Jennifer P. Tanabe

“Description is not prescription” is a phrase that I have heard a few times. What does it mean?

Well, a description is basically a factual account of an event, or a person, or a thing; how things are or how they work. A prescription, on the other hand, refers to instructions for how something should be or how something should work, a direction or command that tells the correct way to do something, the rules to be followed, the right way to behave, the plan for what should happen. Prescription, then, is what the world should be like, while description is what the world is like in reality.

In other words, “Description is not prescription” means that just because something happened does not mean it was supposed to happen, or just because someone behaves a certain way doesn’t mean they (or other people) should behave like that, or just because something is a certain way doesn’t mean it should be that way. Sometimes, it is a case of, “Oops, that wasn’t supposed to go that way.”

Let’s look at a few examples.

Medical Prescriptions

Starting with “prescription,” we usually think of this in medical terms. The doctor prescribes a certain medication which is supposed to treat a disease, or at least alleviate some symptoms. If you have an infection, an antibiotic is prescribed. If successful, the infection is cured and all is well. In that case, the description of how it works matches the prescription.

Unfortunately, not all prescribed medications are so effective. Often there are side effects, an allergic reaction, or the medication simply fails to achieve what it was supposed to do. In such cases, the description of what happened would not match the prescribed treatment.

Building a House

What about building a house? I chose this example there is a house that was recently built in our neighborhood and well, it didn’t really go according to plan. The “prescription” for a house would be the architect’s drawings, which would include detailed plans for various features, like how many rooms and their dimensions, how many stories, what kind of roof, how many windows, and so forth. There should also be some kind of time frame included, although we all know that construction is usually delayed by various factors.

This house on my block took at least 10 years to be built, with various people hired to deal with all the problems the original owners encountered. My husband and I often commented as we walked past many times during its lengthy construction phase that we thought the plan, the “prescription,” for this house was never going to work. By the time it was ready to live in, it was already on to its third owner, and I don’t think it looked exactly like it was first envisioned!

Other Objects

Moving on: If the object being described is a tool or a machine, the description would include its purpose, the various parts, and what happens when you use it. The prescription would be how it’s supposed to work: The ad that made you buy it in the first place with its glowing description of all it can do and a photo of how it looks (usually Photoshopped or AI generated to look amazing). Sadly, many don’t work so perfectly, and the real description bears little resemblance to the prescription.

This reminds me of all those instruction sheets that come with furniture and tools that “need some assembly.” All the pieces and even many of the tools needed for such assembly are supposed to be included. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. And sometimes it seems that the instructions appear to have been rather badly translated from another language, making success unlikely. Fortunately for me, my husband is a good handyman, with his own set of tools, so when what is included in the box fails, he can often make it work. In that case, if it does its intended job, I supposed we could say the description and the prescription did get aligned.

In the Workplace

These terms can also apply to procedures, perhaps a handbook that explains various jobs and how they are to be carried out. Here, I think of the various employee handbooks I have encountered over the years. First off, they were not always up to date, so the descriptions of the tasks and responsibilities of several positions were not accurate. That aside, various procedures often seemed inefficient, or downright impossible to follow as written.

There would also be the unwritten workplace culture, not official but more along the lines of “that’s how we do things here.” For a new employee, it was often mystifying. But most who wanted to keep the job would observe and imitate, careful not to appear difficult. Sometimes, though, just because something has always been done a certain way doesn’t mean that’s the best way to do it, especially in these times of rapidly changing technology. Thus, the description of how things are done, and have been done, may not be the best prescription for how they could be done efficiently and effectively, and not drive employees crazy.

Marriage

A description can also apply to a concept, such as marriage, or family, or society. Again, does a description of a concept necessarily mean that’s the way it should be? An example that I came across recently involved the descriptions of prominent figures in the Bible who had multiple wives and/or concubines. For example, Jacob had two wives, Rachel, the one he loved, and her older sister Leah, the one he was tricked into marrying by their father. They, they each gave their “handmaid” to him so that he could have 12 sons – whose families became the 12 tribes of Israel. Well, that could be seen as a nice story (apart from Uncle Laban’s trickery concerning Leah) which all turned out well. But, is that a prescription for marriage?

Actually, lots of people in the Bible had multiple wives. Solomon (the one who was known for his wisdom and built the Temple) is described as having hundreds of wives and hundreds of concubines. Then there is Jesus who didn’t have even one wife. If the Bible is supposed to be a prescription for marriage, all those descriptions make it all a bit confusing!

Untimely Deaths

And then we have untimely deaths. Some people, like the French heroine Joan of Arc, were condemned as heretics and burned at the stake. She was still a teenager. That’s a description. Was it a prescription? She didn’t have a chance to marry and live a full life. Jesus was also executed, dying on the cross. He was 33 years old. That’s a description. Was it a prescription? He hadn’t married. He had more to teach, more people to reach.

When I was a teenager in the 1960s there were several notable assassinations: John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. I wasn’t even living in the United States, but they affected people the world over. They were shocking deaths. Surely, they were not supposed to happen. A more recent example is Charlie Kirk. He was assassinated while responding to a member of the audience at an event on a college campus. He was 31 years old. He left a wife and 2 young children. Another description, of another questionable event. Were all these people supposed to die like that? Or were at least some of them a case of, “Oh no, that wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Description Is not Prescription

Just because something happens, does not necessarily mean it was supposed to happen. Bad things happen. They get described. But we should not just copy them, because someone else did it. We have free will. With that free will comes the responsibility to decide if the described event or behavior is good or bad. If it’s good, we can certainly learn how to repeat it. But if it’s bad, shouldn’t we say that wasn’t good and make every effort to avoid repeating it?

We can’t go back in time and change what happened, but perhaps we can figure out what was supposed to happen and try to do better in the future. Maybe one day we can live in a world that is “The Way Life Should Be.”