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Jim Cejka
Applause, Applause Garry
Somewhere, I believe, is a dark, smoke filled room with a bunch of people and a special black Magic-8 ball. Those people don’t like things, and if they don’t like things, then the things they don’t like are, by inference, bad, evil, or at least, not tolerable. And, if that’s the way those things are, then no one else should like or tolerate those things either.
So, they sit in their lairs and shake their 8-balls, only instead of answers to their dislikes, their magic ball shows them ‘labels.’ That way, they can file their dislikes under a label, and easily and conveniently place those evils and intolerables under an, of course, easily recognizable ID.
It’s so much easier to let everyone else know of the presence of these nefarious people, thoughts, or ‘isms, through labeling. How nice it is to be able to say that so-and-so is not to one’s liking. If one would want to disdain someone as a individual, then they would have to get to know that person, and find actual reasons for such an opinion. But if one can just label that person, placing them into a group which, for want of any actual reasons, the Magic 8-ball has created a label, and which, because all labels are naturally derogatory, that person, therefore, is bad, evil, or intolerable.
Of course, we make ourselves so easy to label. Some are almost instantaneous, like a chuckle at a joke, saying what we saw on TV, talking with another person, questioning something, stating and opinion, what we wear, the color of our skin, facial hair, etc, are all easily recognizable, and so perfectly give away our true feelings, right?, Some are more difficult, at least at first glance. Religious and sexual preferences, political leanings or philosophies, wealth or lack of, etc., etc., even being left-handed (Latin, left = sinistra), may take an actual conversation, and have become global doom-labels. It’s not personal, it’s labeling.
Garry, I would bet you a (cheap) beer or wine that, when you were a personnel manager, you hired people, not labels.
When we grew up, a decent label maker hadn’t even been made yet, and the Magic 8-ball was becoming a popular toy. We talked to people and interacted with them. We didn’t label, we felt - friend, acquaintance, not-friend, unknown. I don’t think our life was simpler then. I think it was far more complicated. We actually had to use our senses, our heads, and our hearts to make decisions about people. I kind of liked us that way.
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