My two word construct of the year!
We’ve had the Word of the Year from The Oxford Dictionary (‘goblin mode’), Cambridge Dictionary (homer) Collins (‘permacrisis’), Merrium Webster (gaslighting) Dictionary.com (Woman), the Economist (hybrid work), and the most Googled (wordle) and here is my two word construct of the year!
Regular readers will know that I have been researching Bullshit language for a while and have become intrigued by what Emeritus Professor of Science, Language and Society at Nottingham, Brigitte Nerlich, kindly told me are called ‘lexical compounds’. They compress complex information into usually two simple words allowing us to communicate difficult concepts in new and useful ways.
Sometimes, they are just tedious buzzwords, but as I explore in this article they can, almost miraculously, create new understanding and open up conversations, which didn’t happen before the phrase was invented. Matthew Syed in his excellent podcast Sideways explored this recently in an episode All in a name — how finding the right words can help us tackle big wrongs — about how the creation of the term Sexual Harrassment changed everything for women in the workplace.
‘Coercive control’ was top of the list of my list those at the genius end of the spectrum, ‘circle back’ the most hated term by participants in my ‘Bullish*t workshops’ (to help people ditch the tedious language and irritating buzzwords and become better understood). Collatoral damage was top of my Scary 5 - those which have been invented specifically for malign purposes as the user tries to distance themselves, consciously or not, from the consequences of their actions.
So here is my two word compound of the year, plus a shortlist of potential contenders. Like those Words of the Year above they don’t need to have been invented this year, but have come to prominence and caught my attention.
Two word construct of the year:
Performative Politics
The theatrical deployment of language, symbols, and gestures to foster an impression of good governance…” (used to describe the term Performative Governance in World Politics, The Quarterly Journal of International Relations and adapted by me!)
I chose this, although it is not in wide usage, because it should be, and because it beautifully encapsulates the turbulent year we have had in UK politics which has been a mesmerising feature of the 2022!
Of course Brexit was Performative Politics at its worst, but 2022 has been another vintage year for watching Performative Politics in action.
Ex PM Boris Johnson was a master of the art. His unassailable belief that flamboyant rhetoric and his innate bumbling charm were enough to make him a PM of Churchillian stature was Performative Politics at its most deluded and damaging. Competence, integrity, the public interest are irrelevant to the performative politician, and sadly, sometimes, also to voters.
A less flamboyant, but equally arrogant strand of PP was practiced by our next PM Liz Truss. She also set aside such trifles as the best interest of UK citizens to perform for the totally unrepresentative 172,437 members of the Conservative Party (or 0.3% of the country), whose decision it was to choose the country’s next leader. This involved throwing ‘red meat’ policies which were divisive, often just wrong, and unpoplular with the many UK citizens, but chosen specifically to capture the attention of this small subset of the population.
What is perhaps pleasing is that Performative Politics has backfired for both of these Prime Ministers. Their superficiality, entrenched ideology and emphasis on form over substance made a significant contribution to their downfall in the end.
Is this the end of Performative Politics heyday in the UK? Did it blaze like a shooting star in the political fermament to fall to earth and be replaced by a stable, sane respectful politics focused on the public interest? I fear not.
Two consecutive home secretaries, first Priti Patel and the current incumbent Suella Braverman have failed to see it is not a great idea, particularly in their approach to immigration. Braverman seems to have fully embraced the performative approach which eschews respectful language, evidence, substance and empathy in favour of further red meat rhetroic for a small but influential group, referring to an ‘invasion’ of undeserving migrants who are economic chancers and here under false pretences, as the justification for a vicious immigration policy. (Another whole article could be written on this, but I will move on!)
Of course we know that all politics is performative, very often, though thankfully not always, at the expense of substance. A perfunctory viewing of Prime Ministers Questions in the House of Commons will confirm that. But I dearly hope that one of the lessons of our harrowing last 12 months in politics is to learn that putting performance over substance is ultimately misguided and that Performative Politics is an idea who’s time has been and gone.
Other 2022 faves
Here are a few more which resonated. These are mostly not new, but came to my attention in 2022.
Lying flat — is fabulous, emerging from China and meaning taking a break from relentless work. 2022 was a year that made most of us want to lie flat for one reason or another.
Digital twin — we will be hearing more of — this is a digital version of a product, system or process which allows testing, monitoring and prototyping of new ideas.
Virtue Signalling — lots of it about this year. “An attempt to show other people that you are a good person, for example by expressing opinions that will be acceptable to them, especially on social media. The expression is often used to imply that the virtue being signalled is exaggerated or insincere.” Interesting to see a a corporate manifestation of this ‘greenwashing’ come under scrutiny with new Green Claims Code to ensure the UK Competition and Markets Authority can investigate firms who make green claims which can’t be substantiated.
Social cooling — describing ‘the long-term negative side-effects of living in a data driven society when digital systems greatly amplify social pressure, which could lead to more conformity’. Another year of frenzied activity on the negative effects of social media culminating in Elon Musk’s take over of Twitter and alot of us cooling towards him and leaving Twitter in droves.
Effective altruism — “a philosophical and social movement that advocates using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis”. An interesting put peculiar concept, which has been undermined by the dramatic downfall of one of its leading advocates Sam Bankman-Fried founder of the bancrup FTX currency exchange who claimed this venture was “part of an aggressively utilitarian project to make as much money as possible, in order to donate it as effectively as possible for the future of the happiness of humanity’. Hmm. Maybe another two word construct Responsible Innovation needs to go hand in hand with EA.
Re-humanising — Used in lots of different ways, but I am making it the opposite of dehumanising, which is what we seem to be doing with our approach to technology at the moment by, making humans more like machines and machines more like humans. Madness.
Re-humanising means celebrating everything that makes us human and rebelling against all that is dehumanising, everywhere. I am taking it as a watchword for my next year’s work.
Happy Christmas and holiday season everyone!
