Inappropriate Use of the Word “Inappropriate”
Sometime in the past month or two over on the Thursday Night Gumbo blog (see link in sidebar at right), in a thread that I’m too lazy to try to locate now, Francesca Murphy observed that people who use the word “inappropriate” are generally fascists, or at least control freaks. I laughed first, and then applauded, because I think she has a point.
This is one of those small but significant ways in which bad language both reflects and fosters bad thinking. It’s been some years now since I began to notice myself reacting to it with what first seemed to be an unreasonable irritation. I finally realized that it annoyed me because people were using it as a substitute for “wrong.” In a time when the existence of objective moral standards is doubted and denied, and when no one wants to be accused of being judgmental, it’s very bad form to say that anything short of mass murder is just plain wrong; mass murder, and perhaps racism.
But yet: order must be maintained. People in authority (or those who just wish they were) still need and desire to tell other people what to do. How can they justify it, if they can’t appeal to some standard which is eventually rooted in the concept of right and wrong? “Inappropriate” became the solution. There may be no right and wrong, but appropriate and inappropriate remain. This was crystallized for me in something I read some years back, which I would never be able to locate now. A teacher whose subject involved ethics stated with obvious pride that he instructed his students that no one had the right to tell them what is right and what is wrong. The interviewer asked—mischievously, perhaps—whether that approach might make classroom discipline difficult. Replied the teacher, “I tell them that as the teacher I decide what is appropriate and inappropriate.”
In other words, there is no objective standard for behavior in his classroom, merely his personal preference, which is enforceable on others purely because he holds the power. It’s not necessarily wrong to disrupt the class, but it is against his will. The parent’s exasperated “Because I said so” is elevated to metaphysical legitimacy. It really is not so far-fetched to see the ethics of totalitarianism in this. For me it conjures Nurse Ratchet, or a bad schoolteacher: the tight-lipped enforcer of petty rules which are their own justification. Why it should seem less oppressive to submit one’s will to what is “appropriate”—by definition a floating standard, determined only by context—than to an objective standard of right and wrong is a mystery to me.
One place where this term pops up again and again is in the context of the sexual molestation of children: “inappropriate touching,” etc. One wonders: under what conceivable conditions would it be “appropriate” for an adult to touch a child sexually?
Another frequent usage is in relation to racial insults (imagined or real, trivial or serious). One of these occurred in a federal agency a week or two ago. An employee had worn a racially charged costume to a party. The head of the agency was instantly in trouble, and vowed to punish the offender: “We do not tolerate inappropriate behavior at DHS,” she said. (Story here).
A benign interpretation of this use of the word, I suppose, is that the people involved really know that the offense is not truly wrong; it’s only bad manners or poor judgment. But “do not tolerate” is pretty strong. The implication is that the offender could lose his job or be subject to some other fairly serious punishment. For something that is merely “inappropriate”? If it’s only inappropriate, the punishment is grotesquely disproportionate. But if it’s seriously wrong, why not say so?
Using ketchup as the base for barbecue sauce is inappropriate. But as strongly as I might feel about that, I don’t think those who do it should be subject to legal penalties. At least not on the first offense.
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