How we label things and people PART 2

Another thing that we label is behavior. This can also include speech. It goes something like this: “This is what you’re doing is called.” And we often add: “And that means this.” And perhaps: “And that makes you such and such a person.” We can even discuss the label that we’ve slapped on someone with our friends, what it means and get them to agree that the person is bad because of it. 

A funny thing is that we can even do it in the following manner: “What you are doing right now is called labelling. That makes you a labeler. And labelers are bad people.”

What I’ve come to realize, is that the less you label, the more open you become to the world. It does of course not mean to indiscriminately say yes to everything. There are lots of things in the world that I’ve chosen to reject after careful consideration. And some after not so careful consideration. There are certain beliefs that don’t need much deliberation to be dismissed, such as racism or the belief in authoritarianism. But what we should be careful about, is slapping the label “racist” on someone that doesn’t consider him- or herself as such. 

We can even develop whole thought systems around why we are allowed the luxury of labelling someone while someone else is not allowed to do so. Why not, instead, just meet people with an open mind and assume that they mean what they say about themselves. In an existence that is so governed by unconscious forces anyway, it’s better to turn one’s eyes towards oneself to see if what one says or does means something else that what we think, than to try and extract the hidden meaning behind someone else’s actions or words and slap a label on them. And you can ask yourself how many times confronting someone’s behavior with a label. 

But by not labeling, you try to look at things simply as they are and not through a filter of pre-conceived notions about them. This is difficult and I’m certainly no expert at it. It is rather a habit that we need to keep reminding ourselves of over and over again. But with time, just with any change of perspective, we become conscious of it more and more often. The first step is of course to understand that there is such a thing as labelling, that we engage in it and that it affects how we treat other people and life in general.