The slogan on a Spanish Republican poster, circa 1937, now hanging in the Imperial War Museum in London. The Spanish Civil War was the precursor to the Second World War: the fascist rebels, led by General Franco, were aided by Nazi Germany, who used the conflict as an opportunity to roadtest devastating new weapons and strategies. The poster shows a sky filled with the deadly crosses of fascist aeroplanes, under which was a photograph of a little girl killed by blitz bombing. The message was stark and brutal and simple: dead children in Spain today, dead children across the world tomorrow.
Thousands joined the International Brigade in response, including George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway... but the world at large remained unmoved. And within five years all mainland Europe felt the terror of the fascist war machine.
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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.
Defining the age through a slogan a day
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.
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