“Being Human” — Labeling

A lot of this story might sound familiar, even just from the other pieces in this series. I want to talk about another example of reductive thinking — labeling. Like mind-reading, fortune-telling, and catastrophic thinking it pretty strongly relies on assumptions and heuristics to create conclusive thought from minimal observable evidence. Additionally, akin to overgeneralization, labeling also creates assumptions by prescribing and projecting a single piece of data onto an entire person.

It’s easiest to start at the readily available, perhaps even common, ideas about labeling. Most frequently, I find label to indicate a categorization process. As individuals we seek labels that reflect ourselves and our ideas in an attempt to feel less lonely. As more and more individuals gather under a single label, camaraderie waxes and the individuals feel a sense of belonging.

That’s important, but to draw a distinction between fantasy and reality that is not the ‘happily ever after.’ I have not yet seen a group operating under a single label that acts in perfect accord. Labels can implicate a set of moralistic, idealistic, preferential, or physical similarities, but they fail to wholly bind a group for a few reasons.

It’s shockingly existential to consider how our names serve as a roughly ambiguous label for ourselves. How many times have you heard ‘that guy looks like Doug’? What does that even mean?

Labels are words, or even collections of words. Words — as with all forms of language — are imperfect translators of our abstract thoughts and allow for interpretation. When it comes to labels specifically, it turns out several of them are open to a LOT of interpretation. Think about what it means to be ‘White’ in the US. Out of necessity, labels for very large groups are perhaps inherently weak, and maybe even dangerous.

What does whiteness stand for in our country? Does every white person actually agree to that? Is there anything about ‘whiteness’ that actually ties all the White people together? How does being white, without exuding whiteness work?

Given the interpretive nature, labels are also prone to wild attribution. I’ve seen this idea enacted frequently among TERFs (Trans exclusionary radical feminists) who latch on to specific data associated with a label, and reverse the relationship so that the label now implies the data. This is a pretty wild behavior in language overall, in that many assume connotation is a commutable relationship — that is, if A connotes B, B must also connote A. This is the same hiccup in logic that fuels the idea behind “correlation implies causation,” which also makes for intrinsically commutable relationships between correlated pieces of data.

These are immediate dangers of labeling, in the traditional and common sense of the word, but there’s in fact another application for labeling that is more important here. I mentioned in overgeneralization that in addition to stereotypes afflicting large groups of people, even just a single person is prone to overgeneralization based on distinct actions.

I fall down the stairs — I’m such a klutz.

I check my outfit in the mirror — I’m so vain.

I give a homeless man a hamburger — I’m a generous person.

In each case, a single action gets generalized to the actions I take as a person. I apply labels to myself, out of shame or moralistic need, that demand how I should behave or how I might behave in the future. In just considering how I *should* behave, there’s a great deal of self-judgment.

Imagine the rest of your life being as clumsy as your clumsiest moment. That’s labeling.

More dangerously though (in my opinion), by prescribing my future shoulds, I set up expectations without knowing anything about myself or the context of the future. In labeling myself, I also lay the framework for me to succeed or fail.

I don’t say it enough, but living is not a game of success and failure, winning and losing. At least, I don’t think it has to be. I can intervene in the present to avoid frameworks for the future, and begin to change how I operate my life.

I fall down the stairs — That sure was klutzy.

I check my outfit in the mirror — I’m really fixated on how I look right now.

I give a homeless man some food — I helped someone when they needed it.

In my mind, it boils down to bearing more of the truth of the situation. I’m not necessarily a klutz, but I am capable of clumsy moments. I don’t live to see myself, but I am capable of appreciating (or hating) my aesthetics. I won’t always have the means to give food to someone else, but I can show kindness to myself and others in giving when I feel I can. The ideas that I am some immutable set of things, put forth by the soft trauma of my childhood, is wildly unkind to the tremendous set of opportunities I have to explore in myself.

That goes for others, too.

People are not their actions. It doesn’t mean their actions aren’t reprehensible, and that the people don’t deserve punishment for their reprehensible actions. It just allows for the idea that people are more than their worst or their best moments.

That said, one of the more insidious dangerous of labeling is that it satisfies an existential human need. There is a psychological model and theory that espouses the idea that humans proceed through adolescence (and much of life afterward) seeking and refining their identity. For me, it’s most easily identified by considering how I talk about myself versus how I talk about my friends. Knowing my friends as I do, I’m keen and quick to talk about them categorically.

He’s in the sporty group, but also the gamer group.

They’re one of my religious friends.

When I talk about myself, I struggle to say just one or two things about my own categorization. I am privy to myself and all of my facets, so fitting myself into any one box feels like an impossible task.

We’re constantly seeking more and more fine ways to describe ourselves, using the pieces we have. The pieces are discrete chunks of language, which necessarily cannot full capture the complexity of our humanity.

That said, when we do find labels that “fit well,” the label can become dangerously prophetic for how change and behave. I think about this as positive feedback loop, and the joyous example is my friends frequent comment:

“I am a gayer version of myself every year.”

Their comfort with gayness as a label for themselves means at least two things. They’re appreciative of that part of themselves and willing to give it (perhaps) the most outward-facing space on their personality. But also, in full appreciation of human growth, they’re learning to be more gay by incorporating more and more gayness as they see and explore. The positive feedback here is that since they feel gay so resplendently, that label can continue to consume more and more of their identity. They’re readily, and maybe even joyfully, going to become your “gay friend.”

I very specifically don’t like being someone’s “gay friend,” or their “Jewish friend,” or anything like that. I am extremely uncomfortable with the reductive component of labeling, perhaps because I don’t want the prescription of how I’m supposed to act. After all, your “gay friend” is set up to either “act gay” or “not be gay enough.”

That’s the flat danger. Labels set up the expectation for future behaviors, and enables gatekeeping and exclusion. Labels, while theoretically facilitating inclusivity in groups are perhaps necessarily a double-edged sword. The gay community is definitely rife with examples of this sort of behavior, even just considering the sub-cultures of bears, twinks, kink, etc. These are small groups compared to all of humanity but in the face of the group, the individual is also nominal. So it becomes a game of ceding parts of yourself to the label, or being ostracized for your individuality.

In my experience (as an antelope), gays are not this friendly between groups in real life. More importantly, who’s that mustache-cat, and are they single?

Ideally, labels become a thing of the past and we begin to accept that people are defined in the moment and allowed to be fluid.

For myself, I frustratingly accept humanity is nowhere near ideal. And that to some extent labels are necessary and healthy. All I can do in the present is be mindful of the inherent dangers of labeling and challenge myself when I fall prey to them.

For you, I hope you can begin to do the same. As an act of kindness for yourself at first — love yourself beyond your labels and perhaps find more of yourself that you suppress for the convenience of a label. Practice on yourself, and begin to pay that kindness forward. Let others be, with or without labels.

Start simple. Be human.

Sincerely Not Really Into Labels,

August