Something Thoughtful

 Nicholas Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree or disagree with him.

                                                         PROBLEMATIC AGENCY

 

I am in the mood for chastising you once again for your slovenly, modish ways with language.

You know I have had to do this before. You will have read my posting The RightSide of History, wherein I pointed out the fallacious and bullying intent of a currently fashionable phrase, as dishonest as the statement “We’re just starting a conversation”. This is not the first time I have had to curate your language. When language begins to crack and lose coherence, a hero has to step in to mend the breach.

I am he.

So let me correct you in the matter of two insidious and currently modish words, “agency” and “problematic”.

When I was a wee and tiny child, the only meaning the term “agency” had was as a reference to some individual, group or company which acted as agent, or representative, for some larger group or company. A news agent was somebody who held a franchise to sell and distribute newspapers and periodicals for a publishing company. A real estate agent was somebody who sold houses or land on behalf of their owners (for a whacking fee, of course). In each case, “agency” designated the occupation of such agents.

Now I find the word “agency” being used in a more pretentious way.

Not too long ago, an ideologue was arguing that food banks were dreadful things because they did not solve the problem of poverty. We should shut down food banks and solve poverty so that food banks would be unnecessary. As I’m sure you’re aware, this tawdry argument has often been used by well-off people who are irritated that others are exercising practical charity when they are not. It ignores the obvious fact that solving the problem of poverty would be a very, very, long process, if it was ever achieved at all; and in that time, if food banks were closed down, many people would go hungry.

Part of the ideologue’s rant was that food banks deprived hungry people of “agency”. They did not have “agency” to choose which foods they wanted, but instead were given what was available by the people running the food bank. This, said the ideologue, was degrading.

What does “agency” mean in this newly coined sense? It means being free to “act” as you will. In other words, it is a poor substitute for the older term “free will”. If you have “agency” (i.e. free will) you are free to do whatever you choose. But, as was understood when “free will” was the common term, to act as you choose could mean to act wrongly. In simpler terms, you are free to do good or evil. The current use of “agency” suggests that free will is a virtue of itself, regardless of the consequences. As I see the term used now, “agency” reflects a society in which individuals have no responsibility to the community at large. Just so long as they have “agency”, and regardless of what they do, all is well.

As it is understood in this perverse sense, let “agency” be banished from your lexicon.

Much simpler to deal with is the blur word “problematic”. How often do I now read such statements as “This novel is problematic” or “Her ideas are problematic”. Obviously “problematic” means that there is a problem somewhere. But is it an objective, demonstrable, provable problem? Or does it simply mean that the author of such statements has a problem? Too often, as I now encounter this over-used term, “problematic” simply means “I have a problem with something.” Or even “I don’t like something”. Check out this over-used word if you can, and see how loosely it is used as a fig leaf for the writer’s prejudices.

Needless to say, both “agency” and “problematic” are now words most often used in the softer studies of what were once the humanities.