Put it in little yellow boxes.

I resist labels immensely. What is it about us, that as we go about our day to day, that we must find names or words to fix onto whatever we encounter? ‘Short’, ‘tall’, ‘Asian’, ‘bogan’, and so on. It seems intrinsic to our human nature that we find names to attach to ideas, persons and objects, and in so doing, somehow create our understanding of what we label. But in naming, or labelling, what we encounter, do we cease to interact with the object or person ‘as is’? Or do we interact with the generally accepted idea of what a ‘bogan’, or ‘table’, or ‘chair’ is? Or ‘my’ idea of what a ‘bogan’ or ‘table’ is? In a nutshell, do we create representations of the world, within which to interact? Or do we actually engage with the world around us?

Part of my discomfiture arises from the fact that due to this blog, the tabula rasa on which I present my mostly pompous, relatively inconsequential thoughts, I have garnered the label of being ‘deep’, some would say ‘emo’, among others. I intensely dislike being pigeon-holed into a stereotype which may or may not be true. If hypothetically someone holds an opinion of me as ‘deep’, would that change the person’s interaction with me, as opposed to someone who holds an opinion of me as a casual, rather irreverent fellow? Chances are very likely, yes; which would mean that you would no longer be interacting with me as the person that I am, but rather your conception of the person that I am. And I would be doing the exact same thing back to you.

Rollo May wrote that we can never truly engage with other people because we can never adopt completely their point of view, or experience the emotions, meanings, and so on the way that another interprets or experiences them. In that, we are all to some measure, solitary.

The sad thing about labelling is that it leads to stereotyping, and stereotyping can lead to prejudice, and prejudice… well, two collapsing office buildings and a few invasions say all we need to know about the extremities of prejudice, don’t they? But more insidiously, how we perceive others, or how we treat and interact with others, or even the things which we hold true and dear, clasping them tightly to our breast like a babe in arms, are affected by those stereotypes. So the question raised is, is anything ‘true’, or only ‘true’ insofar as we personally hold it to be true?

Language in and of itself is full of labels, each with its own associated meaning, emotional valence, and implicit connotations. Language, it seems, is built on those conceptions. Is it possible that our apparent compulsion to label things, to make them more understandable, to reduce them in some way to a manageable level, is reflected in the language that we use? Or does the language that we use cause this labelling? Does it work both ways? Does the language that we use influence us as much as we influence the use of language? Would labelling and its inherent stereotyping be any more or less salient if language did not exist? But then humans are social creatures, and communication appears to be as fundamental a need as air or water. Would we then cease to exist without a language, or a method of communication?

Thoughts without a logical conclusion or solution.