Objective
“You are stunning.”
“This food is disgusting.”
“The conference was impressive.”
Subjective
“I feel stunned when I look at you.”
“I feel disgusted when I eat this food.”
“I felt impressed by the conference.”
(If you want, you can further parse those feelings, i.e., impressed may mean happy + awe + grateful)
The hidden subjective
When I read a phrase such as “you are stunning,” my mind immediately jumps to an objective understanding of stunning. That everyone knows that this person is stunning. Similarly, when I read “that guy is violent” I assume that everyone knows he is violent.
The challenge with using adjectives is therefore that: it can project a certain universal objectivity to a characteristic that is really just an individual subjectivity.
So let’s examine “you are stunning”. As I mentioned above, it basically means, “I feel stunned when I look at you.” The challenge lies in that not everyone will feel stunned when they look at that person. Perhaps 95% of people will. Perhaps only 10%. Regardless, it is rare if not impossible that 100% of people will have the exact same emotional reaction to this person.
Have you ever been madly in love with someone and then other people tell you they have no idea why you find that person so attractive? Not everyone will agree that the person is stunning, and thus we get into a never-ending argument about who is right, when it really is just a difference of emotional reactions that result from we all having distinct histories.
Adjectives matter
This may seem like a petty linguistic distinction that I’m making, but when we don’t believe that adjectives are rooted in subjective emotional experiences, very charged adjectives can drive us to heated and dangerous interactions with others and ourselves.
Not sure what I mean? OK, then let me point out some very charged descriptions being thrown around the US media these days: Who is a thug? Who is a pig? Who is a racist? Who is a terrorist? Who is a hero? Who is an inspiration? Who is guilty? Who is innocent?
The dictionary says a thug is “a criminal with intimidating mannerisms, who treats others violently and roughly, especially for hire.”
Therefore, if I feel intimidated by this person, I would call him a thug.
If I don’t feel intimidated by this person, I would not call him a thug. It has nothing to do with the other person and it has everything to do with me.
I could elaborate on this point, but will do so another day. I could also illustrate the same for terrorist, racist, hero, inspiration, guilty, innocent, etc, but I think you get the point.
As with many of the entries on this blog, I try to highlight things that I observe not to tell you the objective truth, but to reveal my subjective truth and to remind myself that I as well am privy to seeing the objective adjective instead of the subjective one.