Lose That Lost Performative: It's Inappropriate! - by Matthew Wingett

A friend of mine rang me recently to do a bit of a catch-up after some months of dropping out of contact.  I was delighted to hear from her.  We have been friends for years and I have been in the delightful position of watching her life unfold as she grew up, got married and had a lovely, lively boy nicknamed DJ.  The last I'd heard DJ had been doing really well at school.  But things had changed, my friend told me.

"The thing is," she said, "Recently we've had some difficulties with DJ at school."

"Really?" I asked.  "What's happened?"

"Oh," she answered. "It's just that he's been getting into trouble."

"How come?"  I asked, hearing the tone in her voice drop from the excited one she usually had when talking about her pride and joy to one that was hedged with concern and uncertainty.

"Well, he just seems to misbehave.  You know, he's very clever and he's often way ahead of the class.  And he's faster than the other kids, so it means that he's got more time to do other things.  He's imaginative, too.  The teachers have this gold star system, whereby, if the children do exactly what they're told and get their work done through the course of a week, then they get a gold star for behaviour and for the work they do.  It means a lot to the kids - and DJ is really bright - but he's never had a gold star."

"Really, what's that all about?"

"Well, he gets all his work done, but his behaviour lets him down.  For example, one week he was on track for a gold star, and then he did something he shouldn't have."

I listened intently, wondering what terrible infringement he'd committed. My friend went on:

"There was a low wall - about 30cm high - between the playground where he and the kids were all heading to play, and the path where he was walking.  So, instead of walking around the wall an extra 5 steps, he jumped over the wall to join the kids who were already playing.  He was keen to join in.  And that was that.  The teacher took away his gold star."

"What?" I asked, a little surprised.  "This boy of 6 got penalised for doing what every lively boy on the face of the earth does - jump and play?"

"I guess," she said, sounding surprised by my interpretation of events.  "But that wasn't the only thing," she continued.  "There was something more... serious."  She paused a moment, feeling for the right words.  "You see the class was making something with the cardboard tubes from the middle of toilet rolls and he did something he shouldn't..."

She suddenly went all quiet on me, as if the whole event really troubled her.  I could hear her straining against something.  What was it?  Shame?  Embarrassment?

"My God," I said.  "What did he do?"

"He took a toilet roll holder and held it between his legs as if it was a... er... willy..."

I burst out laughing.  I mean, casting my mind back to when I was a boy, I remembered that this was just the sort of thing that we did.  We played and we did silly things.  It all sounded pretty normal to me so far.  The next words my friend said shocked me:

"The teacher called me in to talk about that one."

"What?!?"

"Yes, she told me that she was concerned because his behaviour was inappropriate."

"Inappropriate?!?!"

"Yes, inappropriate.  Which is exactly what she'd said to him about jumping the wall.  You know, my heart sank when a week later he came home from school and he said to me: 'You know mummy, I put my foot on the wall to jump over it again today, but I remembered that it was inappropriate - so I didn't do it!'"

Suddenly, great big Meta Model alarm bells went off in my head. 

"Inappropriate?" I nearly shouted down the phone.  "She thinks that a boy doing childish things, talking about willies and jumping over walls is inappropriate?  What else does she do, complain to the rain that it's wet, and criticise dogs for the inappropriacy of having four legs?  What the f*** is she talking about?  Inappropriate!"

This was a powerful hypnotic command my friend had been telling me about.  She had no idea, so I decided to explain it to her:

"The word inappropriate is an example of a Lost Performative, which can be powerful hypnotic language. What it does is make a personal judgement seem to be a universal rule.  It makes whatever judgement the person is making seem unassailable. Add that use of language to the generation of a heightened emotional state - like the sort of confused state you might be in if you're a kid being told off by an authority figure - and suddenly you have a potent brew.

"Have you asked if this teacher is a qualified hypnotist?" I asked. "She should be ashamed of herself using this language to limit kids!"

I confess, I was riled.  As I calmed down, I said to her:  "Please, since DJ is so smart, can you teach him a spell to counteract that horrible piece of hypnosis his teacher is doing on him? Tell him to say this:  'My mum says that the word inappropriate hides stupid prejudice and is a way for petty-minded people to limit others as much as themselves.'"

Okay, so it was a pretty strong reaction on my side.  But I have encountered this word so often lately that I have really started to get sick of it.  Someone I spoke with only a few days ago was locked into a habit of criticising other people and their behaviour - and continually justified her negative limited thinking with the word "inappropriate".  To me, used like this, it's a horrible word.

So, how does the Lost Performative work?  Well, when it's used in this negative way it is so powerful because it implies a God-like or objective knowledge of the situation or event being discussed. What happens with this type of word is that the performer in the sentence is deleted from the sentence, as is the context in which the pronouncement is made.

Many of the times you hear someone pronounce judgement on someone else, you are likely to encounter a Lost Performative. Take a look at these examples of the Lost Performative:

You took too long, he's useless, it's sinful, you're rubbish...

Or how about this cracker from Deuteronomey Chapter XXII verse 11:

"Thou shalt not wear a mingled stuff, wool and linen together."

All of the examples above lack information about who is making the statement, what purpose they have for making it, what specific context the recipient of the judgement is operating in and where the judgement might not apply.  They are the sorts of words you encounter in clients when they're "stuck", and they are also, by the way, pretty good words for getting people to feel stuck, too!

In my experience, in the modern secular world, the word "inappropriate" is probably the King of Lost Performatives.  I'm sure it's the most common Lost Performative I hear - partially because it doesn't appeal to a Godlike figure, and also because it isn't obviously a personal judgement.  It seems to appeal to an imagined general consensus that is convenient for the speaker to conjure up when he or she wants to bully someone or when they want to justify their personal opinion without really having to think about it.

As such it is incredibly useful for putting limitations on people, and to do a bit of screwy mind control on kids.  I hear teachers use it all too often to justify all sorts of ridiculous notions.  And why it should be used to hold a talented and energetic child back so that he feels the urge to be one of the crowd rather than a vibrant bundle of vitality and imagination, I have no idea.

So, when you hear one of these Lost Performatives being used - have your defences ready.  Start to ask some questions.  In the case of my friend, who was concerned that there might really be something wrong with her son, I asked her this: "How old is DJ's teacher?" 

"Oh, she's in her fifties.  A bit of a control freak, I think."

"And do you think it would be inappropriate for her to jump over walls or make references to willies?"

"Definitely, yes," she said, sounding bemused by me.

"Oh. And do you think it would be inappropriate for her as a teacher whose job it should be to encourage the development of your boy - who you have allowed her to be in charge of - to turn him into a mindless sheep whose only interest is in following the rules made up for him by a fifty-year-old control freak?"

She paused a moment, and laughed.

"Yes," she said.  "Yes, that would be pretty inappropriate, wouldn't it?"

Learn to use language to get more of what you want on our trainings with Richard Bandler and John La Valle.