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Slogans and Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Olivier Reboul
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Extract

The title of this essay may look surprising, if not provocative. What connection is to be found between education and slogans? The latter, first and foremost, are part of the world of publicity and propaganda; they obey a concise, punch-packing formula which aims not to instruct, but to provoke action. The word slogan is furthermore distinctly pejorative. Well…?

Well, I shall raise two questions. First: does not education in effect make use of slogans, unintentionally? After all, the slogan is not confined to the area of publicity and propaganda; slogans existed before them, and they exist apart from them; they are a function of language. It is therefore justifiable to look for slogans where one least expects to find them, and where it is hardest to recognize them for what they are.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 22 , Issue 86 , June 1974 , pp. 55 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © 1974 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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References

1 The adaptation of slogans poses a major problem in so-called bilingual coun tries. See in this respect the excellent analysis by Roger Boivineau in Meta, Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal, Vol. 17, No. 1. March 1972.

2 Psychosociologie de la publicité, PUF, 1970, p. 65 ff.

3 The Hidden Persuaders, n.b. chaps. 2 and 3.

4 In his appeal of June 18th, De Gaulle took up the same line of approach: "Foudroyés aujourd'hui par la force mécanique, nous pourrons vaincre dans l'avenir par une force mécanique supérieure." (Today we have been crushed by mechanical strength, but we shall come to conquer in the future with a greater mechanical strength).

5 The Language of Education, Springfield, C.T. Thomas, 1960, ch. II.

6 Marcuse, One-dimensional Man, Boston, Beacon Press, 1970, p. 101.

7 These phrases are by Sartre, Nietzsche, Clausewitz and Malraux.

8 Speech Acts, An Essay in the Philosophy of Language, CUP, 1970, p. 146. Searle, like us, invests the word "slogan" with a pejorative meaning.

9 Propos d'Alain, Pléiade, Paris, Gallimard, 1956, p. 1159.

10 Cf. J.-M. Domenach, La Propagande politique, PUF, 1950, p. 19.

11 I. Scheffler, op. cit., p. 46. A. Gide also wrote slogans: "Flaubert might perhaps have admired these phrases; what upset him was seeing them accepted uncensored " (Journal, August 22, 1937).