Framing CKS

The blatant act of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to rename the CKS memorial hall and the plague at the front entrance has captured the attention of the whole island.

Many people may be curious why the government would bother to change the name of a memorial hall and make it such a big news?

This is because what's involved is not just name change. It is a struggle of two diametrically oppositional ideologies. To put it differently, it is a war between two "frames."

Frames refer to perceptual filters that tell you how to consider an issue and how to make sense of new information with existing knowledge base. In this way, our brains do not have to learn new things all the time. Many scholars argued that frames are culturally relevant. We can see this dimension clearly in this "re-naming incident."

As the original name, CKS memorial hall, suggests, the former president was such a great leader that everyone should be aware of his contributions. He was so sublime that he has a huge brass bust over hundreds of fliers of stairs. People here are more like pilgrims than visitors. The name and the structure of the memorial hall suggest CKS a historically memorable leader and the country should all memorize him in honor of his contribution.

The other perspective is quite opposite. People holding this opposite belief thought of CKS more as a dictator who should be held accountable for the 228 tragedy in 1947, which led to large-scale social commotions and death. The incident was later characterized by some people as a conflict between Taiwanese and "outside province people." In the eyes of these people, CKS was a person who obstructed the democratization of Taiwan. Since the ruling DPP has long been branding itself as a party representing grass-root voices, it's not surprising that its leaders would advocate changing the "CKS Memorial Hall" to "Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall."

As we can see, the images invoked by the two frames are different; that is, the way people will look at the former president is different. One implies that CKS is a hero, with the other implying him being a villain. One recognizes CKS's contribution to the country; the other holds him responsible for the tragedy.

Therefore, whether you support or oppose to the name-changing act depends on which frames you adopt. In the "war of words," there are no right and wrong. There are just differences!