Version Inversion

Just over four months ago, the summer's war ended and we returned to Beirut with a big fat layover in London. With the kids in tow there wasn’t much to do but wait and keep them happy, which we did. By the time our flight boarded I was kind of brain-dead, but not too much to appreciate a rather insightful ad-campaign by HSBC, a British bank self-proclaimed to be “the world’s local bank.” That they have branches enough in Beirut seems to indicate that they’re managing.

Anyway, because of this international focus, their advertising frequently highlights the differences among the cultures of the world. The implication is that because we humans are such a diverse bunch, you really do need HSBC to navigate all the madness for you. But let’s put their conclusion aside for the moment and just focus on the first clause—we humans are such a diverse bunch. Returning to the scene in the airport, where I first saw the ad-series, I had to agree that there was wild disagreement among many of us about lots of things. Consider these two examples, which I think are ideal illustrations.



As I walked through the jet way I saw probably a dozen of these. I was impressed. The ads each reduce a debate—each one a matter of taste—to its most irreducible form.

Simple images and words show this flawlessly and concisely. There are quite a few ways this “irreducible form” can be expressed in English: one man’s trash is another’s treasure, to each his own, etc. People aren’t crazy for liking shoes we don’t or for loathing the food we adore. But imagine if this idea was elevated to something more significant than one’s taste in music. Ooh, look, you don’t have to imagine.

Here’s one I created based on the HSBC originals, none of which were controversial. But you could do this with a seemingly endless number of hotly debated subjects, and I think the end result would be the same. Well, except that at some point, most of us would opt out of the “to each his own” reaction. In complete honesty, I would doubt the sanity (well, more likely the intelligence and exposure to information) of anyone who thought either Nasrallah or Bush was any kind of hero. In both cases, I’d be much more sympathetic to (though unconvinced by) the terrorist argument.