Relay Column: Verbalization & Its Side Effects (Ken Haga)

When I was invited to contribute to this relay column, I confirmed the concept with the organizers.

It's not explicitly stated, but you could interpret that by connecting writers like a chain to introduce clothing, they aim to hear the voices from the field that they ordinarily couldn't reach (those that are usually not turned into text).

Being Tossed Around by Language Daily

Based on that speculation, this time I would like to provide a discussion focusing on the verbalization by creators. Words and characters are perhaps the most weightless, clear, less prone to misunderstandings, and quickly and widely communicable mediums created by humans. However, due to these very characteristics, side effects do arise.

It Was Better with Just Words

For example, don't you sometimes feel satisfied just by reading the captions when appreciating contemporary art? In many instances, I find myself in such situations, doubting my own sensitivity and suffering from it. If the captions are intriguing and the work physically represents the content of those sentences, I find myself satisfied with just the captions.

To describe this with a bit of bias, those who can construct interesting arguments with words better than philosophers, for instance, sometimes cannot create powerful "things." This leads to the phenomenon where people feel that just reading the captions is enough. On the other hand, professionals who create things beyond words are not experts in words and logic. They yield to the pressure of having to verbalize their work and end up presenting something resembling a degraded version of philosophy in museums unnecessarily.

Of course, there are cases where the significance of a piece and the content of its caption are thought up after its creation. However, in many instances, the goal becomes verbalizing the work through production. As recipients of the work, readers might also feel that creating new ways of thinking or agreement through words is the ultimate goal. The clarity of words has perhaps fit too snugly with the need to persuade and be persuaded by both the creator and the recipient, causing this side effect.

Words Are Supreme

A side effect can be seen in the weakening of craftsmanship in the advertising industry. In essence, advertisements are a communication industry developed to make as many people as possible understand the important points in a short time and encourage them to buy a product. Thus, it is natural to start by focusing on what needs to be conveyed and considering the words. In practice, phrases like "It has to be understood at a glance!" or "This expression is quick!" are commonly heard.

It's easy to imagine that creative professionals at advertising agencies, who need to eliminate unnecessary information, attract buyers, and convince clients, are doing very challenging work. Consequently, they don’t have the time to create things themselves or hone their craft as creators. As a result, they adopt a high-level division of labor and create instruction sheets to express the messages they want to convey. Since many people are involved, core ideas that can be understood at a glance become powerful tools to unify the team towards the same goal.

However, the cycle of creating, thinking, and re-creating has become impossible at the planning stage. As a result, the distance between creative trial and error and ideas has widened, methods for measuring effectiveness have become more sophisticated, messages optimized in language are aggregated, and similar expressions emerge infinitely. Consequently, the effectiveness of advertisements could be diminishing from a certain point onwards. The fit between the quick, widespread transmission objective of advertisements and words has become too perfect, leading to the supremacy of words and the resulting forced weakening of craftsmanship.