The Occupy Wall Street movement seems so far to have avoided being labeled, tagged or put in a corner and thus more easily dismissed. Not to be classified as liberal or conservative, right or left wing is difficult to accomplished these days. This movement focuses on the message not individuals or groups. To the question of what are their demands they say: “We are our demands. #OWS is conversation, organization, and action focused on ending the tyranny of the 1%.” When a movement is institutionalized and put in neat boxes it dies. The enemies of the movement want to focus on the messengers, praise or vilify them, and thus avoid the message.
A good example is the Jesuit Father Ignacio Ellacuria of El Salvador who in 1985 in an interview said about military training at Georgetown, a Jesuit University: “Tell the Jesuits of Georgetown that they are committing mortal sin because they are supporting the forces of death which are killing our people.” After he and other Jesuits at his university were martyred by soldiers training in the US Jesuit schools started to praise and honor him. Now Georgetown has an “Ignacio Ellacuria” chair in school of Theology and host the Ignatian Spirituality Conference. Yet Georgetown still host military training that teaches killing.
I have been called a ‘liberal’, conservative, activist, crazy, wise, reactionary and radical. There is some truth to all those tags but none of them defines me or my messages or my struggle for truth. Everyone wants to be known for whom they are, not the labels, stigmas or tags put on them. Not to label something is hard to do, but it is the true source of creativity. No labels please.
Comments
Dave Kruschke — 11 November 2011, 22:48
There is some truth to the stated downsides to “labeling.” For many years I’ve seen labels offered by people in place of actual knowledge about what was being labeled. The people that offered labels sounded smart but sometimes knew nothing about the subject they were labeling. This can be annoying.
Even the use of “Haiti, Freedom or Slavery” begs a few questions. To me the word “slavery” suggests something like people in ancient Egypt or people during the early 1800s in the US. How this truly relates to modern Haiti might benefit from some specific information. The same might be said for “Freedom” in Haiti. I’m far from understanding what “Freedom” might be like in modern Haiti.
But thanks to Aristotle, the Greek who began to develop labels for different species of creatures, we can focus much quicker on a given subject. If you hear me talking about fish, you can pretty much conclude that I’m not talking about kangaroos. Labels can help people get closer to the “same page” much quicker than not using labels (i.e. I got this creature out of the water and it seems to have two eyes and maybe something like scales – not too clear, eh?).
Of course, labels can be useful for humour as well. I remember sending a copy of a letter to a politician to a friend and this friend wrote back addressing me as “Political Dave.” - Perhaps funny but it could have been taken as me not being properly qualified to voice a political opinion.
No matter what, labels will continue on as important tools of communication…
(:commentboxchrono:)
