psmv5: Form over substance

One result of attending part of a performance of an adaptation of ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ put on by the people at reference 1, to be noticed properly in due course, was to get me thinking about précis. What was the point of a précis?

I have also been reading about oral ritual and performance at reference 2, mostly recently noticed towards the end of reference 3.

This led me back to my days as a civil servant when I was sometimes tasked with preparing documents called submissions, which were something like précis in that they attempted to summarise some matter, of importance on the day – and often went on to recommend action. Such recommendations often came in the form of a small number of options.

The submission needed to be enough for the recipient, usually an important and busy person, to feel that he had got sufficient grasp of the issue to take the decision and that the subordinate, the writer of the submission, could be trusted to have done his work properly. Given that the recipient is important and busy, the submission needs to be short, the shorter the better, if not quite on the back of the traditional postcard. It will not, cannot, contain the whole story, just enough to be a reasonable basis for action. The people on implementation can worry about the details.

Proper wrapping helps this process along, makes it into something of a ritual performance which can be trusted. The ritual has been properly performed. This is suggested in the (entirely fictional) snap above, supposedly taken from the days before email and social chit-chat took over, when the careful and considered written word still ruled the roost.

This submission has been prepared by Cusens, from the unit designated IF2, possibly International Finance Division No.2. It is routed through the head of IF, one Fothergill, to the Chief Secretary of His Majesty’s Treasury, traditionally designated CST. Fothergill has ticked and initialled the submission to show that he has seen and approved it. He should also have dated his initials. Sometimes, he would have added a short manuscript note of his own. It was said that some particularly important people had their own particular colour of ink for this purpose.

It has been formally copied to various other people, listed in descending order of rank. It may be supposed that they have all seen a draft of the submission and that they are now happy with it – although, sometimes, mistakes are made and one or more of them may intervene at this late stage.

All this combines to give CST confidence that this submission has the backing of the organisation at large, and, importantly, does not just stand or fall on its own merits. On its substance.

There is also a house style to the body of the submission, another ritual which both aids consumption and promotes confidence. This will often include a privacy marking, something that some submission writers are a bit inclined to overdo, to puff the importance of the matter in hand and their own importance in it.

The submission should also be nicely crafted, to be a pleasure to read. This nice crafting may be more than is really needed for consumption, but it remains a useful part of the ritual. I associate to the ornament that a village carpenter of old might have applied to a cart; he has added a few flourishes of his own to the traditional design.

This can be seen in this picture (from one Serhii Datsinko) of an old farm cart turned up by Bing.

So, for example, there is a bit more flourish to the iron work above the left-hand spot than is strictly necessary and there is a bit more shaping to the spokes above the right-hand dot. The carpenter likes to show off a bit, just as the submission writer. It is all part of the expected performance.

Conclusions

Substance is not enough. It needs to be supported by form. Or perhaps in management consultant speak, by process.

A conclusion which, as it happens, takes me back to the observations about truth as a process, rather than something which just exists somehow or other, at reference 3.

From where I associate to the way that a mathematical theorem, a truth of sorts, is the result of the well-defined – but also creative – process of proof.

PS 1: rather irritatingly, Microsoft insists on hyphenating phrases like ‘left-hand’. An insistence which is sometimes helpful, if often irritating. But I have not yet learned how to turn it off in a suitably selective way.