Theoretical abstraction itself functions as a form of cultural mediation.

Evidence

In refracting the pressing need to address social calamities into the multidimensional need to reconstitute the social, mediations wield their own formedness—their qualities as artistic detour, their aspects of theoretical abstraction—toward forming, reforming, transforming. Artforms and theory alike demand the slow and uncertain work of making sense, countering immediacy with mediation. … Some works still revel in figuration, abstraction, and the antiphenomenal marvel of fiction. — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 44

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines mediation as the positive counter-force to immediacy: artistic detour, theoretical abstraction, slow sense-making — precisely the category the reader needs to nominalize.