the bblog

wherein I write a guest post

I just did a guest post for the Armchair Brandology blog:

A modern nation, like a corporation, is a machine made of humans. Its genetic code is ideas, encoded as words on paper.

Such immaterial entities are exquisitely sensitive to language, and how it's used. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can kill a nation.

So the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands are purposely branded so that there's no way to refer to them without implictly taking a stand. Like how the abortion debate is framed as "pro-choice/pro-life", except that both sides in this argument have nuclear weapons.

You should check it out!