“It is difficult not to write satire,” said the Roman poet Juvenal nearly 2000 years ago. Te Pūkenga’s style guide is a good example of this. Like all good satire, it reveals what lies beneath the surface of public and political discourse and holds it up to ridicule. But, unlike Juvenal who wrote his satires intentionally, Te Pūkenga has accidentally satirised itself with its hand-wringingly earnest attempt to impose a set of written norms on its staff. Amusing and cringe-inducing though it is, there’s a serious issue at stake, for control of language equals control of thought.
Te Pūkenga is the one organisation born to rule the vocational education sector, though according to its style guide we’re not allowed to use the VE words. Formed out of 16 polytechs and 9 industry training organisations, the fledgling behemoth is apparently in the early stages of creating a uniform identity across its disparate departments, including by the imposition of a uniform style. Fair enough. Organisations need clear guidelines for written content, particularly large ones with far-flung provinces to rule. It’s the content of this particular style guide that’s so amusing, and concerning.
The style guide, an internal document leaked to the media, begins with delusions of grandeur. “We are Te Pūkenga,” it says breathlessly, “here to welcome and guide, to share and inspire … Our voice is a conversation that reflects the reciprocal nature of a new way of learning and teaching.” I thought only split personalities have voices that are also conversations, though I suppose the mega-merged organisation does contain multitudes. The guide goes on, attributing awesome powers to its “voice” which, it says, “creates real value and meaning for all” and is “brave, bold” and “a daring kind of energy.” Tertiary education must be easy with such a voice at one’s command.
From these lofty heights, things quickly become both prosaic. First, there are banal instructions. Writers are warned against redundancy and told, redundantly, that this means “using words you don’t need.” Co-workers are given a list of prescribed terms to refer to each other which includes, optimistically, “work friends” and “whānau.” Te Pūkenga does “vocational and on-the-job learning,” not “vocational education” and it doesn’t have students but “ākonga or learners”. The guide expounds the correct meaning of such terms as stationery and stationary, affect and effect, and principal and principle. There’s an extensive list of words deemed too complex—accompany, contains, examine, indicate, and observe—with recommended substitutes—come with, has, look at, show, and see. Poor voice of Te Pūkenga—it’ll have a hard time being brave, bold and daring with such a bland set of words in its arsenal.
Things also get ideological, fast. Te Pūkenga is inclusive, though not enough to let its writers employ their own style. “Husband” and “wife” are bad words (“spouse” and “partner” are the approved substitutes), it’s “te Tiriti o Waitangi” not “the Treaty of Waitangi”, and teachers are not experts who impart knowledge to students but “educators … empowered to learn with and from” the “learners” in their classes. There are arguments for and against these terms, but none of them are neutral and the guide assumes rather than argues for the value judgments implicit in each of them. For example, prioritising “te Tiriti” over “the Treaty” usually reflects a judgment that the te reo text should be prioritised over the English text. The guide doesn’t allow Te Pūkenga’s staff (sorry, kaimahi) to make up their own minds about this, but tells them what to think.
It’s one thing to impose uniform fonts and another to impose uniform thoughts. A writer in Te Pūkenga’s sprawling empire who wants to employ “husband and wife” rather than “partners” or to say “opposite sex” rather than “different sex” now has to be brave enough to buck the style guide’s explicit condemnation of gendered language and its implicit condemnation of those who use it. In 1984, George Orwell illustrated why control of language matters so much—not just because it limits what one person can say to another, but because it changes what the first person can think to begin with. If there are no words available for a concept or category it ceases to exist in the mind and, eventually, in reality. Those are the stakes raised by Te Pūkenga’s guide—not merely style, but substance. The document was widely ridiculed when it was shared with the public, and that’s the first appropriate response to satire. But that’s not where it ends, because satire is also political. We should not merely laugh, but also resist.
From uniform fonts to uniform thoughts
Thank you for this critique. From my perspective the weaving of words together is an art form not entirely under the control of the writer. Strange and beautiful things can happen when writers allow themselves to be in service to what arises from their depths, and which is greater than their own ego or skill. Beauty and poetry can emerge opening doors to understanding that is not there when words become utilitarian servants of power brokers. Orwell knew that 1984 had happened before and would happen again. Tragic but true.