It's funny how much people are used to labeling things immediately. I've been watching a T.V. show and even then the characters label others in various ways. Even in AIS one of our teachers showed a sort of political scale, where radicals were on the far left and reactionaries on the far right.
Is it really that simple? I think it's a bit more complicated because there may be people who are very radical on only one issue and that shouldn't define that person right away. People want to have a neat little cubby to tuck everything in to. But what happens when they can't?
Humans, it seems, have always labeled, such as in the South before the Civil War when slavery was the southern way of life. There was a very clear hierarchy and for those that made money from it, that was how it was always going to be and they liked it. But, then along come the Civil War and and everyone's place in their cubbies were rearranged and thrown out.
If people didn't label the world how would things be defined, made sense of? But immediately defining people, ideas, objects really only relates its first impression, not its whole being. The world is too complex to tuck away neatly with a nice, simple label.
I agree that the human race does seem to have a bit of a labeling problem. I think one of the reasons we do this is because of our instinct to survive. It's much easier to label a guy as the enemy instead of a guy who's on the rivaling side, has three kids and a wife, lives on a vineyard, needs glasses, is a pottery collecter and enjoys to press flowers in his free time. This guy sounds like a pretty nice person until he kills us. During the Civil War the Union and the Confederates labeled each other as the enemy which made it easier to fight one another. Labeling may exist because it helps us dehumanize people and allows us to survive. Ain't that a pleasing thought?
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