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.


Friday

35. Better a witty fool than a foolish wit

Spoken by Feste, the “fool” in Twelfth Night. The fool is the lowest of Shakespearean society – someone to be scorned, pitied, someone destined never to be in charge of his own destiny. The wit was at the other end of the social spectrum, the smart, savvy gent set for great things. The pun here is on the word “wit” – to be a fool, a peasant, with your wits about you is preferable to being an outwardly advantaged man whose smart exterior hides an essential stupidity. And in Shakespearean and Jacobean drama, it is often the “fools” who come out intact, while all the so-called wits fall over each other and are undone in their scrambles for success. Feste himself sidles in and out of the play, using his low status to influence the action with near impunity – almost to the point of omniscience.
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