Less is more? More or less?

I respect Seth Godin for condensing big ideas into language that is deceptively simple. His turn of phrase is marketing poetry, of a sort.

In some ways, however, his catchy insightful phrases illuminate a trend toward a collective inability to engage in meaningful, complete dialogue on social, environmental, political or economic issues.

Everything now is a soundbite, and it would appear that those who are most adept at keeping it simple are ruling the world: politicians, marketers, bankers, moviemakers, and the lot.

But I have a contrary theory.

Meaningful change does not come from witty or insightful quotes in an email signature, or in a tweet, or in a print ad. Yes, I acknowledge that people are lured into watching a TV show, following a hyperlink, or maybe even buying a product based upon catchy phrases and marketing language. However, if the product is not good quality, or the link is broken, or the show is vapid, the pithy marketing language won’t save it.

There are many successful examples of substantial communications that are very much a part of our cultural landscape: books, “in depth” news programming, TED talks, rock operas, feature films, live musical performances (of any genre), documentaries, or even coffee with a friend. All of these examples are mechanisms through which we engage more, and—I would argue—are more likely to take action as a result of that increased understanding.

I would go further to suggest that many of us might in fact yearn for substance. News headlines on splash pages are filled with leading words on issues of little real meaning. Hollywood stars, NHL hockey players, dishonorable fashionistas, the newest diet trends, and the failure of rock n’ roll marriages. The trivial has become commonplace, and has replaced meaningful dialogue on real issues. Political debate has become a joke and so much of viral messaging on social network sites idolizes the inane .

Don’t misunderstand me. We still need humour. We still need escape from reality. We still need to believe in idols. We still need editors. Time is a merciless taskmaster and we have to incorporate more information in a fixed amount of time in each day.

However, for social change, we need to have deeper insight into the issues and challenges in order to cultivate solutions and changes in personal and community behavior to support those solutions.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s essay in the NewYorker he says that Twitter and other social networking sites will not launch a revolution because nobody is going to put their life on the line over something that’s said on the internet. He states: “Activism that challenges the status quo—that attacks deeply rooted problems—is not for the faint of heart,” citing the dangers faced by activists during the civil rights movement. In this case, he argues, “What mattered more [than fervor] was an applicant’s degree of personal connection to the civil-rights movement.” Activism requires strong ties, rather than the weak ties that are typical on FB or Twitter.

We often say that “less is more.” We want our news in under 30 seconds. We want short meetings. We want three-minute pop songs. We want light beer. We want to see sports highlights rather than the whole game. We want quippish advertising. We want Minute Rice.

However, some of us want, and I believe that most of us need, more dialogue and more information in order to understand and address the increasingly complex social problems of today, whether global or local.