From My Perspective, “From My Perspective” Is Doing a Lot of Heavy Lifting
By David Palethorpe
In a recent interview on BBC a Senior Westminster politician in answer to questions used the phrase, ‘from by perspective’ on five occasions which raises the question what exactly does that mean?
There is a local councillor who has also developed an extraordinary attachment to the phrase “from my perspective.”
Not occasionally.
Not when introducing a genuinely personal judgment.
Invariably.
Almost every criticism arrives wrapped in it, like a parcel marked
“FRAGILE: DO NOT QUESTION CONTENTS.”
“From my perspective, this has not been handled well.”
“From my perspective, officers have not done enough.”
“From my perspective, the council should have acted differently.”
“From my perspective, this is disappointing.”
And there we are.
Perspective delivered.
Case closed.
No evidence need apply.
The obvious difficulty is that nobody is ever quite told what this celebrated perspective actually consists of.
Is it based on experience?
Evidence?
Data?
A conversation?
A report?
A performance indicator?
A legal opinion?
A policy framework?
An Ai discovery?
A dream?
The movement of a curtain in an upstairs window?
We simply do not know.
The perspective floats into the chamber fully formed, apparently requiring neither parentage nor provenance.
It is simply there.
A perspective.
And apparently that should be enough.
This presents the rest of us with a problem, because in normal adult conversation, when somebody advances a criticism, it is considered reasonably conventional to ask what it is based on.
Not in order to oppress them.
Not to silence them.
Not to deny their constitutional right to possess thoughts.
Just to establish whether the thought has any useful connection with reality.
“What evidence supports that?”
“What information are you relying on?”
“Against what standard are you making that assessment?”
“Can you explain why you have reached that conclusion?”
These are not exactly the opening moves of the Spanish Inquisition.
Yet asking them can sometimes produce the reaction of a man who has just discovered that his diplomatic immunity does not extend to committee procedure.
There is irritation.
There is offence.
There is sometimes the unmistakable suggestion that the act of questioning the perspective is somehow more objectionable than the original criticism contained within it.
This is fascinating.
Because “from my perspective” appears, in such circumstances, to perform a rather useful political function.
It allows somebody to make a sweeping judgment while simultaneously building an emergency exit into the sentence.
If challenged, it was only a perspective.
If applauded, presumably it was penetrating political insight.
Heads I’m right.
Tails you are being unreasonable for questioning me.
It is the rhetorical equivalent of throwing a brick through a window with a note attached saying, “This brick represents my personal view.”
The window remains broken.
But apparently, we should admire the nuance.
I have therefore been thinking about perspectives.
And, from my perspective, I have reached an important conclusion.
If you repeatedly tell me something is “from your perspective” without explaining what that perspective is based upon, then I have no particular reason to give your perspective priority over mine.
Indeed, from my perspective, your perspective differs from my perspective.
And because your perspective has arrived without explanation, evidence or context, from my perspective there is a perfectly reasonable possibility that your perspective is an incorrect assessment of the matter about which you have a perspective.
I appreciate that this is complicated.
It becomes easier after the fifth perspective.
The essential principle is this: possessing a perspective is not the same thing as possessing an argument.
I possess a perspective on quantum mechanics.
It is not a particularly useful one.
If I walked into CERN tomorrow and announced, “From my perspective, you people have seriously overcomplicated this,” I would not expect the Large Hadron Collider to be redesigned before lunch.
Nor could I reasonably become indignant if somebody asked whether I knew what a hadron was.
The entitlement to an opinion is universal.
The entitlement to have that opinion treated as authoritative is not.
This distinction seems particularly important in local and national government.
Councillors and MPs should challenge.
They should question.
They should criticise.
They should scrutinise decisions and hold administrations to account.
But scrutiny is not simply saying something negative in a confident voice.
Governance is not a competitive exercise in who can look most disappointed while withholding the reasons.
If you say a service or policy is failing, tell us against which measure.
If you say officers should have done something differently, tell us what they should have done.
If you say a decision was wrong, identify the alternative.
If you say performance is poor, show us the performance.
Otherwise, we are not really debating policy.
We are holding a séance for unexplained opinions.
The phrase itself is not the problem.
“From my perspective” can be perfectly sensible language.
It can signal humility.
It can acknowledge that others may reasonably disagree.
It can distinguish interpretation from fact.
But that only works if something follows it.
“From my perspective, having read the report and looked at the figures, I think the council has underestimated this risk.”
Fine.
Now we have a discussion.
“From my perspective, this is all wrong.”
Why?
“That’s my perspective.”
That is not an argument.
That is a doorstop.
The situation becomes particularly absurd when a person who routinely offers unsubstantiated perspectives appears irritated when anybody else introduces a competing one.
Surely perspectives are meant to be a wonderfully pluralistic business.
If one political representative has a perspective, another may presumably have one too.
Perhaps even several.
We could issue them at the door.
Yet sometimes the rules appear rather different.
Their perspective is an observation.
Your perspective is a challenge.
Their perspective is scrutiny.
Your perspective is confrontation.
Their perspective deserves to be heard.
Your perspective requires moderation.
That is an exceptionally convenient understanding of democratic discourse.
I have another perspective.
Public office should involve a slightly higher standard than “I think this, and I dislike being asked why.”
Politicians and especial local councillors make decisions involving public money, public services and people’s livelihoods.
Words spoken in public meetings can affect professional reputations and public confidence.
If you are going to criticise somebody’s work, a council service or a major decision, being asked for your reasoning should not come as a shocking procedural ambush.
It should be expected.
A robust opinion should survive a question.
If it collapses when somebody asks, “What are you basing that on?”, it may not have been a particularly robust opinion.
Perhaps it was more of a mood.
And moods are perfectly legitimate.
They simply do not require a committee paper.
So I intend to listen with renewed interest whenever I next hear those familiar words.
“From my perspective…”
I shall wait.
Perhaps evidence will follow.
Perhaps context.
Perhaps an explanation.
Perhaps an actual proposal.
And if none arrives, I shall respectfully exercise my own right to perspective.
From my perspective, an unexplained perspective is an assertion in fancy dress.
From my perspective, criticism without evidence is commentary, not scrutiny.
From my perspective, becoming annoyed when somebody asks you to explain your view does not make the view stronger.
And from my perspective, if “from my perspective” is repeatedly used as a substitute for “here is why I think this,” then the phrase has ceased to demonstrate intellectual humility and has started doing unpaid work as a rhetorical shield.
Of course, the person uttering the phrase may disagree.
They may have an entirely different perspective.
Perhaps ‘from my perspective’ has replaced the phrase ‘alternative facts’?
Who knows?
Either way I’ll look forward to hearing it.
Preferably with an explanation – and evidence – this time.
Leave a comment