It seems that everyone and everything must be labeled. Often the labels placed on us come with a bunch of connotations and stereotypes which don't fit the individual, but which you will be judged by all the same. If you reject them, you get treated as some kind of outcast.
Why do we feel so compelled to label?
2007-11-25 13:10:54 · 10 answers · asked by . 6 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
LOL. Bosco - so I'm an iconolast, a malcontent (?), an outcast and a wierdo? Were you seeking to insult me lol. A beautiful illustration of the preoccupation with labeling...
2007-11-25 13:32:00 · update #1
hey, tash...can i be an 'iconoclast', too? i've been a 'curmudgeon' for a good long while, and it's not such a great gig...for starters, you've got to have vodka and roofing nails for breakfast...and we don't get dental!
people can call me whatever they like...i find the labels they use reveal far more about them than they do about me! so, why do people do that? maybe we're so emotionally isolated and so restricted by our own 'persona', the character we have constructed to show the world, and have done so well in fooling ourselves into believing this 2 dimensional caricature of our own selves, that we just can't understand subtlety and/or complexity in others...or maybe we're just intellectually lazy
{{{{{TASH}}}}}
2007-11-25 19:47:58 · answer #1 · answered by spike missing debra m 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Great question and commentary on our American culture. which is controlled by corporations and the media. Our obsession with religion, politics, money, youth, and celebrity give us skewed ideas of right and wrong, good and bad. I know a person who will absolutely not use a product if its not a specific brand. At the same time she watches television religiously and is very responsive to commercials, which often set up arbitrary standards of comparison. Regarding labeling others:we mortals have always done that. Its a means of de-humanizing, cutting others down to size and controlling them. To categorize an old person, an AIDS patient, a member of another religion, a street person, an illegal alien or a female as somehow different or lacking, is to make yourself look better. Despite religious injunctions, this will continue until we learn better. However in today's world, I believe that the godly allure of what can be bought, consumed and later replaced with something "improved" has superseded the so called eternal values some were raised with. Until we achieve spiritual wholeness, if ever, looking good and maintaining the pecking order will always outrank living the Golden Rule.
2007-11-26 21:24:00 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Frankly,you sound like a bit of an iconoclast,or maybe just some kind of malcontent. And we all know what they're like. Just don't go nuts and go out and shoot up a shopping mall at Christmas time. There are too many nuts out there anyway,especially if you include all the iconoclasts and malcontents. The media does a pretty darn good job of keeping us all informed and up-to-date when it comes to what all these weirdos and social outcasts like to do by way of venting. Fortunately thanks to media profiling,we are learning to recognize the type. Quiet. Keeps to himself. Never bothered anyone. Last person in the world you would have expected to do a thing like that. Your best friend could be one and you would never know.
You could be one. The criteria is geting broader every day. I could be one. Frankly,I can't help but wonder if we aren't all...one of them.
2007-11-25 21:22:34 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
yeah man i'm thinking of becoming an AM FM VT BS BMF CIA ACLU and TFM. in other words what about the labels that we place on ourselves? do we need them to define ourselves ,when did our words and deeds become insufficient to do so?
2007-11-26 00:18:03 · answer #4 · answered by joe c 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
To the nth degree! Why can't people be known for who they are? We used to be known by our personalities rather than what group we belong to.
2007-11-25 21:20:20 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
why dose it seem to me that if any labeling is done...its done by the sky pilots....i realy think they have a problem....but then again who am i to judge .....far be it for a agnostic to judge anything......i remain respectfully yours seamanab
2007-11-26 19:57:32 · answer #6 · answered by seamanab 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
YES, yes, YES!!! It drives me crazzzzzyyy - we are all so different & yet we insist on lumping ourselves & each other into categories to which we give labels.... WHY???
2007-11-25 21:46:00 · answer #7 · answered by Jen 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
I don't and I just ignore the labels.
2007-11-25 21:23:12 · answer #8 · answered by What? Me Worry? 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Nah. Which society respects real life values ?
2007-11-26 13:08:58 · answer #9 · answered by Glow 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
I don't but I've noticed the same.
2007-11-25 21:15:38 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋