Talking about how we talk about things

Somehow we are supposed to have efficiency in government while not having efficiency in how we talk to each other about government. No wonder we get more of the same but louder, faster, harder. 

In ancient Rome there was a job titled nomenclator, taken from the Roman way of naming things, who was an assistant or slave explaining who folks were and what they were doing. In a formal setting they announced important persons entering the room by title and such. Those important persons would also have a nomenclator attending them to subtly jog their memory as to names and details of whoever the next person to greet was, if need be. Modern important personages still have this in their assistants, entourages, crews, teams, so on and so forth. 

As for the term itself, by the time nomenclator worked its way through Latin then French and eventually English in the 17th century the meaning had shifted from the more literal “calling out a list” to a cataloging of common terms. By the end of The Enlightenment, our modern nomenclature term was set as a standardized naming and classification system for everything from science to art to technology. 

Scientists and professionals of the expanding and globalizing world figured out pretty quickly that standardized terms are essential for talking across languages, cultures, classes, professional fields of expertise, and educational levels. Without standard terms and universal classification and the understanding thereof, basic communication breaks down quickly and the opportunity for new ideas to cross human nature barriers never has a chance. 

Nomenclature matters.

Politics and the socio-cultural issues surrounding politics have a nomenclature problem, and the modern mix of changing news media and content creation information ecosystem that is both the headwaters and tributary to the media cycle is making it worse, not better. 

There is the general purpose, generalization nomenclature that makes for easy hot takes but poor discussion on substance against the always popular they, them, those over there. Magically useful singular,  plural and downright magical words worm through the discourse to apply to others but not yourself with specific unspecificity. 

One level up on the nomenclature is the nomenclature of groupings. “The rich” and “the poor” and “the middle class,” which all three have sliding meanings and means testing that means exactly what the wielder of the term means it to mean while not meaning what any inbound criticism means it to mean because why don’t you understand the plain meaning?

Then there is the thicket of omnidirectional terms and color coded meanings. “The left” is opposite “the right” and may or may not fit into Team Blue or Team Red. In America, Blue is usually the Democratic Party and the political left while the GOP is Red and political right. Except when you are railing against socialism and its cousin communism, both repping the color red, but those terms Team Red in America ascribe to Team Blue. Unless you are talking about the French fascists or Spanish Falange fascists who use blue, but are on the far right. 

See how confusing this is when nomenclature isn’t universally understood? 

Thankfully, by 1921 Frank and Lillian Gilbreths’ groundbreaking work on combining understanding of human nature and industrial labor invented the modern flow chart to help us keep things straight. While they were mostly working with and for major corporations, their work was particularly of interest to an exiled Russian feller named Lenin. Old Vlad took the scientific movement of time-motion studies the Gilbreths were part of and took “efficiency” in stark and horrifying new directions once he attained power. The Gilbreths meaning of “efficiency” led to what we now understand as ergonomics and work-life understanding; Lenin’s meaning of “efficiency” led to millions of dead and millions more suffering.  

Nomenclature matters. 

Complicated matters of policy and governance suffer from political word games when universal understanding is needed. Unproven companies from outside areas get tax breaks and government incentives for this proposed new business or that latest gizmo factory that will employ X amount of workers for Y amount of revenue to the economy, a big splashy headline. But too often those gotta-have-it-for-the-future promises wind up underdelivering if ever opening at all. This is termed “investment”. Meanwhile, declining areas lose services, lose schools, struggle with infrastructure, and other things that cost money but those needs are met with the term “fiscal responsibility”. 

It is a neat trick we do with political terminology. 

Mostly, folks from office holders to the media commentariat, to citizens on their social media accounts fall into the same habit of using nomenclature to take the nasty edges off the problems people have no easy answers for. There is no single fix for rural areas that either have to be heavily subsidized or will continue to decline. There is no easy fix for disproportionate growth in regions that have ready access to growing metro areas while other places are demographically bleed to death with an aging population, shocking declines in young people, and poor workforce participation for the ones who are left. 

There are tough choices to be made, with no easy words to dull the cutting edge. Not enough money to go around and political consideration as to who gets what are not new problems. Nor are issues like poverty, healthcare, infrastructure, education, economic growth, and the forbidden topic of managed decline. All of those issues incubate an ecosystem of terminologies that are easy to spout off in conversation or thumb into a phone but also makes rhetorical cul-de-sacs that keep folks from actually addressing the issues in a productive way towards a solution. Understand that school, that road, that water system, that hospital is something involving people and the first step to tyranny and suffering is always making people a line item instead of living, breathing, reactive individuals.Vastly imperfect individuals, who will require compromise and negotiation with unless they are just to be oppressed and told to shut up and deal with it. Which too often happens. Maybe some modern day Gilbreths will arise and make flowcharts to explain how social media and news media have created this chimera information monster which is everything everyone wants but nothing anyone doesn’t want it to be all at the same time.

Maybe just start with a simple term like “efficiency,” which, in a vacuum, governments at the local, state, and federal level could certainly use if applied correctly. The question is: will it be a Gilbreth model of “efficiency” or a Lenin model of “efficiency”?

Same word, vastly different outcomes for the people involved, while the nomenclature itself doesn’t care. No matter how much louder, faster, or harder it gets.