{"id":134807,"date":"2022-01-19T12:10:59","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T11:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=134807"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:04","slug":"the-suffocating-language-of-the-consultants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2022\/01\/19\/the-suffocating-language-of-the-consultants\/","title":{"rendered":"The suffocating language of the consultants"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLevien Willemse<\/a>, \t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPauline Wiersema<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Before you know it, you are in the middle of an \u2018executive team meeting\u2019 and you are talking about \u2018flywheel projects\u2019, with \u2018sounding board groups\u2019 in \u2018cockpit meetings\u2019. It happened to me. After which you find yourself outside with a \u2018task force\u2019 and a \u2018code of conduct\u2019, after \u2018intensive processes of scheduling, analysis and dialogue\u2019. In the more than twenty years that I was in politics, I have seen policy research change. In particular, language, which is teeming with invented terms and strange words; a secret language which I can\u2019t follow, but which is supposed to suggest some kind of depth. Users of this language are the new public managers, often external consultants who use \u2018incentives\u2019 and \u2018output\u2019. With their own models, which supposedly explain people and the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho is so perspicacious as not to be utterly beclouded by their arguments?\u201d Speaking through the voice of Folly in his\u00a0In Praise of Folly<\/em>\u00a0(1511), Erasmus castigates the old theologians of the time. Dogmatic thinkers who had assembled \u2018a real plethora of new-fangled words and outlandish expressions\u2019, which meant that they \u2018gabble away in a manner that can\u2019t be understood by people without an impediment themselves; or whose criterion of cleverness is to be incomprehensible to ordinary folk\u2019. Historical comparisons are meaningless, and \u2018what if\u2019 does not exist in history. But if Erasmus was to present his In Praise of Folly today, he certainly wouldn\u2019t forget the consultants. The fashionable language of consultancy would be an abomination for this humanist.<\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018In the years when I was a member of Parliament, I was amazed at how quickly this approach permeated all layers of the government\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

I have nothing against consultants; often they are extremely pleasant people. But they also have their own way of thinking that became dominant in the 1990s, a predilection for figures and a focus on \u2018efficiency\u2019 that can be recorded in models.\u00a0\u2018Spreadsheet management\u2019, to use the terms of consultancy. An approach that reflected the politics of the time, when the government wanted to take a step back and give the market more room. In the years when I was a member of Parliament, I was amazed at how quickly this approach permeated all layers of the government, from the Ministries in The Hague to the smallest municipalities in the country. But also in education \u2013 and certainly at universities.<\/p>\n

In the academic world, interesting discussions are taking place about the values of science, and our university is leading the way, with the debate about \u2018Erasmian values\u2019. These values are not a mission statement\u00a0or\u00a0management tool, not a form of marketing or way of \u2018marketing\u2019 Erasmus University. They concern the essence of the university, what we stand for and what distinguishes us from others. For Erasmus, a new way of thinking was only possible once he had relinquished the old use of language. In his time, these were mainly the words and models used by the dogmatic theologians. I look forward to discussing how we can free ourselves from the suffocating language of the consultants.<\/p>\n\t

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Ronald\u00a0van Raak is professor of Erasmian values at the Erasmus School of Philosophy.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t

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