Over-used words #4: Efficiency

What it’s ‘sposed to mean: something that is running as lean and mean as it can be, working at optimum, doing its job as simply and directly as possible, with zero faff and zero wastage.

How it’s used: Nothing more than "making savings" rather than actually "making something work better". Excuse me. Before I go on, I should say this one is a little more serious than mild annoyance or pedantry, and as such I am about to lose my sense of humour and get polemical, even political (although, if you notice, all of these "over-used words" posts thus far have been about the [ab]use of language for power purposes).

Serious

I am really talking about how the term "efficiency" is often misused in the workplace, or by government (central or local) - all too often as a by-word for cuts, whether funding or staff. Doing more with less. Getting added value out of the bare minimum. Working smart. Rationalising. And all that good businessman’s horse-sense stuff.

Here’s the thing: Efficiency does not just mean saving money or scaling something down. There is something absolutely key here – to be efficient, something STILL HAS TO WORK. If your service or product is worse after “efficiency” savings, then the word “efficiency” is a misnomer.

An overloaded system is not an efficient one. If you have more coming down that conveyor belt than you can deal with then stuff will back up and fall off, or pass by without being properly processed, or processed at all – and that is wastage, and wastage is not efficient.

Worse, if you’re asked to be in two or three places, doing two or three different things, at once (which you wouldn’t think you'd have to point out was impossible, but people do surprise you) then the system is simply just not working.

And if your new system is a constant stretch and struggle to keep going, it is not efficient either – true efficiency, once up and running, should involve less effort, not more.

Vorsprung Durch Technik

The word “efficient” used to bring to mind (stereotypically) German engineering or the Roman army – something strict, precise, reliable, meticulous, infinitely functional, impeccably trained and relentlessly performing time after time, like the fabled well-oiled machine – it absolutely does not mean over-stretched and under-resourced, running on a combination of corner cutting, a skeleton crew close to burn-out or collapse, and petrol fumes.

Of course, one shouldn’t automatically sneer at the term – it can mean what it’s supposed to: Re-organising something in a way that makes more sense; simplifying needlessly complicated systems; smoothing out blockages; dividing the workload in a more rational, straightforward and targeted way, so every drop of energy reliably achieves something valuable; making sure everyone and everything is placed where most useful, to get the best out of each... Good. If that’s the case.

But that’s not always possible – it still takes a certain investment of time and resources to get there. Yes, austere times can drive a push towards true efficiency, but it’s not a one way-street. Austerity can just as easily screw up things that once worked just fine - by over-stretching them and sending them limping into a slow, sad decline.

Cheery old Nietzsche said “That which does not kill us makes us stronger” a nice observation on the character-building effects of struggle and suffering, not to mention the “thrive or die” efficiency of nature (though not true in every case – a frontal lobotomy doesn't do either) - but then some struggle and suffering does just kill us, even if it takes a bit of time. Cheery old me.

More Business-Speak

When the word “efficiency” is bandied about, I find it useful to think of two other terms and ask if, actually, these are what’s really going on/going to happen. The following are clunky business-speak terms, yes - not the most poetic parlance to slide silkily off the tongue - but I like them, if only as very - yes - efficient fire-power for a business-speak counter-attack:

False Economy: something that may seem like a saving or simplification on paper, but which ends up generating more cost and complexity in the real world – usually because it ignores the fine details or wider/long-term repercussions. The unforeseen cost is usually a result of sorting out the mess made by the original “saving” – like pushing down a lump in one place only for it to pop up elsewhere.

Opportunity Cost: a term known by every A Level business student, yet constantly overlooked in practice. Where your focus on one aspect of your workforce's activity is actually costing them the opportunity to be doing other things - often things that are taken for granted, and hence overlooked - that are actually important to the health and success of the organisation/business. For example an extreme focus on productivity at the expense of the opportunity to think and reflect - ie. show intelligence, solve problems and come up with new and better ideas; or heaping more and more duties on fewer and fewer staff, which may seem value for money, but costs them the opportunity to spend time, effort, care and attention on what they were doing before – which in turn can cost the organisation dearly in terms of the quality of work and good communication, not to mention morale.

Body Pump

The over-use of “efficiency” is a hangover from better, more voluptuous times. It may have been valid when the first cuts were being made and workplaces were bloated with unproductive, unnecessary and unwieldy practices and appendages. Maybe. But for many services and businesses today, at shop floor level, the enemy is no longer waste and sloth, it is paucity and exhaustion. Insisting on greater “efficiency” in an already critically over-stretched system, after the nth round of belt-tightening and redundancies, is like telling an emaciated, starving family they need to stop snacking so much and get down Body Pump. It beggars belief, makes the tears stand out in the eyes - and is not helpful to anyone. At all.

We are not fighting the flab here anymore, we are fighting malnourishment – and unless “efficiency” refers to reducing the workload and not the workforce, it’s just an insult - and a lie.

Ok, that’s more than enough seriousness for one night. Look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29MJySO7PGg

Over-used words #2 and #3: Disgusting, Disappointed

#2: Disgusting

What it’s ‘sposed to mean: This thing fills me with a physical revulsion, nausea even – I recoil in queasy horror at it.

How it’s used: The ridiculous hyperbole of the impotently annoyed. Indignant people who are really quite miffed, but can’t do anything about it, will wheel this word out in an effort impress on you how really quite miffed they are, in the hope that you will give two shits and maybe do something; not realising that if they were nicer and more reasonable about it, maybe you would.

The mouldy, maggot-infested corpse of a squashed octopus is disgusting; entrails and vomit and smeared human poo is disgusting; if we’re going for the moral angle, human rights abuses by totalitarian governments are; perhaps the horrifying deviant behaviour of the sex pest or serial killer; perhaps violent misogyny or race-hate...

The fact that the council has not collected your bins for three weeks is not “disgusting”, really is it? Nor is the fact that the item you ordered has not arrived in 14 days, as the shop said it would, and will now be another two weeks. Nor is the fact that your letter of complaint was ignored, that your insurance won’t cover replacing your windscreen, that parking on your street is a problem, that you have to fork out more money than you expected to get your washing machine fixed, and pay for delivery. I think the word you’re looking for there is annoying. Really rather annoying. Like using the word “disgusting” to describe such things.

Worse things happen at sea.

#3: Disappointed

What it’s ‘sposed to mean: I feel a bit sad, deflated and let down that something or someone hasn’t met my expectations, or things did not turn out like I hoped.

How it’s used: Have been hearing this word a lot recently in place of “f***ing p***ed off”, “really bloody livid” or “massively un-chuffed”. It’s use in this way doesn’t annoy me much yet – I actually rather like the understatedness of it, and “I’m disappointed” is at least more accurate and emotionally honest than “It’s disgusting”.

But all the same there is something suspicious about using the word this way. Being sternly “disappointed” used to be the domain of parents and teachers; but management and PR types picked up on it and now this angry kind of usage seems to have made its way out to the unwashed masses, sometimes jarringly. A teenager recently told me she was “disappointed” that she had to pay a massive fine that she couldn’t afford just to get her own missing dog back – and hence may never see her beloved pet again. She was “disappointed” at the size of the fine. "Disappointed"? Really? Not “heartbroken”? Not “outraged”? Not “disgusted”? ...Maybe it was ludicrous Victorian-style understatement, but I suspect she’d just picked it up as the mature thing to say from some teacher at college, or middle-manager where she worked.

The reason “disappointed” may rub one up the wrong way is twofold:

It’s partly the pose it adopts – ie vague condescension. Telling someone you’re sternly “disappointed” with them does involve a bit of low-key power-play: You are staking your claim as the calm, professional, superior one whose reasonable expectations should have been met. This is flagrantly not the case with everyone who tells you they are “disappointed” through gritted teeth.

The second rankle is the pungent whiff of emotional blackmail that surrounds it – it says “I am a human being who is a bit upset about this”, and appeals, slightly passive-aggressively, to the bit of us that wants to please others, not cause upset, and be liked – which in the supposedly strictly-professional business workplace, for example, could be argued to be a bit underhand and inappropriate (even though that’s exactly the kind of motivation business workplaces rely on all the time in their underling staff).

While I admire the honesty of anyone who says they are “disappointed” when they genuinely are (I use the word a lot myself, my life is suffused with a constant background noise of the stuff), it’s often used in the knowledge that anyone, on being told someone is “disappointed” in them, will have an instant gut-flush of shame for a split-second before their brain kicks in and they remember they are not in school again or talking to a stern uncle. And actually they can say “Well, hang on a minute...”

The aloof understatement and passive-aggressive undertones of “I’m disappointed” are double-edged though – while they give the word its insidious power, like all understatement and passive-aggression it’s easy to ignore or brush off by the thick-skinned and hard of heart.

So, you’re disappointed. I’m sorry you feel that way, but boo hoo, and so what?

And now I'm going to talk about telepathy.

I know what you’re thinking: Telepathy? Really, now, Thomas?

Never let it be said that this blog shies away from the real, important, practical issues on everyone’s lips. Yes I’m going to talk about telepathy, which I’m sure is a topic that has been playing on your mind too, dear reader.

Mmn. Ok, it’s not my intention to get all sci-fi, or even new-age, on your ass. I actually want to talk about the function of language, which is what I’m going to do, and the telepathy angle is just a (admittedly peculiar) way to do that.

Having been a fan of both Nietzsche and Wittgenstein in my time, what language is and what language does is something I’ve hmmm'd on extensively; and being currently a newspaper man, the use (and abuse) of words is something I continue to ponder, mostly to my own aimless distraction. Which is why it’d be nice to siphon some of it off here.

So here’s something language-related that’s bugged me for some time: I saw this guy giving a talk a couple of years back, and was generally impressed with the massively interesting and quite important stuff he was doing. However, I found myself wary about embracing his enthusiasm for one thing. He said something like (I paraphrase): “Wouldn’t it be good if we could just bypass language altogether and directly communicate our thoughts and feelings from mind to mind.” He seemed to think this would clear up arguments and misunderstandings with his spouse.

I’ll admit that, like many people, I have fantasised in the past about being able to see into the minds of others, and thought how much easier life would be if I could do that. I’ve also, in moments when I’ve felt misunderstood and lacking sympathy, wished I could just show someone what was going on in my head so they would get how I felt and understand what I understood.

But that kind of thing would only work as a one-off, if you were the only one with that power and could turn it on and off. If we all woke up tomorrow able to see and feel the inner-most workings of each other’s headspace, I think it would be nothing less than the end of civilisation as we know it.

FREUD

Freud’s theories may have been largely discarded as science – his constructed model of ‘the psyche’ has little in the way of research evidence to back it up, and much of the detail just looks bizarre and wrong-headed in the light of modern psychology; but the basic notion of the unconscious still rings true to some extent: The idea that we really are not entirely rational creatures under the surface, and that there must be all kinds of processes going on within us that we’re just not aware of on a day-to-day conscious level seems self-evident.

Freud was convinced that our conscious selves – our identity, our persona, how we think of ourselves and present ourselves to others – is only the tip of the iceberg of the full entity that is us.

Beneath the surface everyone is a seething mass of childish, irrational, reactive animal urges, fears and desires that are necessarily kept repressed and hidden from the world - to the extent we ourselves barely acknowledge or understand them. This is true of everyone, no matter how sophisticated, controlled and professional they appear on the outside, from the Queen to Jeremy Paxman to Bez (some are better at it than others). How aware or unaware of this stuff we are is debatable, but we certainly need to learn, consciously or unconsciously, to keep it in check to participate in society as a responsible adult.

But just because this stuff is kept in check, doesn’t mean it's not there – and more importantly, thought Freud, these basic fears and desires actually influence our so-called ‘rational’ decisions and behaviour much, much more than we would like to admit: We tend to come up with rational explanations for our actions afterwards, but it’s obvious there is more to our behaviour than simple logical thought.

In short the idea that human nature and human society is driven by enlightened, logical rationality is a complete myth – reason is at best a regulatory tempering force, and a tool for use, in how we our go about our lives.

I must say personal experience of living in ‘rational society’ (not to mention living with myself and my own weather-like temperament and unmanageable whims) has led me to have a hell of a lot of sympathy with this aspect of Freud. Anyone who has spent time delving into the dispassionate, analytical world of philosophy and psychology and then turned their gaze once more on the barely-sentient everyday politics of human relationships will know the world really does not run on reflective rationality.

But never mind the unconscious – simply knowing what is going on in everyone’s heads, conscious or not, all the time would make any kind of business-like interaction or professional detachment impossible to maintain. Imagine if every minor resentment, annoyance or uncharitable thought you had was immediately known by everyone around you – or how you would feel if you immediately knew everyone else's. That’s bad enough, but it would be so much more than that – everyone would know how you were feeling all the time: There would be no way to hide boredom, reluctance, anger, fear, disdain, discomfort, silliness – or your preference for the company of certain people over others – or, God forbid, desire, neediness and lust.

Everyone’s internal landscape must be so unique, dense and complex that it may as well be an alien world. We would all have to become inconceivably more understanding and forgiving of others if we were going to be party to everyone’s inner-most secrets and feelings all the time. Just to glimpse what is going on inside someone is to know what it is like to be them, in the raw. I suspect the experience would be so over-whelming we would never recover from it.

NIETZSCHE

Which tells us something about the function language plays. It is not, and has never been, simply for transferring dry information. It allows us to choose what we reveal or what we keep secret, it gives us a chance to control how we present ourselves. It acts as a buffer and is also a diplomatic translation tool that enables us to communicate sensibly, at a distance. It acts as both conduit and filter, and is to some extent a protective mask for our inner landscape.

I suppose at this point some readers might be raising an objecting finger - am I suggesting it's a bad thing to be honest and open? Am I advocating deception and secrecy? Aren't I being be pretty down on the purity of straight-forward truthfulness? Why should we have to hide our true selves?

Well, dear, dear, reader, I raise you Nietzsche. Things are not as simple as 'truth' and 'lie', said the walrus-‘tached one, not when it comes to how language is used. There are, in fact, many shades of grey between those supposed exclusive opposites.

Certainly there are lies - out-and-out untruths – things that are demonstrably not the case - complete fabrications, deliberately created - that you could utter, but this is not really our concern here.

Nietzsche's concern is what we mean by truth: Because 'truth' is a very difficult thing to pin down. “Every word is a prejudice” said he - one of my all-time favourite lines because it so succinctly sums up his view of language: The very words you select to convey information necessarily spin it in a particular way. Any expression in words will only highlight a small, limited aspect of the concept or situation you are dealing with, a concise and contained package of signs that gestures towards a wider reality and tries to pin it down in finite terms.

There's a whole raft of decisions that need to be made before you float an utterance out from your gob: What words are you going to use, what angle are you going to come at it from, how will you start, what are you going to include, what are you going to leave out, what are you going to highlight or prioritise as important? All of these elements serve to present the information in a way you want it presented, designed to have a particular impact. There are possibly infinite variations, all of which are 'true', in that the facts are the same, despite very different trajectories.

It sounds like I’m talking about spin, but it’s not necessarily deliberately manipulative or disingenuous – often you will express things the way you have picked up on them, the way you see or interpret them, and prioritise what is genuinely most important to you at that moment. In fact you can’t do anything else, but also, in fact, it’s very rare you will ever say anything that isn’t in some way in your interests to say, and pretending this is the same as speaking the whole dry truth is either naive or flat-out bogus.

Neitzsche was very aware of the power politics at work in language – far from simply conveying facts, language’s function is very much to advance the agenda of the speaker – to have an effect on the behaviour or thinking of the recipient. In the first chapter of Beyond Good and Evil he essentially suggests that even the most dry and rational of philosophical writings are trying to impose the author’s values and preferences on the reader – far from being the dispassionate, open minded explorations they pretend to be, they all start with an agenda, based on the writer's value system, and seek to persuade the reader towards it.

The manipulation of language for social effect is so common we do it unconsciously and when others do it to us it often slips under the radar. We notice it in politicians because we’ve learnt to look for it, but it happens everywhere – from polite small talk with strangers to the dynamics between loved ones, from interactions in the workplace to (especially) advertising and business, the media and the law courts. Where there are people trying to live together there will be power politics, and where there is power politics it will infuse language.

But again I should stress that language has to be prejudiced – it has to take a perspective. At the end of Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche laments how his ideas look dull and dead now they have been immortalised on the page, that he hasn’t represented the vibrant flux of his thoughts fully. We speak only interpretations and perspectives – the true nature of things is not to be pinned down in words. The way that can be spoken of is not the constant way, the name that can be named is not the constant name...

Language is not truth, it is a tool. Together with non-verbal cues, it’s the primary social tool of our species, massively powerful in the effect it can have. As much as we may sneer and bemoan how much easier it would be if we could communicate simply and directly, language exists as it is for a reason – because we need it that way to protect ourselves, to advance our cause and translate our thoughts and feelings. If we were to take this away, to bypass this with telepathy, everything would change – millennia of social development, the whole structure of our society, would be redundant.

WITTGENSTEIN

Nietzsche’s pre-occupation with language and its function is nothing compared to Wittgenstein – no philosopher took language apart as brilliantly as that guy.

There are echoes of Nietzsche’s assertion that language is not simply a logical conveyance of information in Wittgenstein’s later work Philosophical Investigations, particularly in the idea of language games – that the way people use language falls into different categories, each with its own set of rules, that language is woven into the various activities and modes of being we can slip into. Language is an extension of action and behaviour and the way we use it – for example commanding, requesting, pleading, joking, debating - denotes which mode we are in, and requires a response appropriate to that language game.

To understand language you really have to understand human interaction – Wittgenstein contended that without interaction it would be impossible to learn language in the first place – without feedback from others in active situations there would be nothing to tie the system of rules and symbols to. You cannot learn language by watching TV in a room on your own, and you cannot not develop your own language on a desert island on your own - you need to communicate with at least one responsive other.

The real reason Wittegenstein was so interested in language was that for him language, logic and consciousness are inseparable. Thought and language develop side by side, and both through communication and interaction with the world and others – language does not just express thought; thought is influenced by language, since language solidifies and gives shape to concepts, perspectives and ways of thinking – it structures thought, to the extent that developing language may be essential to developing a reflective consciousness, certainly to developing rationality.

It’s easy to see why – without language we have no way to consistently pin down thoughts and concepts, let alone analyze them; and in having to consider how we are going to present our thoughts in language, it makes us analyze and reflect on them.

Without the need for, and practice of, communication with others, there is really no need to be that conscious or reflective at all. Language does not arise, neither does rational thought.

Which raises the point – if we scrap language, do we become less conscious, less rational? If we have direct access to each others’ minds, would we lose our individual identity altogether and no longer have the need for considered communication; or would we have to develop a new 'language' of thought behaviour?

WE EXPLORED SOME THINGS

I don’t think for a second that the kind of total mind-merge telepathy I’ve been considering is possible at all – it seems a condition of consciousness that each perspective is isolated.

So, maybe the above is so much blather about nothing. But we’ve explored some things, and if nothing else it demonstrates that language is not just something we do to tell each other stuff – it is essential to who and what we are, and awesomely sophisticated.

Wishing that we could bypass words and see directly into each other is, I suggest, a folly, fraught with unforeseen problems, and underestimates what language does.

A telepathic society would be unrecognisable to us. It sure as hell wouldn’t look like it does in sci-fi movies, where telepathic aliens are just like us but a bit quieter, all peace-nik and touchy-feely and possibly bald. No: With that kind of power, and without language, we wouldn’t be looking at conscious individuals as we currently understand the concept at all – we would have transformed into something else entirely. That would no longer be human life as we know it.

Careful what you wish for. I’ll be monitoring your thoughts.

Over-used words #1: Inappropriate.

What it's ‘sposed to mean: You have woefully misjudged your behaviour and it's completely misaligned with your situation.

How it's used: A subjective authority-stamping command masquerading as a cool, detached objective statement of FACT. It may sound like a dispassionate observation, but make no mistake, if you’re told your behaviour is inappropriate you are being told off - "This is my 'hood, I don't like what you're doing and I'm telling you to stop it": The terrifying doom from on high - Oh my Christ, have I done something... INAPPROPRIATE? It’s not just your actions that are being trashed, it’s your judgement.

But: Who decided what was appropriate here? Are you sure they’re correct? It is a judgement call, after all – are they infallible? Do they have any better handle on the situation than you? Do we all have the same goals here? Are we all on the same agenda? Do we all see all facets and perspectives of this set of circumstances? Because if not, what is “appropriate” or not is very much relative and up for grabs…

I admit there is something delicious about the word though - such a lot of power for such a politely unassuming bunch of syllables. The quieter it's said, the better... *Ahem*. Excuse me, that's (whisper it)… inappropriate.

Man/Woman Wisecrack Difficulty (A Stereotypical Account)

Woman: "You've always got some answer to anything I say to you, haven't you?"

Man: "Well, yes, it's called having a conversation."

Not the most tactful response.

Whilst this is one humdinger of a wise-cracking ‘funny’, there is a deeper lesson about the arcane mysteries of male-female relations concealed within that we may unpack. Woman wishes to express her frustrations over Man’s constant smart-arse responses. They are annoying in themselves, in their infuriating pedantry. They miss her point and derail the flow of her thoughts, and worse, he thinks he is being clever. She thinks he is being a pedantic ass and not taking her seriously.

The fact that he has just done exactly what she was complaining about – “always” having “some answer” – may or may not be clear to Man. But it probably is, and the irony of that just makes it funnier and his answer cleverer. Woman will see this as exasperating confirmation of her point – he has “always got some answer to anything” she says, and the fact that it is actually sharp and witty (especially if she finds herself impotent to match it at this immediate moment) will rankle her further, though she would be loathe to admit it. Either that or she simply doesn’t care for the sharpness of wit at all – and sees his efforts as pathetic and unwarrantedly smug, which is just as infuriating.

Her ‘mistake’ here, of course, was not quite saying what she meant – she meant to say “some smart-arse response” not just “some response”. His picking up on this, though, appears to be being clever for the sake of a laugh at her expense – he knows full well what she meant and is avoiding the point. Man often thinks he is being ‘logical’ by only paying attention to the surface detail of a conversation, as if the underlying implied reasoning can be ignored if not made explicit. What Man fundamentally fails to understand is the fact people in general very rarely say what they mean in a precise way. Language functions in a much more complex way than just what is apparent in the dry, explicit, surface detail. It is most often not used precisely and ‘logically’ in everyday life, it more often acts as a sign-post to unspoken vistas of shared meaning – communication relies on tacit knowledge.

But, before we write Man off altogether as a narrow-minded, insensitive pedant, incapable of properly engaging with the full range of meaning in human communication, we should take a moment to analyse what is tacit and implied in his response: Because there is more here than meets the eye too. Whilst the main thrust behind the utterance was certainly a delicious, irresistible opportunity for a wise-crack, Man also has a serious point to make that will probably be completely missed by Woman: “…it’s called having a conversation.” What’s implied here, the well that this ‘funny’ is dredged from, is the view that witty sarcastic responses are just part of a normal conversation for him. They are not meant to be taken to heart, and it exasperates him that she sometimes gets annoyed and upset about them. He can’t understand why she can’t understand that his teasing is an expression of his familiarity and fondness for her, rather than just an array of arrogant put-downs. He does it because he thinks she will get it, and be amused. If she doesn’t, he has failed and feels distanced from her. He understands his quips can sometimes sail a little close to the edge of cruelty, or be annoying in their irrelevant silliness, but they are not meant to be taken seriously – or not in that way at least. This very quip demonstrates that rarely is a ‘funny’ just a ‘funny’ – there will often be a sober background relief to it. When Man quips at Woman it does not necessarily mean he is not taking her or what she says seriously.

In actuality, this is not automatically a male-female thing at all, though there is a common trend for such a relationship scenario to be arranged in that way. It could easily take place between any two people – Woman quipping at Man, Man quipping at Man or Woman quipping at Woman. Whatever the configuration, though, the resulting argument will not be fueled by simple annoyance at silly quips – it is about the frustration of communication, not feeling understood or valued and all the insecurities related to that element of relationships. So next time you get caught up in the surface detail of an argument, think about what is implicit rather than explicit – and what underlying misunderstanding is really levering open the rift and stomping on those touchy feelings. I won’t promise it will solve anything, or make it any simpler – now I think about it, it rarely has for me – but at least you will get some clarity and awareness and the possibility of a proper, honest dialogue.

And you thought it was just a tactless wisecrack.