A Word for the Importance of Meaningful Words
Alogophobia • noun • (a-law-guh-foh-bee-uh)
Definition: The fear of running out of words
Origin: The Sustainable Culture Lab
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About a month ago, I was talking with Jack Britton, a member of the SCL Community, about the processes and anxieties that come with creating this newsletter. There is an underlying concern that we will not be able to find new enlightening words to share with all of you each week. We then realized that we did not have a word to name our stressor, and that the anxiety or angest we felt stemmed from a fear of running out of words.
This fear has since become easier to manage as we began to address it. There are over 7,000 languages in the world, but the majority of these languages are not widely spoken. Twenty-three languages are spoken by half of the world’s population, and all languages constantly create new words to describe and define our ever-changing world. Germany has already created over 1,200 new words pertaining to COVID-19. Therefore, we have an abundance of languages to learn from and scour to find wise words to empower your life, and we also have the opportunity to create new words to fill a linguistic void.
This specific issue of The Word is our 52nd installment. In our first year, we have used words from 15 different languages—Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hawaiian, Irish, Japanese, Latin, Russian, Sanskrit, Spanish, Tagalog, and Zulu—and introduced nine words created by the SCL Community—Cultural Naissance, Essentialist Crisis, Ethnocidee, Ethnocider, Ethnogenesis, Eǔtopia, Freecano, Pre-racial, and Sousreal.
We are proud of the diversity of languages we have been able to share with all of you and the words we have created. As the team at SCL confronted the anxiety of creating The Word, we felt it was only fitting to create a new word to define our fears. This word is alogophobia: the fear of running out of words.
The Meaningless Language of Business
A primary focus of my work at SCL, and in my forthcoming book The Crime Without A Name, derives from America’s abundance of meaningless words and a shortage of meaningful words. There are many explanations for our linguistic void, but a key factor is that American English has long been a language for business and not a language for life. America’s first successful colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia was a corporate venture funded by the London Company; therefore, businesses and profit have long preceded existence in America.
The language of business is not inherently bad. It is merely a language that exists for the purpose of making money, and America never hesitates to cultivate the language of business. Companies are created with completely meaningless names and these names will only become meaningful, even possibly a part of our daily jargon, if the companies are profitable.
The word “Facebook” only matters because that company makes money. Likewise, “Myspace” has become essentially meaningless because that company no longer exists. A lack of money ended its existence. Businesses propagate advertisements with lies and half-truths, and this discourse has become socially acceptable because we accept that this language was not founded on truth or wisdom. This language exists in order to convince people to spend money. The language of business largely consists of fickle, meaningless, and frequently dishonest words that will have a short shelf life. The language relegates existence to an afterthought and makes it socially acceptable to say, “It’s just business,” to justify a business decision that undermines another being’s quality of life.
American culture often views employment as a prerequisite for existence, so the language of business often precedes the language of existence. Our job is supposed to define our identity and gives us access to healthcare and education. We shun government programs that provide Americans with essential services and Americans often feel lost and depressed when they are unemployed. As we confront life, we often only have business-centric language and it is inevitable that these inadequate words will be insufficient.
Despite having an abundance of words, we frequently struggle to find the words to articulate the meaningful facets of existence. We may not initially perceive this absence as a fear, but the fear presents itself once we work to fill the linguistic void. Once you see the inadequacy of our language, the absence of meaningful language necessitates a previously unarticulated fear. This is alogophobia.
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Diagnosing the Problem
Having the language to describe the world around you is empowering, yet people often ask me if we even need new words such as ethnocide. I believe that this skepticism derives from America’s abundance of meaningless and business-centric words.
Every day, Americans hear some new word in a commercial and they know that the word only exists to coerce them into buying something that they probably do not need. America’s pharmaceutical commercials even tell us to “tell your doctor” that we literally need to consume this product to stay alive. We hear new words every day and we know that these words do not matter, and because of this capitalistic environment, it becomes natural for us to question the impact of new words.
When I am asked if creating new words is necessary, I ask people to imagine what the world would look like today if COVID-19 existed but it remained unnamed. Without a name, we would live in a world where an unnamed phantom was randomly killing people across the globe. People would be struck down as they went about their normal lives. Without naming and defining the problem, it would be impossible to develop vaccines and the world would be helplessly unable to articulate what was happening. Without the ability to define the problem and create solutions, the world would hope for divine intervention or Deus Ex Machina (God in the machine) to magically appear and save the day.
The absence of adequate language for describing our world presents a profound and troubling problem, and this problem can be solved and diagnosed through creating and cultivating meaningful language.
At SCL, the word “ethnocide” was our first word to help us fill America’s linguistic void, but rather quickly we realized that America’s ethnocidal culture needed more and more meaningful words. When you live in a society committed to destroying culture, it is inevitable that you will not have the words for describing your culture and society. Within this ethnocidal cultural void, we will have meaningless words with a meaningful and wise façade, and this is America’s business-centric language.
As we have become empowered by new language over the course of a year, we now confront the fear of an absence of words: alogophobia. This fear is an empowering fear because it means we refuse to settle for meaningless language and commit ourselves to finding the right words to describe our world.
Alogophobia compels us to be wise, meaningful people, and we look forward to confronting this fear and becoming wiser people each and every week with you.
This week, please consider some of the things that you encounter most often in your day-to-day life, such as commonly used objects or tools, concepts you use to explain ideas, experiences you feel, etc. Imagine what your life would be like if those things did not have any names or words to describe them. How would that impact your ability to navigate your experiences in the world? Email us and let us know your experiences with this week’s challenge, and feel free to share with us any words or languages you think should be a part of The Word. See you next week.
