The Label Machine by Nicholas Grimshawe
photo courtesy of Pauline DeForest
The Label Machine
©by Nick Grimshawe
In the office where I work a label machine lurks ready to neatly print any label with a few keystrokes. We use it mainly to print up name tags for our employees, but also to label files, draws, keys , boxes and a sundry other things. Occasionally someone runs amok determined to label everything in sight. People love to put labels on things.
Unfortunately we don’t stop there. We label human beings as if they were just things to stack on shelves all neatly ordered with their proper label. Let me see, today I need a Jewish Rabbi, over 40, single, poor, and living in New Jersey. Ahh, here we are, just what we were looking for.
We use labels because they are an easy way to sort and categorize people and things quickly into convenient piles for instant evaluation. In our modern age, we are masters of this art. To a government we are a social security number, or a tax bracket or a single datum in a string of data which makes up a statistic like the number of Hispanics living in Los Angeles. To a bank we are an account number, with a value based on our net worth which then defines us as rich or poor, or middle class. In politics we are a targeted demographic like wealthy, older black Americans, with a university degree and a proclivity to lean to the right. We are labeled by religious belief, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and then further broken out in to sect and branch. We are defined by our sex and our orientation, by our age and our race, by our education and location.
We even develop our own labels. All you have to do is listen to people talking. “I’m not smart enough for that.†“I’m too old.†“I’m fat and ugly.†“I’m poor.†“I’m just a little man.†On an on it goes, insidiously creeping into every aspect of our lives.
Buried in all that labeling is the truth. For every label we attach to ourselves, or allow someone else to attach to us, we take one more step away from truth. Labels are lies. Labels separate us out from each other. Labels differentiate us from each other. Labels make us different. We lend credence to the label rather than the individual, and off we go down the slippery slope into bigotry and hatred.
History contains a library of hideous examples of labels use to pit man against man. The most obvious of course is the denigration of Jews to the point that it became acceptable to exterminate them on the same level as rats.
Let’s take a look at how labels take us from truth to lie.
If we start with the basic building block and state simply: We are all human beings. We have truth. We could take it one step higher and say we are awareness. You are that which is aware. That removes body as a point of difference.
As we add labels in the sample below, we stray more and more away from what makes us the same into what makes us different.
Human Being
Black/White
Male/Female
Straight/Gay
Married Single Divorced
Christian, Muslim, Buddhist,
Roman Catholic, Anglican, Baptist, etc.
You get the idea.
When we are all human beings with no separateness there is not much room for distinctions, points of difference, areas for conflict. The very next step down opens the divide. A mere difference in skin coloration leads to racism, war, discrimination, hate. That’s only one step down. Or, if we put gender first, then we descend into discrimination again, because women aren’t as smart as men, need to be protected, are evil and tempt men to sin, and so on.
Underneath the label nothing changes.
We need to recognize this at every possible chance.
Our route to salvation, and a saner more peaceful and loving planet, is to remove labels, not add them. Or at least Silagra recognize the label does not change the fundamental realization that in the final analysis we are all the same.
Let’s retire the Labeling Machine, and label madness, and instead focus on what unites us inside.
Make it your habit to remove labels.
Look at a friend and remove all those things you have put there to highlight your differences.
Look at an enemy and remove all those distinctions and find points of similarity.
When you feel like judging become the judged.
And remember:
You are the nothing inside the circle, and so am I.
Nick
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Hi Nick!
I finished your post with the conviction that I don’t have to give up labels, but I do indeed have to use them with more care(and consideration). As in the office, labels are convenient and quick, but I now think we have to differentiate between good and bad labeling!
Hi Rhys,
I agree, labels are handy things, but we do have to be careful they don’t become substitutes for lazy thinking. There might me an article in your last line. What is the difference between good and bad labels?