What’s the message? A lot of the traditional media has been whining that question… not because they really care, but because that IS the framing they are trying to attach to Occupy Wall Street: That these are a bunch of ignorant kids who don’t know why they’re out there or what they want.

George Lakoff has made his career around framing. It’s important stuff; as he puts it, “It’s a general principle: Unless you frame yourself, others will frame you — the media, your enemies, your competitors, your well-meaning friends.” Al Gore would probably have been president if he hadn’t let Bush and the media reframe him, not as the corruption-free boy scout who cares deeply about our country and our planet, but as the serial exaggerator who’s stiff and robotic and sighs a lot.

Occupy Wall Street may escape from the framing trap. But Lakoff says the movement is at a critical time “when small framing errors could have large negative consequences.” So he’s come forth with some advice.

What follows are excerpts from his column today at Nation of Change:

Why framing?

About framing: It’s normal. Everybody engages in it all the time. Frames are just structures of thought that we use every day. All words in all languages are defined in terms of frame-circuits in the brain. But, ultimately, framing is about ideas, about how we see the world, which determines how we act.

In politics, frames are part of competing moral systems that are used in political discourse and in charting political action. In short, framing is a moral enterprise: it says what the character of a movement is. All politics is moral. Political figures and movements always make policy recommendations claiming they are the right things to do. No political figure ever says, do what I say because it’s wrong! Or because it doesn’t matter! Some moral principles or other lie behind every political policy agenda.

Do we need demands?

I think it is a good thing that the occupation movement is not making specific policy demands. If it did, the movement would become about those demands. If the demands were not met, the movement would be seen as having failed.

Changing America’s moral focus

It seems to me that the OWS movement is moral in nature, that occupiers want the country to change its moral focus. It is easy to find useful policies; hundreds have been suggested. It is harder to find a moral focus and stick to it. If the movement is to frame itself, it should be on the basis of its moral focus, not a particular agenda or list of policy demands. If the moral focus of America changes, new people will be elected and the policies will follow. Without a change of moral focus, the conservative worldview that has brought us to the present disastrous and dangerous moment will continue to prevail.