During a particularly long queue at Heathrow Airport – awaiting the pleasure of a malevolent little man, manhandling my personal possessions and touching me intimately – I found myself staring at their slogan ‘Making every journey better’.
It seems there is a very low benchmark from which to progress. I reflected that perhaps some customers appreciate this level of intimacy with their security staff. Indeed, maybe my reticence at having my genitals groped under the pretext of an erstwhile forgotten 5ml tub of lip balm being a suitable disguise for a small explosive cocktail is simply a reflection of my prudish lack of public-spiritedness.
Leaving aside my dislike of airport security, their slogan – emblazoned threateningly like a literary Sword of Damocles – made me consider the difference between a slogan and a motto.
A slogan is defined as ‘a short and striking or memorable phrase used in advertising’, whereas a motto is ‘a short sentence or phrase chosen as encapsulating the beliefs or ideals of an individual, family, or institution’. The key distinction appears to be that mottos state a set of ideals, whereas slogans state what an institution believes it is. Indeed the element of advertising is another important distinction, with slogans being aimed at catching attention in a short and pithy phrase, whereas mottos are perhaps more about contemplation and subtlety.
Intuitively we can distinguish between the two, however, it appears that our society seems to have slid from a world of mottos to a world of slogans. When I find myself reading the mottos of Australian universities, they’re spoken in my head as though at the end of an advert, read by an overly cheerful young woman.
Inspiring Achievement, Flinders University’s contribution, is a prime example of a slogan that could well find itself spoken over sunny shots of the campus, a smiling and diverse cohort of students in the foreground. A university for the real world, and Think, Change, Do, from QUT and university of Technology, Sydney are other examples.
These are mindless slogans that provide no information about aspirations or ideals. Are not all universities for the ‘real world’? And what is the alternative to the ‘real world’ that this statement supposes?
However, being a statement of banality is better than the second slogan, which has in-congruent verbs listed. I can well see that thinking before changing is a good idea, but change in itself – this is more of a moot statement. The slogan may be an imprecation for us to change ourselves: for a current student to be introspective, to find their flaws, and to act on them in a humble and self-improving manner. To reflect on themselves and undertake the truly monumental changes in their own actions and perceptions, from which all other actions flow.
I cannot help but feel that it is a statement that students should change the world. A statement of hubris that going to this university will equip them to go out and meddle with timelessly complicated systems in the hope of improving them. A likely outcome … I think not. And then at the end ‘Do’, how does this relate to the other verbs? If the student is changing the world already, they are already doing. More than anything, it is a stubby little word that could be substituted for by any number of other, more descriptive verbs: act, perform, etc. Instead, we are left with an all-encompassing generic word.
Compare these to the mottos of the University of Southern Queensland, Through study the mind is made new, or the University of Sydney, The constellations change but the mind remains the same. In each of these mottos there is a contemplative element. How are we supposed to interpret this, for surely the constellations remain the same and our minds are ever-changing? It is a statement that makes us think as it is not obvious what the motto is trying to say. More than this, it is not clear immediately the value to which the statement appeals.
I will admit though, the addition of Latin to a motto does confound the statements and makes even the most banal sound more impressive. It is probably no coincidence that the mottos I have picked are truly written in Latin, whereas those I suggest are slogans written in English.
Yet still we can discern the two. If we remove the pretensions of Latin, we can see that the University of Tasmania’s Ingeniis Patuit Campus/The field is open to talent, really has more of a TV-advertising ring to it. To my mind though, amongst the worst offender is my old alma mater, whose Nova et Vetera (the old and the new), matched only by Ex antiques et novissimis optima (the best of the old and new), echo loudly of progressivism masquerading as the profound. Invariably these institutions are new ones, seeking to both claim history that is not theirs, and brand their newness as an advantage. These do not call a higher ideal or contemplation, but a statement of what they claim to represent: everything to all people. Diverse, inclusive, and equitable.
Still, the fact they are written in Latin is a positive. Although it may be a mere affectation, the effect is still meaningful, for – by writing in Latin – we are calling on our shared history and to older traditions than just our own. It lends a sense of something detached from us by history and by culture, but still something to which we should aspire. Brutalising though they were, the Romans left us many things, not least our language, and for us to pay homage to its origins in Latin is, rather than a pretension, a humbling of our culture before another, as well as an elevation of our institutions above ourselves.
It is no coincidence that on the drive to the airport I was listening to an audiobook of Roger Scruton articles. Much as Latin adds the veneer of history and profundity, so the dulcet sound of the great man’s words make me think more highly of the subject matter I had not previously prized. Omne iter melius.
