How much do slogans determine people’s behavior? They find some slogan that makes sense to them and then use it to make snap decisions based on the slogan. I think slogans determine very much. See the essay of a professor from MIT (John Sterman) I have a link to on this blog in his discussion of computer models and how people do use their own modeling of reality and a small set of rules to determine their large range of behavior, I was once at the shabat table of Rav Zilverman in the old city of Jerusalem and he asked me if I could come up with a catchy slogan for the Geon from Villna. . . I gave some stupid answer I am sorry to say. I mentioned some one of the aphorisms in the book Even Shelama. Today thinking back to this I realize that not only is very little of the Gra very catchy, but my suggestion missed the whole point. The point is something short and simple that grabs a person and alters their future behavior.
Now we have see that some slogans cause people to do bad things. and other s are just a consciouses trap-- like ways of capturing people and making them mental slaves them as we see in many religious cults today.
Often these cults use some nice sounding slogan but they act individually and collectively in ways opposite from the implication of the slogan.
Philosophy also works by slogans. Hume came up with the idea that if something disagrees with his premises that it is meaningless. He wrote that if you could find some idea that is not based on observation then he would agree that his empirical philosophy is false, and then he goes right on and finds examples of ideas that are not based on observation. Then he does his neat trick. He calls these ideas "meaningless." And ever since then, in any discussion with left wing liberal, when they encounter an idea that disagrees with them, they say it is "meaningless."
What I am wondering here is if it is such a good idea to reduce human life and its complexity to a bunch of slogans?
[Note 1] Maybe my parents had the best slogan of all: Be a mensch. This sadly is untranslatable.But roughly it means to be a decent human being with good character traits-decent kind just loyal loving and responsible. This was the Jewish ideal of human perfection in the European generation of Jews that came to the USA.]
[Note 2] The Gra, it could be said would have had a slogan like "learn Torah". This might not be catchy but it does capture the basic idea. He did think that by learning Torah most of a persons problems are solved. And in fact he might have been right about this. Maybe the idea of learning only Torah is a bit too much. But I think it is fair to ask people to have a simple session every day in Torah Mishna and Gemara called "shiurim kesidran." That is "sessions in order." That is take a Old Testament and start at the beginning, and when you have read some in order, then you put a place marker and put it down. Then you do the same with the Mishna.. And you do this in order, and you do not repeat anything nor do you pause to think about anything.
