of aggression.” Rudy observes that “Smoking in public space makes them uninhabitable….To start smoking is an aggressive attempt to assert control over space.”
Times have really changed when a major question about a leading candidte for President of the United States of America is “Will America accept a smoker as President?” I wonder if that will be the question that will be the "value driver" for how citizen's actually decide who they choose to support. Will it become more dominant, even covertly, than the more obvious question “Is American ready for a black President?”
Isn't change interesting!
Hmmm...
ReplyDeleteI hope your tongue was in your cheek when you asked this:
"I wonder if that will be the question that will be the "value driver" for how citizen's actually decide who they choose to support. Will it become more dominant, even covertly, than the more obvious question “Is American ready for a black President?”
I suspect it may have been, but don't know you well enough yet to be certain.
If a candidate being a smoker really was THE deciding factor in their being elected or not, I might never recover from the gales of laughter I'd succumb to - over the silliness people are capable of.
Smoking as an act of aggression? Well, it certainly could be - depending on the circumstances. So could passing gas. Thus far, neither of those strategies has driven the hordes of yuppie urbanites far enough away from me to acheive my own fiefdom, tho. :)
Obama seems ok to me, but my knowledge-base on the subject is limited. Politics is a viscious game and no doubt some excellent candidates have lost out for less than rational reasons.
Personally, I think Oprah Winfrey ought to run for US president as an independent. She might win on name recognition alone, and could she possibly be any worse in that office than some of those who have occupied that seat over the last 50 years?
I marvel at how out of whack American opinion can be, but I realize that's the largely the fault of media manipulation/presentation.
ReplyDeleteIf the issue is addicition, they put a man with a history of cocaine and alcohol use in charge of the world's most powerful military and nuclear arsenal for the last 6 years.
Discussions of "nicotine addiction" alternately irritate me and make me laugh. I find the egocentrism of some ex-smokers to be irritating and hilariously hypocritical - "MY experience of 'smoking habit' and 'nicotine addiction' (or lack thereof) represents a universality and anyone who contradicts me is in denial" sort of attitude.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of denial and rationalizations in discussions about smoking and addiction - but more than half of that denial and self-delusion belong to the anti-smoker camp.
The ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences study) - one of the most massive studies ever conducted - proved quite conclusively that heavy smoking and many other forms of pleasure-seeking that have potential negative consequences on a person's health are overwhelmingly (but not universally) associated with and linked to experiences of unescapable stress and/or trauma during childhood.
Childhood Traumatologists, who are neurologists, have demonstrated that childhood trauma and stress can influence the way in which some brain functions develop - particularly the stress-response functions. This is a BIOLOGICAL, not psychological, phenomenon capable of pre-disposing people to seek behaviors, experiences and SUBSTANCES that produce a compensatory stimulation (or suppression) of specific neurotransmitter levels.
Some people are biologically predisposed toward hedonism, toward pleasure-seeking, as a matter of survival. Anti-smokers may insist that what I just said must be a rationalization for smoking - but those people are themselves in denial of the scientificly demonstrated realities that link the ACE with Childhood Traumatology. They are so obssessed with wiping out any hint that smoking might actually play a positive role in some people's lives that they literally close their eyes to valid science and pretend it doesn't exist.
Some of us have a deeper understanding of the reality I've described. In my social circles, for example, suicide looms a larger threat to our survival than any biological disease processes. From the age of 13, I've lost more friends and acquaintances to suicide than to physical illnesses.
I think, by Junior High School age, that of us who are haunted by "the un-namable IT" began to recognize each other, seek each others company and form our own social networks. Something in the eyes, perhaps...a shared look that tells you both that the other person understands "IT" and consequently something about you that few others will be capable of comprehending.
On some level, we are pleasure-seekers because the ONLY alternative is self-destruction.