Being pedantic again: the word "professional." (rant)

I'm going to go on another rant about another word that I have overused in the past. And now it has begun to irritate me. 

"Professional."

So I'm on LinkedIn. 

I really dislike LinkedIn, but I feel as though I need it. It's a place where you are typically very disingenuous and everyone else is very disingenuous because of fear. You see everyone else bragging about their accomplishments, and you yourself try to figure out how you can brag about your own accomplishments and have the bragging be received well. It reeks of desperation and insecurity and grandiosity. It's like you're competing in order to cooperate, but actually, all you really want deep down inside is simply to feel secure in the knowledge that you are going to survive and be acknowledged by both strangers and the people you care about. And that will never happen with this little game.

So both on LinkedIn and sometimes off, for many years now, I've noticed that people almost never use the word "professional" unless they're being descriptive (versus judgmental) or being a jerk. The word often isn't neutral anymore. It's like a manipulative little tool to control others' behavior through fear and shame. Because who doesn't want to appear employable in American culture? And if you are making yourself the judge of what professionalism should mean not just to you personally, but to other people as well, you are putting yourself in the dominant position. So it often becomes a power/control thing.

I would say that this is the standard, but at the same time, I have seen plenty of notable exceptions. The biggest is whenever wild, outlandish chaos is the dominant culture. In those situations, "professionalism" is often the height of compliments. I really only see this is in show business. You're around such temperamental, unpredictable, unsafe, unregulated people to such a magnified extent that it really stands out when someone is calm, polite, empathetic, rational, honest, reliable, a good listener, does their job with excellence, holds themselves accountable to standards that protect everyone from harm, etc. To me, that's what professionalism should mean. 

And it doesn't now. Now, in most settings, the word is simply a clue that I'm trying to manipulate.

There's another reason why the word "professionalism" isn't a creepy word when used to compliment a performer. In most jobs in modern civilization, you're paid to suppress the sides to yourself that make you special, unique, and human. So the word "professional" just comes across as this totally un-self-aware internalized acceptance of the very worst aspects of capitalism. But this suppression of what makes one unique and human is not at all true in entertainment or performance--quite the opposite. 

So if you're not in show business... maybe you should temper your use of the word "professional." I would say that the word should only be used as a compliment--not a way to try to control other people's behavior.

I'm going to try to take my own advice, but I've overused this word so often myself...

Narcissistic people crying "abuse." (rants)

I would like to return to the old fashioned notion that the term "abuse" does not refer to things like violating terms of service, disagreeing with someone, or even (more controversially) situations in which you have a misbehaving customer. I think it's wildly offensive when a company like Midjourney refers to making comedic images of the Pope and Donald Trump as "extraordinary abuse." 

I would like "abuse" to mean things like being beaten within an inch of your life by someone who is supposed to love you, or being told you're worthless by someone you see every day for years on end, or otherwise facing a pattern of domination and control. And I think that if these sorts of things have not happened to you, or you are not a therapist, you should probably try to keep the word "abuse" out of your mouth whenever you can. 

One of the biggest problems with using the word "abuse" is that narcissists have appropriated the term. You can't know who's actually at fault or if both are at fault or to what degree, because what if it's just someone with a swollen ego who's sensitive to criticism or someone can't accept their fair share of responsibility in a conflict. 

I've noticed that narcissistic women will often go straight to calling things abusive. Men will be made fun of for saying that they were abused, generally-speaking, so I've noticed that they do it less.

My extremely, extremely narcissistic roommate who I mentioned at the very, very start of this dream diary, would label anyone and everyone who so much as looked at her funny "abusive." It's an effective way to avoid thinking about your own part in human dynamics and to avoid trying to find a solution that satisfies all parties. You're just the victim. You deserve everything--all the apologies and all of the changes in behavior, and you don't owe anything yourself. 

Then you have someone like me, who actually has been beaten to a pulp by her dad, along with many other things therapists tend to label abusive, and I wouldn't even accept from a therapist that I had an abusive childhood, partly because it seemed like a term only melodramatic narcissists exaggerating the truth would use. 

It's just a slap in the face of anyone who has actually experienced domestic violence when narcissists or people sitting comfortably in bureaucracies appropriate and manipulate with the term in order to create shock value that's more likely to get them what they want. And it makes it harder for people in actual domestic violence situations to take the term seriously and recognize what's happened to them.

So that's my hot take: The term "abuse" shouldn't refer to both a woman getting splashed with acid by her ex-boyfriend and saying something that just triggers someone's ego. The difference should be obvious, but unfortunately, with this word, it's not. 

The second dream diary, "Back to School", is FREE for Kindle right now!

Just a reminder, Naja Tau's Dream Diary 2: Back to School is currently available as a free download for Kindle on Amazon! The giveaway will last all weekend until midnight Sunday. These are posts I made and did or didn't post back from about 2013 to 2016, put into eBook form.