People love to label things.

People, cans, drinks, furniture, geological features. They all have labels, this is normal and very much practical. It helps us differentiate between many things. It helps us tell the difference between a baby and, let's say, a cupcake. It saves us from accidental cannibalism of babies. Of course, this is just an exaggeration. But none the less, it is an example.

Labels also help us organise things, perhaps you are organising your priorities. You label them ‘Important’ and ‘Unimportant’, this helps us complete tasks efficiently, or make decisions that bring out a more favourable outcome. These are the practical uses of labels.

A lot of people nowadays (on the internet at least) often say labels are ‘bad’, usually conversations about this starts like this:

‘I don’t get why people are so fixated on all these labels. Why can’t you just be like, a human? You're just making division by using all these categories. Blah blah blah, we're all special snowflakes, blah blah blah.’ (I would add more but it all is pretty much gibberish at this point.)

This is why I want to discuss here is the way we label people specifically.

Any random person would be attached with a myriad of labels, these can be about their physical traits, personality and a number of other things. These labels make up who they are. This makes sense. It helps us decide on whether someone is beneficial to us or is detrimental to us, you wouldn't trust a person who is labelled a ‘rapist’ if it is for a legitimate reason.

But there are times at which one might abuse these labels, one might use a label such as ‘Rich’ to make one feel that they are better than others or to get authority over another person that they don't deserve. At the same time, though, one could use ‘Rich’ as an insult. To dismiss their view with the sentence ‘He is rich, he can't possibly understand pain.’. Many even give people bad labels that they don't deserve.

I often see this in current day feminism and the social justice movement.

I know that not all people in these ideologies act like this, there are people willing to put aside their differences to talk honestly about certain sensitive topics. But all too often I see people who berate to anyone who DARES to have a differing opinion from a feminist or an SJW. They throw the terms ‘mysogonist’ or ‘racist’ or ‘sexist’ to absolutely anyone with a differing opinion. They do it without thinking that these terms can be ultimately life ruining, they could make someone lose their home, their job, even possibly their life. And they do it anyway over a small argument as ‘I personally do not agree.’.

I find this in pretty much any community on the internet, though, but the one with the most influence is feminism and the SJW movement. And I cannot let such behaviour slide, this toxic thinking, this intellectual dishonesty can spread, it can spread fast.

I hate this use of these very powerful words in these situations, the constant use of ‘racist’ or ‘sexist’ really does injustice to people who actually are affected by actual racism or sexism. It makes them seem ‘dramatic’. Because if EVERYTHING is racist, then nothing is. Racist would be just ‘normal’. Anything described as racist would be dismissed as just trivial. You might see a person using the term ‘racist’ as just a cool way to one up a person, a joke really, not an actual word that has a very strong meaning.

Some people would tell me that I am not being productive by whining about other people's whining. They say ‘Why don't you talk about the REAL problems?’ What they don't understand is that this whining usually covers up the real problem or actually CREATES real problems. I mean these labels have been abused so much that many people I know barely even care about actual real issues. THAT is a VERY real problem that this behaviour causes.

I know my post probably won't do much to stop this, but I hope I can enlighten some people on this topic so that they can stop people from continuing the abuse.

Comment below if you have any arguments against my views or the way I conveyed my views. I will try my best to improve the way I write because I know I am not the most articulate nor am I the most eloquent but I am trying.

On a lighter note, why not look at my blog post on Stress, it might help. Or if you want something deeper, look on my philosophical post on love why not?