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| Let's not accept unacceptababble - Wednesday, November 12, 2003 at 21:15 |
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PUBLICATION: The Ottawa Citizen ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Can we please stop dismissing unpleasant facts as "unacceptable"? It is not merely fatuous but dangerous. The word is loose. It is rampaging. Jean Chretien recently condemned former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir's anti-Semitic remarks as "unacceptable." Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham called them "totally unacceptable." Paul Martin called them "absolutely unacceptable." B'nai Brith told the Malaysian High Commissioner to Canada they were (you'll never guess) "unacceptable." And the German government called them "totally unacceptable." Mr. Mahathir's remarks were unquestionably offensive, paranoid and troubling. I wish I had the option of not accepting them. But he did say them, and the assembled Islamic heads of state responded with stormy applause. They unfortunately reflect a deep strain of opinion in the Muslim world. These things exist whether we "accept" them or not. So why, of all the abusive terms in all the dictionaries in the world, do so many people keep using this one? It's perfectly respectable and useful in the right context. For instance, our Supreme Court recently declared lap dancing in strip clubs "unacceptably degrading" to women and forbade it. Whatever you think of its logic, the court unquestionably had the power not to accept the practice and in fact didn't accept it. But what's the use of Paul Martin saying, "I support gun control" but "the increase in cost is just unacceptable"? Or Britain's home secretary denouncing "an unacceptable increase in the flagrant use of guns in crime across the country" which continued anyway? I first noticed this odd locution back in 1995, when an aide to Jacques Parizeau called releasing Windows 95 in English months before the French version "unacceptable." Why, I asked myself at the time, call it that when you have no choice but to accept it? You could call it disgraceful and argue that Microsoft was disgraced; you could call it offensive and accurately describe yourself as offended. But Microsoft neither withdrew the English version temporarily nor rushed it out in French. And there was no way of not accepting its decision. Since then I've been listening for this term and by golly you hear it a lot. This spring French President Jacques Chirac told Queen Elizabeth the vandalization of a Commonwealth war cemetery in France was "unacceptable and shameful." When Fidel Castro engaged in yet another act of repression in 1999, Lloyd Axworthy called it "unacceptable." This fall, NDP MP Bill Blaikie said of an internal branding decision by CN, "it's not only totally unacceptable, it is obscene." Well, it may or may not be obscene but he doesn't have the option of making it go away by closing his eyes and sticking his fingers in his ears. There, I think, is the root of the problem. It would be bad enough if a flagrant misuse of language were this widespread. But what we have here is a misuse of thought. To dismiss as "unacceptable" things you can't not accept is narcissistic because it treats one's attitude toward the world as an effective device for reshaping the world. There is a widespread notion on one side of the intellectual and political spectrum that insists on the primacy of will over way, values good intentions over sound methods, and routinely sends words to do the work of deeds. But as Philip K. Dick says, reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. And there's nothing to be gained and much to be lost by treating that or any other hard truth as "unacceptable." It's a faculty meeting snit word. You purse your lips, summon the demons of PC, and squash someone with your hurt feelings. But the world is not a faculty meeting. This misuse of the term is not new; after Charles de Gaulle's infamous "Vive le Quebec libre," Lester Pearson said on TV the remark was "unacceptable to the Canadian people." But the word is growing stronger and our minds are growing weaker. In 1998, 91 per cent of Canadians told pollsters it was "unacceptable" for countries like India and Pakistan to have nuclear weapons, and 77 per cent that it was unacceptable for the original five nuclear powers to have them. They kept them anyway. The real problem is not the word but the thought. After a recent terrorist attack in Israel, Bill Graham said, "Suicide bombings must end now." Or what? If we have a problem we should weigh our real options, and the likely costs and benefits of each. Making it go away by pretending it's not there works with a monster under the bed, but is a singularly, even wilfully, useless approach to a bear in the woods. Paul Martin even boasted that a year ago he'd told Mr. Mahathir "hate mongering is just not acceptable ..." But it happened again anyway, and all he could do was flap his arms and look hurt and surprised. I say this word is unacceptable. No no no no no no no. So there. John Robson is Senior Editorial Writer and Columnist. |