Siderea, Sibylla Bostoniensis
The next time somebody disparages "labels" and says they are unnecessary I am going to hunt them down and force them to have a discussion about small business finances with a psychotherapist who does not know, will not use, and refuses to learn any proper business, accounting, labor, or tax terminology.
Mar 9 at 11:49pmWeb
Show threadAriadne Conill 🐰Mar 9

@siderea labels are both necessary (e.g. to provide common language) but also overindexed.

i have seen too many people fall into the trap of defining their core identity through labels, then contorting their behaviors and beliefs to fit the identity they constructed for themselves with labels

Show threadAriadne Conill 🐰Mar 9
@siderea on the other hand, i suppose labels are useful for refining core identity at an earlier stage of development, but still think overuse can be detrimental.
Show threadSiderea, Sibylla BostoniensisMar 10

@ariadne So you don't like labels because you don't approve of how other people use them *on themselves*.

It's not that I even disagree with you that that can be a thing and it probably is a badness. It's that that's 1) the kind of opinion I try to remember is none of my business to have about other people unless someone is paying me to have it about them, and 2) really weird to then ascribe as a problem of the tool and not of the user.

Show threadAriadne Conill 🐰Mar 10

@siderea I wouldn't say I dislike labels because I don't approve of how people use them.

It is more that I've seen people overuse labels and then paint themselves into a corner, because people are complex and cannot be strongly reduced to a set of labels, whereas they wouldn't have done so with more "traditional" forms of self-narration (despite its' inefficiency).

And as I said in a later post, labels are still useful tools for refining core identity, because now people can map internal feelings to language. At the same time, labels still provide lossy compression, which is why over-dependence on them can lead to distortions in how one is perceived.

Show threadGraydonMar 10

@ariadne We could teach people that taxonomy is not reality.

I suspect that would be more productive, especially if we threw in some approaches for selecting which taxonomy solves the problem.

I mean, we could stop it with prescriptive norms, too, but one thing at a time.
@siderea

Show threadAriadne Conill 🐰Mar 10

@graydon @siderea i don't even think that is needed, simply that people need to understand that life has more depth than can be described by taxonomy alone.

but at the same time, labels do help people find community, which can lead to more depth.