Mar 03 2008
Goosebumps and Slogans
Words matter a lot. At their best, they can inspire monumental acts and change millions of minds. But they are also bluntly utilitarian, simple tools we use for most of our daily communication. Political discourse must walk the divide between language as art and language as hammer. Politicians are expected to raise us up while also detailing the 24-steps to social security solvency – and they get no more than a short speech or a catchy phrase in which to capture their full essence. The distillation process rarely creates a smooth result.
Political slogans like corporate taglines should never be considered the end-all, be-all of communication. If you buy Nike because you feel like just doing it, you’re an idiot. Likewise, any voter who chooses a candidate based on their slogans is already living in their own idiocracy. I have a little more faith than Hitchens that, beneath the gauze of banality, real discussions are happening – not everywhere and maybe not even by the majority, but by enough voters and enough politicians to keep the abuse of language from becoming an abuse of governance.
Still, Hitchens’ point should not go without consideration. We must be careful to remember a well-worded cliché is still a cliché. Inspirational speeches should inspire us to act for better causes not just inspire goosebumps.
This will be a big problem in American politics for years to come, barring some kind of public intervention in spending. The branding phenomenon is linked directly to the commodification of politics, and the prioritization of the visual and the audible over substance (i.e. Tony Schwartz). Democrats have had a serious issue with their ad buys, and as we’ve seen in the case of Senator Clinton, their spending may be out of control. But from survey research, to branding and messaging, down to the way the candidates look, it’s all brought to us by the commercial world.
There’s a PoliSci text book’s worth of reasons for this, but one is the decline of the party system and the rise of the “candidate centered” campaign. Maybe this will change, and it looks as if parties may be on the uptick. Who knows. But a lot of this also comes from the specialization of politics. Again, when someone can fluidly move between marketing and campaigning, why not do it? The money can be good, especially in TV spots. Direct mail copy in the commercial world and the electoral world is similar in tone, grammar and simplicity–you need this, this bad, give us money, we give you this, or make bad thing stay away.
When you have careerists who feed off of vocational politics, you likewise find a need to keep priming the pump. This, I find, is partly why the extreme partisans loathe talk of bi-partisanship and moderatism so much. It’s hard to raise cash, or rally a rabble, if you fail to create that “other.” Enemies require extreme contrasts, and contrasts require strong and consistent messaging. Hence the pretty slogans.
This is no doubt a ramble. Anyway, yay Alan!
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