Abstract Nouns
Problems and Possibilities
I’m a sucker for abstract nouns. I love how they sound at the end of a sentence, how they carry a weight other nouns envy. Abstract nouns are also, of course, problematic. Their vagueness can lend false importance to a sentence. They can be used rhetorically for unjust ends. Two people can use the same abstract noun and speak right past each other. So what’s the good and the bad of using them?
I’ll start with the good. Abstract nouns are useful stand-ins for complex subjects. If I say “community is important for people,” I have a certain idea of what that community should look like. But I’m not going to say “connection, openness, mutuality, magical, unusual, neat, inclusive, trustworthy, yodeling” every time. I’ll just use the shorthand, “community.”
It’s important, however, that I define what I mean by community. There are plenty of unhealthy, coercive, hateful groups out there that might be, according to the dictionary, a form of community. So if I use the word “community” in a positive sense, I better define my terms to avoid ambiguity.
I was working with ministry interns a few years ago, and we were discussing vocation. “Your calling should be affirmed by your community,” we said, coming to the conclusion after we determined that calling is not individualistic. It’s not something you can choose for yourself with no input from others.
Then one intern said, “What if your community is oppressive?” What if a woman feels called to lead or to teach, and her community denies her that opportunity? Is that God’s will or is that oppression? What if parents force their child to take a certain career path, though they feel drawn toward another? In American culture, some might say, “Follow your heart, don’t worry about what other people think.” But this kind of attitude can lead to severed relationships.
So when we say, “Vocation should be affirmed by your community,” what do we mean by community? What do we mean by affirmation? What do we mean by vocation? There are three abstractions in this statement, and they all need further clarification and nuance.
This leads to the main drawbacks of using abstract nouns. They are vague, and that vagueness can lead to all sorts of miscommunication, misinterpretation, and misuse.
If I say, “We need more justice in this country,” I would probably get agreement from any part of the political spectrum. But “justice” means something different to different people. For some, justice means locking up criminals. For others, justice means rehabilitating and reintegrating criminals. For some, justice means punishing one’s enemies. For others, justice means doing what’s right, even if it hurts. For some, justice means responding to recent crime. For others, justice means addressing crimes long past. For some, justice means upholding the law of the land. For others, justice means reforming the law of the land. The vagueness of the abstract “justice” is open to very different interpretations.
This vulnerability in abstraction can, of course, be abused rhetorically. One of the most potent abstract nouns, and one of the most vague and fluid, is “enemy.” Once you identify your enemy, you can justify all sorts of rhetorical and physical violence against that enemy. And once violence appears, mutual enemies mutually justify their actions against and beliefs about each other.
But “enemy” does not have to be mutual. “You might consider me your enemy, but I will not consider you mine.” This is part of the ethic of non-violence, to repay evil with good. Jesus calls us to “love your enemies.” I think a central part of the Christian way is redefining “enemy.” My enemy is not a person or a group. My enemy is sin which distorts my relationship—and the possibility of my relationship—with that person or group.
You can probably think of other abstract nouns used for rhetorical effect. We’re in a presidential election year, so our TVs, phones, mailboxes, and billboards are full of undefined abstractions. Law and order. Hope. Change. Peace. Justice. Stability. Security. Responsibility. Determination. Grit. Trust. Trustworthiness. Courage. Unity. Compromise. Promise.
I have a vague sense of what these mean, and from context, I can generally understand what someone else means by them. But the closer I look at a given abstract noun, the more I realize I have no idea what it means. If I had to define one, I would probably use other abstract nouns to do so, making a loop of disembodied meaning.
Here’s why I love abstract nouns: they are underdefined. My vague sense of a word is a starting point, but I can sharpen my understanding through further study. This is why I have chosen 3 words to meditate on each year: I want to learn more about them, to have a richer sense of their meaning and possibilities.
Here are some abstractions I have been curious about: emotion, fear, hope, love, faith, wisdom, justice, prayer, hospitality, generosity, humility, joy, peace, patience, sin, evil, good, grief, healing, doubt, trust, truth, vocation, community, sloth, work, empathy, compassion, pain, eternity, knowledge, gratitude, limitation, beauty, need. Maybe you’ve got others.
I’m planning, at some point in the next year, to write a series of reflections on these (and more) abstract nouns. A few years ago, I wrote a “devotional-invitational” for Advent. December is a challenging month for us; grief manifests in many different emotions. I compiled quotes from all sorts of sources that reference various emotions, writing a brief invocation for each. Every day, a new emotion was “invited” to the holiday experience. I got the idea from Sheryl Paul’s book The Wisdom of Anxiety. She suggests that by inviting the different emotions to our lives (instead of trying to suppress them under holiday cheer), we can live more fully as ourselves and can experience less anxiety.
I posted the “invitational” on my WordPress blog in 2021. For my reflections here, I will recycle that material, and expand it with my own thoughts and explorations. Abstract nouns have pros and cons, but they are inescapable in our world. I hope my words about them prompt you to further explore them on your own.
Appendix of Related Quotes
I began to think about the vocabulary being employed—discomfort, shame, anguish—and how it reads like a caricature of the vocabulary of safety that had become popular on campuses around the country. I suspect this was intentional. Oppressive power is preserved in the smoke and fog, and sometimes it is smuggled in the unexamined shadows of the language of the oppressed themselves. The strategy banks on the limited amount of time possessed by most readers and listeners and aims to communicate via shorthand that is just as often sleight of hand.
- Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Message, 91