A Theory on “Labels”
Question:
“Why don't people place sticky labels on everything in their home so that they won't forget what things are?”
Ex: “fan”, “ door”, “refrigerator”, etc
This may seem like a silly question, but it represents a very important premise.
Let me explain how I see it.
If you were to label everything in your home to remind you what it is, one word labels would not suffice. For example: “fan” could be expanded in context to “black fan” which could be expanded to “three bladed black fan” which could be expanded to “ten inch, three bladed, black fan” etc. This example would have to then be followed for everything in your home in order to properly label them with a contextual accuracy.
Now, let’s expand labels to human beings.
A “man” walks into the home. A “black man” walks into the home. A “liberal black man” walks into the home. A “wealthy liberal black man” walks into the home. A “genius level, wealthy liberal black man” walks into the home, etc.
One can clearly see where a label cannot be used because the contextual expansion could figuratively go on to fill an entire book regarding the “man” that walked into the home.
I believe society has been historically programmed to simplify and shorten identifiers for things and people which corrupts the contextual understanding of the thing or the person to which the label is attached.
Republican, Democrat, Black, White, Male, Female, etc, are programmed identifiers which allow for a rapid assessment of that which you see. Though the assessment is done quickly within the observer's mind based upon past contextual reference. This is both, inaccurate and not fair for either party to do because of the book level sub context to each representation for the given one word label.
My thoughts are that people should dismiss more readily that they are “left” or “right” or that they are “conservative” or “liberal”. These things are illusory descriptors for the most part. Preconceived identifiers built upon from educators in school, at work and in the media to provide tribal identification for the listener to make a choice of. However, the choice is a tribal and not an actual humanistic choice.
If a mind identifies as “conservative” or “liberal”, it is a constraining not an unconstraining property. It limits an open mind and true free thinking. It limits choice and options.
It is my belief that there truly is no “left” or “right” when each label can be contextually expanded to fill a book within each meaning. And if an expanded contextual book were to be written on either, there would eventually be so much overlap on content and context that the original label becomes quite meaningless when the full story is revealed in content. People on the “left” or “right” both have TV sets, refrigerators, cars and fans. Which within all of those items have contextual expandability in and of themselves.
So, whether you agree with my premise or not on labels...you can label me “smart” or “stupid”.
