When Words Get in the Way

alk may be cheap, but words aren't. They are the currency of human affairs, the principal means by which we communicate, think, grasp reality. If you think actions speak louder than words, think again. Not in today's world. Actions may be more telling and truthful, but not louder.

Words are instruments of power. We use them to project ourselves to others, to say who we are, who we want to be, who we want others to think we are: cool, cultured, intelligent, hip, important.

It's no surprise, then, that there's a lot of semantic garbage floating around out there-hyperbole, jargon, buzzwords and other forms of inflationary and exclusionary pretense that diminish thought and thus ourselves. Anyone even remotely familiar with bureaucratese or diplo-speak knows this state of affairs only too well.

The most obnoxious example of the hyperbole that afflicts us (we might even consider it hyper-hyperbole) is the faux truism that the United States is "the world's only superpower." This self-indulgent shibboleth is so often repeated that it has achieved the status of truth. We don't even question it.

But if power is about getting your way or getting what you want, about bending others to your will, then "superpower" would seem to connote an ability to do such things at will, regardless of circumstance, regardless of who's involved. How preposterous. How self-servingly arrogant.

A lone superpower wouldn't whine. We whine. A lone superpower would lead by example-courageously. We follow polls-in cowardly fashion. A lone superpower would practice what it preaches-selflessly. We just preach-sanctimoniously.

Not far behind in the semantic demolition derby is the hackneyed phrase "thinking outside the box." Everyone except the most diehard purist utters these words at some time or other. One isn't just creative or imaginative, a rebel against convention, a source of new ideas or old ideas newly applied; no, one instead thinks outside the box-or purports to. Ironically, you don't actually have to do it to be considered a practitioner. Our standard for thoughtfulness, our appetite for iconoclasm, is just too low. In fact, those who talk most about such thinking tend to be those who don't (or can't) do the real thing.

Another example of hyperbolic overkill is our incessant reference to "transformation," and its alter ego, "revolution." To hear the lords of punditry tell it, transformation is all around us; society's most parochial institutions are said to be undergoing revolutionary upheaval. There's the so-called revolution in military affairs-and, of course, its progenitor, the revolution in business. And don't forget education and science and diplomacy.

Such rhetorical legerdemain is how those with the greatest stake in the status quo convince themselves and the rest of us that real progress is afoot. Change is what's going on all around us, not transformation. Transformation isn't just garden variety, incremental change. It's a leap to an entirely new level of existence.

And revolution isn't evolution. It's about sweeping overhaul, the summary rejection and jettisoning of old for new. Of course, nothing of any such magnitude is going on in our lives today, the ubiquity of computers and the onslaught of information notwithstanding. White guys are still in charge. We're still organized in hierarchical pecking orders of advantaged and disadvantaged. Technology and wealth remain our gods.

"Paradigm" is the all-pervasive, all-purpose buzzword of the day. "Holistic" used to have such standing, but it's been mothballed, just when the forces of globalization could give it new life and resonance. Now we use "paradigm" cavalierly to refer to any approach, example, school of thought, or way of doing things: the paradigm of war, the paradigm of democratic governance, the paradigm of public education. We don't just talk about adopting a new way of thinking or changing our ways; we have to "shift paradigms" or "adopt a new paradigm." Overuse of the word robs the genuine meaning.

There are many other examples of such detritus in our language. If you're a bureaucrat, you're all too familiar with and probably guilty of using "skill set," "multi-tasking," "metric," or "connectivity." And if you pay attention to military affairs, you have to affect an understanding of "asymmetric threats," "weapons of mass destruction," "military operations other than war," and "exit strategies." And for all of us, there's "9/11" and the nauseating "24-7."

"A people's speech is the skin of its culture," said the late journalistic eminence Max Lerner in America as a Civilization (Simon & Schuster, 1957). I hate to be hyperbolic, but I fear that the degradation of our language may signal the decline of our civilization.