Today's writing is, "On Labeling Without Limiting":
There's this popular belief that we shouldn't label anyone, and there's a certain bit of wisdom there. Take Frank for instance, Frank could be anyone, we don't know anything about him other than he's probably a man. Now let me apply some labels to Frank, he's old and he's a conservative. Suddenly there's all these unconscious prejudices, positive and negative, that come up when we think about Frank. He could have been anybody at first, but now there's various expectations about what Frank is supposed to be like.
The danger here is, what if Frank doesn't fit into those labels? More importantly, what if he doesn't fit into the prejudices people have associated with those labels? I've just done a great disservice to Frank by labeling him. Human beings are complex and unique, yet by labeling him I've made him dull, one-dimensional. He's now a generic person, he's been pigeonholed in our minds.
To the dualistic thinker, it may seem like I'm saying "labels are bad", but that's not my message at all. In fact, I would hope the hypocrisy of "labels are bad" is obvious to the reader. Labels are largely unavoidable, they're how our language works. That's all words are, labels. The word Moon is not really the Moon, the word is like a finger pointing to that large sphere that revolves around our Planet. The word is simply a convenient tool for communication so we both have a similar understanding.
Read the rest here: http://soundofheart.org/galacticfreepress/content/labeling-without-limiting
Link to today's GFP newsletter: http://soundofheart.org/galacticfreepress/content/gfp-newsletter-4262014
