58. "Consigned"

 

"The educated and affluent enjoy relatively strong, stable families. Everyone else is more likely to be consigned to unstable, unworkable ones." W. Bradford Wilcox, associate professor of sociology, U. of Virginia, quoted in NYT 8-17-11.

"Consigned to," like freight to a shipper, like an embezzler to Sing Sing, like a soldier to a triage row.  "Who put me in this lousy situation? Certainly not me."

If you deal with forces, as sociologists do, you can make a correction. "Son, you should be asking, 'What put me in this relationship?'" Deprivation, culture, heritage, oppression, anything but education and affluence will do.

"Consigned" is one of those removal-words, the thing removed always being personal responsibility. It does for us what "fate" did for Greeks and "predestination" did for Christians. Except that it does add something personal. There's always a hand in sight, signing the commitment papers, the bill of lading, the diagnosis — all visible in the Latin root, consignare, to put one's seal to.

Not that a writer can't obscure it, as Wilcox does, with that impersonal passive. Somebody's signing the sentence that sends you to a life of dysfunction, but who? Maybe the educated? No, if you name them you've got to argue, out in the light. Better the dark suggestion. Some kind of — could it be — conspiracy?

No, suggestions of conspiracy are inappropriate in science. Keep people out. "Consigned" will do for that. It gives you the impersonal force, it lets you see a system at work, but it gives it a hand, signing. Something you can blame, however faintly, and be superior to.