Passionate

A packet of soft brown sugar informs us that ‘Since 1878 our passionate team have been making and packing high quality on the banks River Thames.’ There is an inadvertent touch grotesque comedy to this: Tate Lyle's employees seem be Dickensian monomaniacs, kept alive by their inexhaustible enthusiasm for sentimental attachment Thames. How does this bizarre sentence come distributed around supermarkets England? The simple answer ‘passionate’ a marketing cliché. Skimming single month Times digital archive (January 2019), one encounters people who are about pizza, challenger brands, holidays, motorhomes, training pastry chefs, ‘meaningful’ alternatives smoking cigarettes, active living as way recovering from spinal injuries. Not mention Staffline, expanding recruitment agency which reportedly ‘buying Passionate About People’. suspicion bathos some these passions suggests usage hyperbolic, confirmed its ready resort adverbial amplification: it not uncommon ‘deeply’ or ‘truly’ something, random search indicates ‘hugely passionate’ almost fossilized phrase. When postgraduate students advertising tutoring work describe themselves hugely reading mathematics, with dizzying implication merely is, already, no longer enough. Arguably, though, observations do more than move enigma step back. Historically, being has unequivocally admirable quality, certainly in commercial professional contexts where word now thrives. ‘Passion’, much near-synonyms ‘emotion’ ‘feeling’, often connoted disorderly motive force, diametrically opposed ‘reason’. People sense impulsive, unstable, sometimes violent, driven many instances anger sexual desire; they ideally qualified manufacturing designing motorhomes. So question remains: how did become something everyone job market would like perceived being? In most desolate stony place Towards nightfall upon race his heart. ‘Before I am old shall written him Poem maybe cold And dawn.’ That may seem, though die old, foolish, man. first quotations ending stanza Synge ‘In Memory Major Robert Gregory’, other two last lines ‘The Fisherman’ ‘A Prayer Old Age’ respectively.1 all three them character conclusion: tangle images feelings comes out (as says equation) charged adjective. This, finally, poet wants speak, he be. names ideal. Another source suggestion word's surprisingly frequent appearance obituaries. Something funerary convention makes easy say deceased was ancient languages, gun control, Shropshire. This course compatible current sense, but predates several decades. It suppresses ambivalence through framing power genre: we know advance everything said will complimentary, so positive aspects naturally front. built-in imputation unreasonableness disruption softens, affectionate retrospect, into image spirited individuality. Although different register, deployments exemplify same move, redeem chaotic rebarbative potential ‘passion’ rendering unworldly – Yeats attaching literature, obituarists applying dead. Placed at slightly reverent remove everyday transactions life, epithet constitutes special sign genuineness, Sunday-best human feeling. heightens already elevated position when hopes seen man: pairing gives man access well-known paradoxes Fool, overtones border sort folk-tale saintliness. These implications make later discourse little ironic: restaurateur investment adviser claims promoting business representing himself incorrigibly unbusinesslike. irony very profound, however. normal, after all, purchasers commodities envisage extra margin value goes beyond commodity exchange: what really good deal. Tourists seek destination touristy; shoppers comb prêt-à-porter racks feeling bespoke fit; recruiters try pick applicant go above beyond. service provider addresses hope: precisely transaction obviously economic there greatest need reassurance expresses gratuitous impulse. Considered purely advertiser's promise buyer get, only pay for, could ever priced. absurdity Lyle pushing rhetorical motif limits plausibility. obvious alternative account makers' motivation earn money presses embarrassingly up against back words, ubiquitous use get too nuanced lie, lie given away couple small interesting breaks continuity evolution. One migration, whole, third-person first-person application. Traditionally, describing oneself somebody else: self-evidently case obituaries, can also seen, example, long-standing attributing nature inferiors women, foreigners, sinners, young.2 Whether derogatory, affectionately patronising, externality because understanding order naivety: individuals, carried impulses where, stand themselves. Passion observer. use, however, always directly claimed speaker. Celebrities routinely such interviews, companies websites, school leavers applications university. assertion therefore marked kind internal alienation. Like formulaic poses holiday selfies Instagram party snaps, statement covert orientation, ‘I’ brand promoting. presents self designed else; speaks own line manager. resulting contradiction inside deepened residual connotation: idea helpless. reflected various definitions offered 1989 OED: ‘Affected passion vehement emotion; dominated intense impassioned … Subject passion; swayed emotions; easily moved strong feeling; impressible, susceptible.’3 individuals affected, dominated, subject, swayed, moved: consistently older connections ‘passivity’ ‘patient’, blown uncontrollable gales emotion. dimension semantics flatly incompatible requirements market. Contrast OED's terms, instance, nine-point characterisation appeared website World Economic Forum 2016. According version, produced psychologist rather lexicographer, ‘what defines people’, among things, obsessed, don't waste time, optimistic, early, take risks ‘are work’.4 striking, course, people, unlike kind, model corporate employees. But noticeable masters lives. far moved, marshal time unremitting intention. ‘Passionate’ quietly converted opposite: once personal helplessness, power. What happened, word, commodity.5 possesses exchange valued qualities attached it: authenticity, spontaneity, energy, self-forgetfulness on. entering changes nature. If commodity, must necessarily person owns, otherwise able sell it. ceases force dominates moves me becomes instead object my disposal, vehicle self-assertion. displays deeply typical process: capitalism exploits natural resource objectifying it, instrumentalising refining packaging