Proactive

This phony word, a creature of the 1970s, was invented to contrast with “reactive,” as in: “This program takes a proactive approach to sexually transmitted diseases, teaching prevention and informing young people of their risks.”

A reactive approach to sexually transmitted diseases would surely be a day late, and the delay might well be deadly. But does "proactive" really express what makes this program commendable? Assuming the word expresses anything at all— a tenuous but defensible assumption— it is a poor substitute for “preventive,” which is, we are told, exactly what the sexually transmitted disease program really is.

Sometimes, though, "proactive" is employed not to describe something preventive, but merely something done in advance of trouble. In that case, the word that writers are seeking might be “preparatory” or “pre-emptive,” or even just “early.” In some cases, the writer is trying to say that someone should take the initiative. The defenders of "proactive", however, refuse to surrender to “preventive” or “pre-emptive” or “taking initiative” or anything else, because most of the time they want a word that means none of those things, but that really just means “aggressive.”

For instance: “This organization needs to deal proactively with revenue gaps between contracts.” Well, now. Take the word "proactively" out of that sentence, and how does the meaning change? The word is simply stuck in for emphasis—to imply that the executives need to hustle on this issue, not just sit around and mull it over, the way they usually do. Fine; in that case, “aggressively” would be clearer. So would “vigorously,” “forthrightly,” “assertively” “expeditiously,” “energetically,” or (when the implication is that problems need to be anticipated as well as aggressively solved) “ahead of time.”

All those choices have clear meanings, but they are not all the same. The surest sign that "proactively" is merely muddle-headed jargon is that, most of the time, it stands for a welter of hypothetical and unspecified thoughts, without ever committing itself to any one thought in particular.