Especially with the NBA and NHL playoffs in full swing, you can turn on the TV or go to YouTube for post-game press conferences and hear any number of players and coaches (especially from teams that lost) saying they have to take their games to the next level. And regardless of the industry or the season, you can always hear or read myriad corporate executives saying they have to take their businesses to the next level.
Those things always leave me with two questions:
1. What level are they on now?
2. What is the next level?
The truth, of course, is the phrase is vague enough to apply to almost anything. But the people who use it do so because:
A. They think it sounds dynamic, determined, forward-thinking, progressing, or advancing. (“We’re not going to get our asses kicked like that again. We’re going to take our game to the next level.”)
B. They think we’re stupid enough to think it sounds dynamic, determined, forward-thinking, progressing, or advancing.
The next level is meaningless because it’s ascended to the level of jargon:
jargon (noun)
1. the language, especially the vocabulary, peculiar to a particular trade, profession, or group
2. unintelligible or meaningless talk or writing; gibberish
3. any talk or writing that one does not understand
4. language characterized by uncommon or pretentious vocabulary and convoluted syntax, often vague in meaning.
That means:
A. The user knows it’s been accepted as jargon.
B. Because of A, the user knows we’re not likely to ask what the hell it means.
But that invites two other questions:
1. Is the jargon being used deliberately?
2. If so, why?
There are two answers to the last two questions:
1. The person talking about the next level doesn’t know what else to say.
2. The person talking about the next level knows what to say but doesn’t want to.
In either case, it’s likely the person talking about the next level — and we — are equally lazy.
Plan B
I offer this plan with trepidation, fully acknowledging the diminishing market for the truth. But at the very least, the truth might be disarmingly engaging. If nothing else, it might be an attractive novelty and/or useful for its shock value.
Consider these examples:
NBA Reporter: What do you guys have to do to keep from getting your asses kicked again?
Wilbur Spudd Response A: We have to take our game to the next level.
Wilbur Spudd Response B: We have to score more baskets and allow fewer.
NHL Reporter: What do you guys have to do to keep from getting your asses kicked again?
Jacque Blum Response A: We have to take our game to the next level.
Jacque Blum Response B: We have to score more goals and allow fewer.
Business Reporter: What do you guys have to do to keep from getting your asses kicked again?
Gran Queso Response A: We have to take our business to the next level.
Gran Queso Response B: We have to sell more shit than our competitors.
Aside from the fact that the truth is unpopular, the B responses above all suggest something more specific than taking it to the next level will have to be done. Worse, they indicate the respondents may actually be among those who have to do whatever it is that needs to be done. And personal responsibility is losing favor almost as quickly as the truth.
Plan C
If we don’t want to stop taking it to the next level for meaningful, truthful, or responsible reasons, maybe we can do it with a philosophical intent. In Summer in Algiers, Albert Camus wrote this:
If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.
Maybe he was right. And maybe, if we stop trying to take everything to the next level — regardless of what that might or might not mean — we’ll get more out of this level than we bargained for.
It’s worth a shot.
