This is the age of the slogan, the soundbite, the snappy phrase in place of considered argument. Thought is dying; reason’s gone critical. In bookshops and magazine racks we’re told only what we want to hear: we’re told it in neat, bullet-pointed affirmations of our own worth.

No more. This is the fightback. The resuscitation. This is the slogan as explainer of the world. One a day for a year. Three hundred and sixty five phrases, soundbites and bullet points with which to make sense of the way things are now and point to how things could be tomorrow. Read them and weep.


Wednesday

27. The pen is mightier than the sword

Forget the old sticks and stones rhyme. If you want to take someone apart, if you want to open them up, if you want to pierce them, pin them, slice them and screw ‘em to the sticking point, don’t do it physically. They’ll just get someone bigger and handier to do the same back to you. Go for their minds. Destroy them mentally. Flesh heals, bones knit, blood renews. Words last forever. This is true on a personal level and it’s true on a civilizational scale. All the casualties of all the wars that have ever been fade into statistics, seas of red poppies, regiments of white crosses – and all the reasons and resentments, the slurs and prejudices, the lies and truths behind those wars remain. When opposing ideologies come to physical blows, history condemns them all: when they argue with words history continues the argument forever.
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