Hate Something, Change Something...

I seem to be plagued in my television-watching at the moment by Honda's Hate Something, Change Something advert for their new diesel engine. It's attracted a fair bit of attention, either for being all plants, rainbows and bunny rabbits (rather than...er...diesel engines), or for just being an annoyingly catchy song.

[Here are the lyrics:

Here’s a little song for anyone who’s ever hated…
in the key of Grr

Can hate be good?
Can hate be great?
Can hate be good?
Can hate be great?
Can hate be something we don’t hate?
Whistling…

We’d like to know
why it is so
that certain diesels must be slow
and thwack and thrum
and pong and hum
can clatter clat

Hate something
Change something
Hate something change something
Make something better
Whistling…

Oh isn’t it just bliss
when a diesel goes just like this?
Whistling…

Sing it like you hate it…
Hate something
Change something
Hate something
Change something
Make something better].

But, after cursing the rabbits with their ear-mufflers again, I got to thinking about whether this was actually a valid, if simple, way to change things: hate something, change something, make it better. Now one could say that that is simply a version of find a problem, solve it, improve things, but it is the idea of it springing from hate that I find interesting. As the song puts it, "Can hate be good? Can hate be great? Can hate be something we can't hate?"

Certainly there is something to be said for channelling negative energy into positive action (or, as Karl Kraus put it, "Hate must make a man productive.  Otherwise one might as well love." Slightly cynical then....), but is hate too strong. Or is it perhaps that strength of feeling about a problem that makes people get up and find the solution (or make the change)? I'm not suggesting that that was Honda's impetus: they are looking for a larger share of the diesel market and trying to appeal to the green/friendly bunny car buyers.

Or perhaps it is strength of feeling allied to capacity to change that makes it happen...after all, the dirtiness of diesel engines might enrage me, but I probably couldn't have built a more eco-friendly one. Similarly, it would be difficult for me to upgrade the District Line single-handed (though perhaps quicker).

In Nicholas Albery's 50 tips for social inventors, he specified that his model was, when confronted with a problem, to ask "How can I solve this problem in such a way that it could then help others to solve it too?" Which is a kind of "Hate Something, Change Something, Make it Better (for me and for other people)" approach.

Comments

[Natalie Wilkins]

Just read your blog with regards to the honda advert "hate something change something." I am a secondary school teacher and I was wondering if you would mind if I took some of your thoughts to create a lower school assembly. in particular I like the idea of "Can hate be something we can't hate?" and try to get the kids to see it as something positive.
Please let me know if this is okay.
Thanks

[Nick Temple]

Sure...go for it. Social invention workshops available on request... ;0)

[Paul]

Please widen your text pages! It is so tiresome scrolling down twice as far as normally neccessary, it give you eye ache reading. get rid of most of those stupid green bands each side of the text. Thank you, I look forward to your cooperation in this matter.