All it means is that it hasn’t been done before, at least not by “us.” It can mean, depending on context, that there is a weight of well-considered historical precedent suggesting that it is not a good idea. But it can just as well mean that it is a bright new idea that no-one has tried before.
In how many movies and TV shows has any bright new idea been shut down by the stuffy old administrator because “That would be unprecedented!” We, the audience, are usually supposed to root for the new idea, not for the stuffy administrator.
Now, of course, it is heavily politicized due to Trump. So many liberal commentators talk about some new Trump policy and end their screed by saying that it is unprecedented, and stop there as if that should be enough. It’s not enough! I don’t care if a policy is new and untried, if it is wrong I care why it is wrong. If it won’t work, tell me why it won’t work. Just being new is not by itself any condemnation at all. “Unprecedented” has become shorthand for “Trump-like” and therefore something we should oppose. Don’t give me shorthand, give me the background.
Totally agree. Everything that ever happened - good or bad - was “unprecedented” prior to it happening for the first time. Hey, prior to Obama, America’d never had a black president.
I have a similar gripe with “extremism.” Just because something is extreme doesn’t mean it’s bad. 160 years ago, people would have thought that abolishing slavery in the USA was an extreme thing to do.
Also, it occurs to me that this word is another one that can be turned around against liberals once they are back in office and want to do something new. It’s a lazy way of expressing oneself.
There is a LOT of journalistic laziness in the world. Overusing and misapplying a single word like “unprecedented” is just the tip of the iceberg.
What bugs me far more, is how often professional reporters and “news services” appear to be certain that there are even fewer possible “plot lines” possible in the real world, than there are in daytime soap operas of yesteryear.
I think that that long established refusal on their part to actually THINK about what they are reporting, and instead to try to take whatever happens and plonk it a chunk at a time into a pre-existing format, is what has lead to this decision to make the “official theme” of the Trump Era, “An Exposition Of Unprecedentedness.”
Just using Google News for "unprecedented,"it sure doesn’t seem to me like the word is carrying the moral weight. It’s merely amplifying the moral weight of the negative noun.
In one case, it’s even used neutrally, talking about some business strategy that’s not been tried before.