Sloganeering

It’s no accident that slogans end up on book covers and campaign t-shirts. Slogans are the natural by-product of a shortform, connected world: the MVP of an idea, packaged to span the globe.

Of course, their concision also makes them dangerous: no nuance, no debate. Idea soon becomes ideology.

Ideological victims suffer a terrible cognitive bias: if the ideology fails, that’s because it wasn’t properly applied! I’ve heard this argument about Agile, austerity, personas, the Budapest Gambit, socialism, personas, 4-4-2, personas, and plenty more.

Sometimes it’s a valid counter. But sometimes we must argue that the idea in question is flawed. Since this admission would be highly embarrassing, most ideologues respond to criticism by retreating further into their beliefs.

Thus slogans reduce dimensions. They negate iteration, synthesis, and context: the things that matter.

Fuck all slogans, including this one.