Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Different Frames

How a thing is framed can, temporarily or permanently, trick a person into thinking a certain way.  Here are two examples.

How come insurance covers Viagra but not birth control?  Setting aside one frame, that most insurance covers only one of these and not the truth, that most insurance covers both, let's take the statement as factual.  The frame is pleasure.  If a man needs Viagra, he cannot enjoy sex without it.  If a woman does not use birth control, the pleasure of sex can have a side-effect of an unwanted pregnancy.  Another frame which could be used is normal biological function.  If a man cannot achieve an erection, this is a disfunction.  Viagra treats this disfunction.  Becoming pregnant is normal for young healthy women who have sex. Birth control isn't treating a medical problem, it's creating a convenient disfunction. In this frame, they're close to opposites.

Another example:

The North defeated the South in the Civil War.  This is true and Northerners, of which I am one, perhaps take some sort of pride in this.  Another frame, is that the Republican side defeated the Democratic side.  This is also true and would tend to cheer up the South and dispirit the North, since the South is mostly Republican now and the North is mostly Democrat.


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