It could be said that despite
working in very personal domains, people use very impersonal words. And, you
have guessed that: It’s not despite; It’s because.
Let’s take the more severe cases
of professions like medics, police and military. Imagine that you are a police
man or woman. You work 8 hour shifts every day. With whom do you interact all
day long, every day? I guess most people never asked themselves this question.
A police man or woman has to deal all day long with two categories of people:
First there are the victims of crime. Clearly when interacting with a police
man or woman, the victim of crime is not exactly cheerful and happy. After all
why would you go to the police when everything is fine? Second there are the
criminals or delinquents. Usually these are the scrap of society. Usually they
are people with traumas in their past that became felons. Usually they are of
below average intelligence, uneducated and in brief, not exactly a nice
company.
Now, let’s think about doctors.
All (working) day long they have to deal with people that are suffering. Yes,
of course, there are some exceptions like pregnant women that are fine but just
go a regular check and there are very health-conscious people that are in
perfect shape and just what the reassurance of a professional and have regular
check-ups. However, these are exceptions and in a medic’s daily life there is a
lot of pain and suffering to deal with.
Now, let’s think about military
personnel, particularly higher ranks. What is the job of these people? In a
word: “To KILL”. Yes there is a lot of nice talk about preventing conflict and
a lot of “mumbo-jumbo”, but in the end the military exists to destroy and kill.
I remember one line from a movie about World War I where a soldier said that “a
general’s job is to send people to their death”.
Even less critical professions
have less pleasant moments. Teachers have to fail students if their performance
is not good enough. Recruiters have to tell people that they did not get the
job for which they went to 3 interviews and filled in 100 forms.
Imagine how it would be for a
police person to think of a delinquent in the following terms:
The poor guy who was conceived in
an alley by a drunken man and a drugged prostitute. The poor kid that spent most
of his childhood in the same room where his mother brought in “customers”. The
guy that by the age of 7 preferred to sleep in the street because his father
would rape him whenever he didn’t beat him with a steel pipe. The kid that by
the age of 13 was injecting heroin in his penis because he couldn’t find any
other vein.
More or less, that’s the past of
the “regular client” of the police. You almost feel sorry for that person, but
if you are a police man or woman you still have to catch him and send him to
justice. Isn’t it simply easier to call him “the suspect”? It’s not a human
being that never got a chance in life and now has become a threat to the people
that actually had a chance. It’s a SUSPECT.
What about a woman that had a
perfectly normal life with a good boyfriend and that was raped by a delusional punk
that has severe brain damage from drugs and thinks that all women want to have
sex with him even if they don’t know it yet? Her life will never be the same
again and it will take years of healing and psychological therapy to even let
another man to touch her. Even if she and her boyfriend were considering getting
married, they will eventually split up, because of the trauma. Isn’t easier to call her “The Victim”?
Imagine you are a commanding
officer in the army and in a conflict you sent Jim, Hans, Patrick, Carl, John,
Guido and Vergil in a mission. They all get killed and Patrick’s son will never
see his father since he was born after his father left for the army. Hans’s
wife will cry for more than a year and John’s mother is alone at the age of 80.
Carl was the only “bread earner” of the family and no his wife will have to work
and take care of the 5 children. Wouldn't it be easier to say and think that 7
soldiers were KIA than to really acknowledge what has happened?
What if you are a recruiter and
you have to reject a person who if doesn’t get the job loses the house in which
their 3 children live? It’s much easier to say that “the candidate” was
rejected.
Put yourself in the shoes of a
teacher. Svetlana couldn’t complete her assignment and now she will fail the course and subsequently lose the
scholarship she has and she will not be able to complete her studies. Moreover,
since she will not be able to complete the studies her student visa will be
canceled and she will be deported. You have to fail her, because objectively
she does not deserve to pass the course. But it’s much better to fail a “Student”
than to fail Svetlana.
Think about doctors who everyday
have to deal with suffering, hope and despair. Yes, that cute 9 years old girl
that is so funny and so full of life has bone cancer and there’s nothing YOU
can do. In less than 6 months her fragile body will be decomposing in a graveyard.
I have given you a few (kind of
extreme) examples of what’s going on in the working life of people that have
very personal professions. These are just examples. I have to admit that some
are a bit extreme, but they are representative. And… you got only one for each!
You read about ONE “Suspect”, about ONE “VICTIM”, about ONE instance of “KIA”
Soldiers, about ONE “Candidate”, about ONE “Student” and about ONE “Patient”.
Imagine
10 each and every day! Can you take it?
It is not despite working in very
personal domains that people use these impersonal words. It is because they
work in very personal domains that people NEED to create a distance so that
they can do the work they have to do. Doctors need to be able to treat people
and honestly if they heal them who cares if they refer to people as “Patients”.
Police people need to maintain order and fight crime and for most of society
what’s the difference if they say “Suspect” or “Victim” if in the end crime is
at a reasonable level.
Not even bright and highly
trained people can handle the amount of pressure that one such professional has
to deal with every day. Doctors are usually very smart people and highly
educated, but even they need to distance themselves from all the “bad that surrounds
them”. Military personnel are highly trained professionals, but even the
general that has 1000 medals on his chest can’t put up with 10000 dead young
men in the mud.
It’s not despite that they have
highly personal professions that people communicate in a very impersonal manner;
It is Because.
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