Stock Rants #4: Labels

[kiya]

When you tell me you don't believe in labels, what I hear is that you don't believe in communication.

"Label" is a fancy word for "noun or adjective", and it's not even all that fancy.

You just want to be, man, without all of these words harshing your mellow. That's very nice for you. I hope you never, ever have to communicate outside of your smug bastion of solipsistic privilege in which "just being" is something you never have to explain, never have threatened, or never actually need to care about. You are not a category, you are a free person! You are colour-blind! You don't see gender! Your response to referring to someone as the wrong religion is, "But these labels, they separate us! Why can't we all just get along!"

If you respond to someone trying to make sense of distinctions with "Why define? Just be!" you are saying that precise and specific information exchange is irrelevant. I can only hope that you never wind up in a situation where you actually need to explain something you find important in a manner that requires the use of actual nouns.



The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. -- Mark Twain

(This rant brought to you by a conversation the other day with oneironaut in which he asked if there was a "labels" stock rant yet, and "Why define? Just be!" posted as an answer to a "What's the difference between..." question on FetLife.)

Comments

[fierceawakening.livejournal.com]

yes, this is exactly what I had in mind. Which is why I was asking lilairen what exactly she meant. at first, her post seemed to be saying that people should label themselves. Then it seemed that she was talking about people who use "I don't label people" to avoid describing people in ways those people want to be described, or use it to dismiss people who say, "Well, you're an X and do things that way and expect others to as well, but I'm a Y so it's important that I do things this way instead," which I see as a completely different matter that has to do with whether or not you respect someone.

Then there are sociopolitical issues like a white person saying "do you really need to orient your life around being black?" which are actually about erasing other identities. Or, even worse, using a concept like "No one is really 'trans'" to try and argue that the way someone lives her life and experiences her reality is fundamentally wrong.

And it seems like those are the things the post is actually about, in which case I agree with it completely.

But if it had been about whether people accept labels that others would use for them, then I think there's something to be said for handy nouns and adjectives,but also something to be said for having lengthy conversations that some people avoid by using one word instead, assuming that that word fully explains what a person is like or is doing. (Eg, since FetLife was mentioned: "I am a switch." Okay, well, if the question is "do you both beat people and get beat?" I don't need more information. But if I don't know whether the person is talking D/s or SM, or don't know whether the person evenly splits between whatever two things he means, his answer may be an adjective where I needed a paragraph. Hence, one meaning of "Labels are limiting.")

[artan]

I think that the title including the Rant-Label seems to define some of the thought process as "this bothers me, I will flail at it to half explain and half complain". Though again, interpretation limitation on the Rant label may apply.

The sociopolitics of language gets even more complicated, in a kind of 1984, stripping out possible interpretation way. Though there is also the problem of redefinition of perfectly good language that other people try to do in order to "defend" whatever idea they have and fit it into an existing set. For some reason people seem to be reluctant to make up new words (or get attacked by others if they do and then attempt to explain them).

"I am a switch." Okay, well, if the question is "do you both beat people and get beat?" I don't need more information. . . . Hence, one meaning of "Labels are limiting."

Or, it could mean "flip me and the room shall illuminate!".