Words, words, words
by Robert Fisk
I once received an invitation to lecture at “The University of Excellence”. I forget where this particular academy was located — Jordan, I think — but I recall very clearly that the suggested subject of my talk was as incomprehensible to me as it would, no doubt, have been to any audience. Invitation rejected. Only this week I received another request, this time to join “ethics practitioners” to “share evidence-based practices on dealing with current ethical practices” around the world. What on earth does this mean? Why do people write like this?
The word “excellence”, of course, has long ago been devalued by the corporate world — its favourite expression has long been “Quality and Excellence”, invariably accompanied by a “mission statement”, that claim to self-importance dreamed up by Robin Cook when foreign secretary — swiftly ditched when he decided to go on selling jets to Indonesia — and thereafter by every export company and amateur newspaper in the world.
There is something repulsive about this vocabulary, an aggressive language of superiority in which “key players” can “interact” with each other, can “impact” society, “outsource” their business — or “downsize” the number of their employees. They need “feedback” and “input”. They think “outside the box” or “push the envelope”. They have a “work space”, not a desk. They need “personal space” — they need to be left alone — and sometimes they need “time and space”, a commodity much in demand when marriages are failing.
These lies and obfuscations are infuriating. “Downsizing” employees means firing them; “outsourcing” means hiring someone else to do your dirty work. “Feedback” means “reaction”, “input” means “advice”. Thinking “outside the box” means, does it not, to be “imaginative”?
