It don't mean a thing if it ain't framed by context (Gittins - SMH)
An excellent article by Ross Gittins, commenting on a new book by Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe "Practical Wisdom."
Everything we know and decide is based on comparison (context).
And that we can't live without it TINA - there is no alternative.
From Ross's column
The term ''frame'' is itself a metaphor. Schwartz and Sharpe say it's a wonderful metaphor because it emphasises our capacity to take the chaos of the social world around us and organise it in an understandable way.
''In framing the scene, we are setting the picture off from its surroundings, excluding what is on the outside and defining what is inside as special and worthy of attention. Frames tell us what is important and help us establish what should be compared with what,'' they say.
It's all very well to say we should be able to see and evaluate things as they ''really are'', unbiased by the way they're packaged, but it's just not possible. All context is framing, and, stripped of their context, facts are meaningless.
''Framing is pervasive, inevitable and often automatic. There is no 'neutral', frame-free way to evaluate anything,'' they say.
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