The way that most people use the phrase “the real world” represents a handful of problems.

First, a full bouquet of condescension is nearly always present when it is used. College and university students hear it a lot, being reminded of how naive they are and how much tougher things will be in the real world when they get out there. I remember hearing it often as an undergrad and it was as though the lack of sleep, endless reading, difficult exams and papers, lack of finances, loneliness from being away from home, crushing basketball practices and a hundred other things were somehow not real. They were.

Second, the real world can be used to manipulate people as a veiled threat. If you aren’t measuring up in some way, you are reminded that in the real world, your performance would net you an afternoon with the local gaoler and his cat-o-nine-tails. You are listless, underperforming, and failing to live up to your potential. I grant that all of that could be true with any number of individuals (who will remain nameless). It’s just that we should say you are an imbecile, or lazy, or fearful, or a freeloader. Your world of sleeping in, gaming, and eating old pizza might be horridly self-indulgent and dull but it is real.

Finally, the real world car often veers into the presumptuous lane. The person uttering it claims to know both your vantage point, some stable notion of what constitutes the real world and the relative gap between them. They just know better and it comes across as arrogant, a quick dismissal of your whole view of the world. You may have crazy ideas with no possible means to execute on any of them but that doesn’t mean you aren’t living in the real world. If you weren’t living in this world, we wouldn’t have any idea you exist.

Here’s what I do. When I hear someone talking about reality or the real world, I assume they mean their world and that they don`t like mine—they’ve got “it” and are waiting for the rest of us to catch up. You don’t have to be a Derrida-quoting pomo to recognize the very turbulent, complex, and often puzzling nature of living in this world and thus to have some resistance to monolithic pronouncements about that turbulence.

I may have a very narrow perspective on the roiling sea of life but even my self-referential slice of it is a real world that influences me, directs my actions, provides feedback of some kind, and thus has a profound impact on me. We all need to grow, change, listen, and pay attention to other human beings. I just don’t think that taking shots from the weeds at other people through the use of the real world or reality are going to get us there. Every since our first encounter with the cold, harshly lit interior of a delivery room, we have all been trying to deal with our often unruly life experiences.