Slogan Power! Slogan Power!

By Frank Trippett

The lusty cry that roused the Highlanders of ancient Scotland for battle was called a sluagh-gairm. A combination of the Gaelic words for host and cry, this rallying shout became slogorne in English and was over generations altered into sluggorne, slughorn, slogurn and other variants, including slogen. From that came the modern word that embraces those catch phrases, mottoes, aphorisms and partisan whoops that are continually coined and used by every segment of society, from politicians to Boy Scouts to terrorists. Slogans are, in fact, as common as chitchat.

The birth of the slogan itself, with whatever name, goes back to the start of history; as far back as human records occur, so do slogans. On the basis of its power alone, its potential capacity to unite people and move them toward either belligerent or peaceful goals, the slogan rates as one of man's most ingenious and economical verbal inventions. So the ubiquity of slogans in modern times is understandable, and it probably does more good than harm. Still, there is reason to wonder whether the use--and abuse--of slogans has not at last resulted in a period of fatigue, a sort of slump that might be called sloganosis.

Nothing has raised the question more forcefully than President Carter's embarrassing effort in his State of the Union speech to establish his Administration's slogan. Although his staff has had two years to mull over the matter, what they came up with was something called New Foundation. It foundered. Some people yawned; others were derisive. Mainly, everyone was magnificently uninspired. New Foundation just did not have the ring of the great slogans of yesteryear: New Deal, Fair Deal, New Frontier, Great Society. Still, the Carter dud was only a conspicuous example of the general anemia that has beset sloganeering in recent years. Some believe, for example, that the commercial practice of the art has fallen into something of a slump partially because advertising now gives so much attention to research-based claims that it has somewhat neglected the old standby.

For all that, sloganeering is far from going out of style. The slogan is, after all, probably the best people mover this side of earthquakes, court orders and guns. A first-rate slogan is potent indeed when properly contrived. It becomes as easy to remember as it is hard to forget. It plants itself in the consciousness by rhythm, rhyme, pith or brevity. Once there, it works not only by whatever imagery it carries but--more--by the latent emotions it mobilizes. It plays too on the verities and prejudices of its audience, balming or inflaming them according to purpose. Just so, the slogan lurks as a sort of floating hook in the psyche. Properly tugged, it can impel people to coalesce, to divide, to fight, to sacrifice, to vote, to buy.

Yet the power of rousing phrases was recognized long before anybody knew how or why it worked. Some equivalent of "Hail to the Chief no doubt glued people to their governments from the moment tribes first formed, just as, later, did "Long live the King!" History has left a litter of slogans from all its great events, civil as well as martial--and not only political history. After Pope Urban II in 1095 called for war to recapture the Holy Land, the spontaneous outcry of listening clerics --"God wills it!"--helped fire up Christendom for the First Crusade. The translation of philosophy and doctrine into slogans has assisted in every major political turnabout, from Runnymede to Yalta. Indeed, the history of the U.S. can plausibly be capsuled in a litany of slogans: No taxation without representation. Give me liberty or give me death. Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes. Let the people rule. Horace Greeley's popularization of "Go West, young man" not only helped in spire California-bound migration but even today conjures up appealing images. "Speak softly and carry a big stick" brings, back the vanished world of Theodore Roosevelt's America. Modern America? The war to end war. A chicken in every pot. We have nothing to fear but fear itself. Remember Pearl Harbor. We shall overcome. Hell no, we won't go. Whip inflation now.

Today's slogans, too often unmemorable, still encode the directions in which people are trying to move their countrymen. Combatants in the abortion arena rally around "right to life" and "freedom of choice." Opponents of nuclear power cry, "No nukes," while proponents answer that it is "safer than sex." Liberated homosexuals chant, "Gay pride"; their detractors plead, "Save our children." Blacks employ "black is beautiful" for self-encouragement and "black power" as a statement to the established order. And the elderly now demand "gray power." Proposition 13, though a California event, has become a rallying call everywhere among rebels hoping to achieve tax reductions.

The movie Network has given the country an all-purpose battle cry: "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more!"

The cream of the contemporary crop of slogans is still found in the creations of the advertising trade, which of course was the first to exploit psychology and behaviorism to turn the art of persuasion into a quasi-science. The success of its catchwords is confirmed by retail sales figures that make even the national deficit seem a trifle.

More to the point, anyone can confirm the sticking power of business's best slogans simply by scavenging around in the mind: Does she or doesn't she? Even your best friends won't tell you. Ask the man who owns one. Say it with flowers. Up, up and away. Fly now, pay later. You're in safe hands. Plop, plop, fizz, fizz. Good to the last drop. The high-priced spread. Tastes good like a cigarette should. Leave the driving to us. I'd rather fight than switch. When it rains, it pours. We try harder. It floats. A diamond is forever.

Such a list could go on almost forever. This fact indeed suggests one possible explanation for the fatigue, or sloganosis, that diminishes the sparkle of the current slogan out put. Could it be that we are witnessing a weird new form of inflation? Is it conceivable that just as an oversupply of mon ey drives down the value of currency, an excess of sloganizing diminishes the catchiness of catchwords and the public's vulnerability to their magic? Who could dare say for sure? Yet the theory offers at least one hope of an eventual recovery.

There are those, of course, who would like to see slogan eering die off entirely. Precisely because the art appeals to emotion, some idealists and intellectual purists disdain it in favor of cool, rational discourse. This crowd is clearly trying to swim against a very strong human current. Moreover, they are out of touch with the problems of both leadership and the human dilemma. The problem has never been to get people to think about doing something. The difficulty has always been to get them to act. From time immemorial, leaders have found that one of the best ways, for good or ill, is to say, "Rally round the slo gan, folks." It is not time for a change.

-- Frank Trippett

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