If you are anything like me, going to the dentist is a less-than-ideal way to spend your time. And because I’m not the only one who feels this way, I have noticed that most dentist offices fill their walls with fun-looking and (supposedly) helpful messages to distract from the procedure you are about to endure. I have also realized that if you take the time to study these slogans on the wall, you’ll notice that even though you are reading words, they aren’t really saying much of anything.
The more time that you spend learning about a topic, the more difficult it becomes to give a succinct answer when trying to describe it. Almost every definition or explanation fails to capture a topic’s entirety, so people have to make certain assumptions when trying to wrap their minds’ around it. The best way to avoid these assumptions is to discuss the topic in depth so you can clarify precisely what you mean. Unfortunately, people’s attention spans are often fickle and prevent them from digesting long drawn-out discussions, so they look for a quick and easy description that they think will suffice. But most of the time the slogans that people use are at the very least unhelpful, if not detrimental. People treat them as though they provide all of the insight needed for a topic, when in reality the assumptions that come with the slogan often lead people to poor conclusions.
For instance, I recently encountered a poster with a saying by a Chinese philosopher that stated “If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.” At first glance, everything seems fine. It’s generally hopeful, giving what it believes to be a helpful guide to living, and it is stated simply enough that it sounds vaguely inspirational. However, when you evaluate the content for more than two seconds and try to apply it, the message is nonsense. Let’s say someone was to lose their job, be abandoned by their spouse, and be unable to put food on the table, would you walk to that person and say, “Stop living in the past! Live in the now!”? Hopefully not. The things that are making them sad may have happened in the past, but that doesn’t make their current hungry, lonely, penniless existence any more cheery.
And the claim that focusing on the future can only bring anxiety is absurd as well. You can also find hope in the future, whether it be through a career opportunity, a potential relationship, a chance to move somewhere exciting and have new experiences, or just through your resolve to work hard and improve your life. In any such case, the future may be the only thing giving a person hope. Finally, you can find peace in more than just the present. If your car were to break down, you would be far more calm and collected if you’ve had this experience before than if it were your first time. You would feel at peace because of your past experience, not because of anything occurring now.
I have spent a lot of time on this particular saying, but it is far from the only example like this. There are quotes like: “If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough” by Oprah Winfrey or “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me” by Ayn Rand or even “If you can dream it, you can do it” (usually attributed to Walt Disney). All of these phrases sound vaguely thoughtful and punchy, but really don’t provide anything of substance. There are plenty of times you should look at what you don’t have, particularly if it is due to some failing on your part that needs to be adjusted. The Ayn Rand quote tries to sound combative and confident, without realizing that asking “Are you going to let me?” and “Are you going to stop me?” is the same question. And very obviously there are in fact things that one could dream of that they could not do.
Now some might say that I’m being unreasonable that the intended meaning behind these axioms is different than what the quote actually says, so can’t they still serve some purpose? And the answer is no, of course not. When you are searching for inspiration on the internet, it’s not the intention behind the quote that people read, it’s the quote. I wish I could believe that the majority of people who read these quotes would extrapolate the intended meaning from the lives of the people who said them, but the odds are fairly low.
Criticizing these slogans and quotes might seem trivial at first, but they are a microcosm of a more harmful and detrimental mindset. How many people aggressively rallied behind slogans like “love is love” and “believe women” without taking a second to think about what the slogans are actually saying. Love is love implies that all love is the same. But we would all agree that there are things that people should not love. If all love is the same, we couldn’t justify saying that it’s good to love your spouse but bad to love murder. All someone would have to do is claim to love whatever behavior they want to engage in, and no one would have the moral right to stop them.
And the slogan “believe women” is incredibly unhelpful. Obviously you cannot believe all woman one hundred percent of the time, any more than you should believe all men one hundred percent of the time. Both are capable of lies and manipulation for personal gain, but a mantra like this implies that women don’t need to be questioned when making a claim, no matter how outlandish. There’s no need to investigate or look for evidence to back up their claims; We should just believe them. And if you dare to criticize these ideas and their logical incoherence, you will be shouted down as a bigot and a sexist and have your voice silenced. These slogans don’t stand up to scrutiny, so anyone who supports them has to make sure any criticisms of their positions don’t see the light of day. This makes critical thinking enemy number one, and those who practice it prime targets.
A few months ago a teacher named Warren Smith was asked by a student for his thoughts on what the student called, “J. K. Rowling’s bigoted opinions.” And instead of giving his opinion, Smith decided to demonstrate how to think critically about the situation. A video was posted online and was pretty positively received and shared by people who were pleased with the way that he went about the conversation. Which meant inevitably, just over a week ago, that very same teacher was fired from his teaching position.
Some people say that he was fired for his opinions, which is probably partially true since he has posted other thoughts online. But in the video that went viral, he didn’t share his opinion, all he did was demonstrate how to dismantle a slogan or an argument through critical reasoning, which is far more damaging to the student’s claim about Rowling than Smith’s opinion ever could be. If his description of the way they fired him is accurate, which to me seems a reasonable assumption, the best explanation for the aggressive way that the school handled his release is the fact that critical thinking led the student to a conclusion that the school didn’t want.
These slogans and faux inspirational sayings are worthless, and the people who perpetuate them need to be challenged. They sound smart so people will use their words as a substitute for actual advice. But no advice, good or bad, is worth having unless people can think critically to apply it. I have described this in depth, not just because posting platitudes like this is an annoying practice (though that is true) but because it has larger consequences for our society. If people take these sayings at face value, they build their life on the tenuous ground of assumptions, thinking it will support them and later find it to be unreliable, like the man who builds his house on the sand. We must work to expunge meaningless sayings and promote critical thinking so we can take what we learn and apply it to our lives. It will definitely take more work than the soulless niceties of the dentist’s office, but in the end, it will be far better for us all.
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