platitudes, concision, and mission statements

According to Wikipedia, a platitude is a trite, meaningless, or prosaic statement that is presented as if it were significant and original. Life is full of this and particularly politics and religions are probably the worst for these sort of things.

I've been introduced to Noam Chomsky's concept of concision. This is the idea of a statement that is so concise as to be able to be fitted between two adverts. The nature of the statement is that it has to become so concise that no supporting evidence can be given and therefore it has to be universally accepted. Effectively it becomes a platitude and meaningless.



As I was listening to Chomsky in this youtube extract, I became aware of why I don't like mission statements! I've sat through far too many hours of organizations trying to refine their mission statement often because they are looking for a new way or path or to fund raise. Mission statements seem to accept Chomsky's critical analysis contained in concision. It is effectively impossible to say something new or radical and acceptable in a mission statement. In fact it is virtually impossible to say anything prophetic in an organizational mission statement. Perhaps missions statements basically reduce themselves to platitudes, because everyone can accept them but they lack anything life challenging or changing.