What is agency obfuscation, and how do I recognize it?
also called: the passive-voice dodge, blurring responsibility, "mistakes were made"
Agency obfuscation is when someone uses passive voice or nominalizations to hide who did something, so an action sounds like a natural event with no cause. You recognize it in lines like "mistakes were made", "the decision was taken" or "delays occurred", where the subject, the actor, is simply missing. What happened gets named, the person responsible stays invisible.
What it sounds like
How Hearium reports it
Agency obfuscation
Them Unfortunately, an error occurred in the system.
Name no actor, and no one can be held responsible. The passive voice lets the harm stand while the blame disappears, without anything false being said.
How to respond
- 1
Ask for the subject: "Who exactly did or failed to do this?" turns the passive back into an acting person.
- 2
Recast the sentence as active: "'It happened' means someone did something. Who was it?"
- 3
Separate event from responsibility: "That it happened is clear. Who is accountable for it not happening again?"
Common questions
Is the passive voice always a warning sign?
No. Often the actor is unknown or irrelevant, and then the passive is normal and correct. It stands out when the actor disappears precisely where blame or responsibility is at stake, even though they are known.
What about nominalizations like "the decision"?
A noun like "the decision" or "the delay" packs an action into a thing with no doer. Ask back who decided or who delayed, and the thing turns into an attributable action again.