Exactly my point. Allowing society to come up with definitions for labels is why labels themselves are bad. Society comes up with these definitions, whether you give them to yourself or not. Does not matter if you think what your label means; it's a label. People are going to judge you based on these labels; hence why I do not rely on labels to tell me I'm a good person, because I already know I am without the use of these labels.
No, we're not. Society doesn't suck. There are aspects of it that do, and aspects of it that don't. Human society is one of the most vast and complex networks on the planet, bar biological systems. It's impossible to summarise, it's like trying to take one person and say they represent humanity. Nobody has the accumalative features of 7 billion people. Just for clarification, society is simply the interaction of people on a large scale. Anyway, before giving my input, it's probably worth stating facts before opinions. What a label is. A label is a name or notification that summarises the content of the labelled object. It's designed to give a brief analysis of what has been labelled for convenience and categorization. It has to accurately describe what the entity is and account for any abnormalities and anomalies. Why labels exist. Labels exist to make things convenient, and so to categorize and retrieve items from groups of similar entities. Take an apple, for example. Should you want a specific apple, how are you to tell which one is acquired to your needs? They all look the same, but you know none of them are the same. By labelling them, you can isolate a single one or group of ones that are identical in terms of the trait you've chose to filter them by. The label does not account for things outside of this filter, or filters. For example, should you simply want a large apple, that label won't account for type, country of origin, colour, etc. Who chooses labels. Humans aren't apples, so it's not up to a grocer to label them. As self aware beings, some choose to label themselves (not so much as an individual, but as a group). Others attach to 'floating' labels (a term used to describe something other than a group of people, but is adopted for this use). Finally, psychologists and scientists use concrete nomenclatures to accurately isolate facts and traits of people. Sexualities don't exist. Before I get told to shut up for being wrong, as they clearly do exist, let me clear something up. Sexuality exists, as does being attracted to the same sex while simultaneously being unattracted to the opposite sex, but completely isolating the 2 different genders are actually incredibly rare cases. As I posted in The Gay Thread, the human brain is really bad at picking out traits to find attractive. In fact, most of what we are attracted to is self imposed rather than a brain function. As such, sexuality isn't really real. I guess you could say we are all naturally pansexual, but that's a pointless label considering it's a default state. Anyway, now that's cleared up, unless I've forgot anything, I'd just like to use these to express the point that labels don't really do anything useful, at least not positively. I'll use sexuality as it's a really ideal and clear example to use. Sexuality is such a small, vague and menial thing, it's actually pretty hard to accurately label. I mean, the huge majority of 'straight' people don't solidly prefer one gender over the other, instead have a preference and choose not to address the minority (usually because of self insecurity imposed by a portion of the previously mentioned bad aspects of society society i.e. expected gender roles, misconceptions, etc). If you label something like sexuality, for one there is a massive chance near certainty it's not accurate. I really can't stress enough how vague sexual attraction is. It's really blurry. It's often dismissed because 1. It's not a well known fact, unfortunately 2. Most aren't willing to accept the sexuality society has taught them to belong to isn't actually true 3. Insecurity. A point raised is that it's convenient to call yourself 'straight' instead of 'having a very low attraction to the same sex', for those that are actually confortable with their sexuality. This may be true, but you have to ask, other than dating services, why do you need to conveniently say what you're attracted to? Who does it honestly matter to other than you and a partner? If you would like to bring an example to my attention I'd be happy to hear it. Another point raised is that a label can give comfort and security, and as Chapien described 'safety'. I have to ask, comfort, security and safety from what? Homophobia? Telling a homophobe you're gay will have the same consequences as telling them sexuality doesn't matter. They're indiscriminate in that respect. If they want to isolate that specific trait of you they will, it's what happens. Of course, as above, please do tell me if you feel I've been inconsiderate of certain examples. In general, labels are far too inaccurate so summarise the deeply complex being that is a human. Even if we were to accept that it's the amalgamation of several labels that make up who we are, there are too many to even consider, so they would be lost under each other. Wanting a label to feel a part of something is okay if you want to be a part of a community, e.g. the My Little Pony community, but taking the role of a 'brony' creates black and white in what should be grey. You are a brony, or you aren't a brony. Why can't there be an inbetween? Labels cannot account for that. They are just that, labels. This or that. Not 'kind of'. There are too many positions of interest you can hold in the show. You can be slightly interested, curious, repulsed, avid, combinations, there are too many options to consider. Consider it a spectrum. There are general areas of colour (the red bit, the blue bit, the green bit), but 2 pixels are the same colour. Nobody has exactly the same traits, and even shared traits differ from each other slightly, e.g. Two football fans supporting different teams and at different magnitudes. Humans are too comlex to label. Oversimplifying is the only way to label a person, and that unavoidably deindividualises.
Basically, this is the entirety of what we talked about a couple of days ago. I should have worded mine better to fit the situation. Oh well. Needless to say, I agree with him on all counts. Labels serve no purpose. We aren't apples. We're people.
Thus I once again conclude that names are labels. As such, they clearly serve a purpose, since conducting any social interaction, from talking to collecting taxes, is nearly impossible without names. I fail to see why you need MORE labels than names, but that's besides the point. Now stop calling names names. It makes them cry in their sleep.
As Rand would say in The Fountainhead, some people "exist only as shells of other people's opinions". I don't know what this labeling business is about, seems like a buzz word from some outdated junior high health class video. Defining society as those-who-live-with-labels and those-who-don't seems a bit limiting in itself, no? EDIT: That is to say, I think there is a much bigger and more encompassing lens through which we can understand people's behaviors and identities than "labeling". I think Luprony took this idea as far as it needs to go, and shows, that in the end, labeling is just too vague and imprecise a concept to apply seriously to any sociological situation.
And there always will be. Such is science. Always arguing with itself. If it is impossible to agree on a topic, it will always boil down to 'do what you want, just respect other people'. You said yourself, you like being labelled. Who the hell am I to make you do otherwise? I think what I'd like to express is not everyone would like to be labelled, so it would be wrong to say they are definitely right. In the same vein, perhaps I shouldn't claim it wrong. Bottom line, we're talking chimps on a huge rock flying around a ball of fire and then we die. Nothing we do really matters, so as long as you enjoy the ridiculously small time you have to be conscious, it doesn't matter what you label yourself as. Just be nice, don't have too many lie ins, and stop worrying about calories. Bacon is lovely.
Live life the best way you can. After all, it's your life. Nobody can tell you, unless you're in a communist government, how to live it.
I think this is pretty much the conclusion that Saiko and I came to in the first few posts of the thread. Some people find labels comforting and useful while others see them as restricting or destructive. Neither side of the argument can cancel out the other because each type of person exists and will always exist and neither argument is without its merits. It's been interesting seeing both sides laid out in detail. In a discussion that has no right answer, understanding of the opposing view is the best possible outcome.
There are no "Right" answers here. Both sides provide interesting insight, and I'm glad we can discuss this maturely!
Didn't think to much about the title, but what do you mean about labels being the downfall of humanity?
*Shrug* I forgot the question mark at the end, unfortunately. My keyboard sucks like that. The original post has the original meaning. And by that, I meant what will we do when all of these labels come together to form a huge conglamorate that is society? Will we embrace it? Fight it? That's the question I hope to answer, somehow.
Basically; groups associate themselves with labels, and some people accept them, some don't. My question is this; what would happen if society's norm was in and of itself, a label? Essentially, if we were all assigned the same label, what would humanity do?
Stop caring about labels. Even if we are proseprous enough to only have a middle class, we will have a lower middle, middle middle, and upper middle class. Same here.
Hmm, labels. Well, unfortunately, labels are everywhere. We're men and women, we're white, black, Hispanic or Asian. We're vegetarians or meat eaters, or a little of both. And don't get me started on sexuality (whether it exists or not). Slowly, over my life, I've done my best to eliminate every label I can. Talking on the internet is interesting for this very reason. While I may suspect you're 18-24 heterosexual white male, I don't know. And I don't care. In real life, it's not quite so easy. With a glance, I label your gender (sometimes incorrectly), race, physical attributes, etc., etc. I think I've learned to ignore them as greatly as possible, but they're still there, and I still notice them. And it does have an effect on the way I interact with the person. I think this is the real problem with labels - once we've labeled some one, we react to that person thusly. For example, most people assume others are heterosexual, and thus when they find out otherwise, they're shocked and dismayed! Horrified! "How can you be gay?!" they cry out. "I've always thought you were straight!" Wrong. You labeled them straight, and all your thoughts and actions went in that direction. I can understand the need of labels, however. It's a bit comforting to have one, in an odd way. It doesn't make you feel quite so alone to think of yourself in a certain fashion. But, I really think as you grow older, you'll find they can be misleading, even deceitful. Labels are unavoidable. Even "Individual" is a label. What's the saying? "We're all unique!" I tell people, We are what we are; we like what we like. There's nothing wrong with it, as long, of course, that you're not infringing on anyone's rights - but that should go without saying. Mmm, better stop before I wander off topic or something.
