Catagorisation/ Labeling

Melatonin

<div class="IPBDescription">is it helpful?</div> so ive been noticing alot lately that it seems to be a natural human urge to catagorise things.
(one particular example that springs to mind is everyone around here calling each other 'left' or 'right')
if you think about the way we view the world, we tend to catagorise everything, from music genres to ethnicities.
is this habit ever good for anyone?
should we try to be more aware of things on a individual basis?

thoughts...?

p4Samwise

Categorization is helpful in allowing us to organize and remember information. In terms of political leanings, assigning someone a broad political categorization helps you predict in some cases what side of a given issue they will favor.

Categorization falls down when it causes you to make incorrect assumptions and then cling to them in spite of evidence to the contrary. This is prejudice in a nutshell - categorization gone amok.

Twex

Yes, it's good to clearly define concepts and call things by their proper name. Otherwise you are tempted to consider similar what is different and neutral what is good or evil.

Distinct things and distinct thoughts do not somehow become one if you relativise them like a sophist, and look at them "from a different perspective". That would rob words of their meaning and make our language a farce.

BathroomMonkey

I can't find the quote, but Christian apologist C.S. Lewis said something-- pertaining to Christians-- but I think it can be abstracted to pretty much any other label you can think of (<i>especially</i> political labels).

He (and I am paraphrasing <i>badly</i> here) was talking about how many people, when attacking Christians, would simply conjure a cardboard cut-out of what they considered a Christian to be, and then attack that, instead of the person before them.

In politics, if someone disagrees with your views, far too often you see cries of 'typical liberal' . . or 'typical conservative'-- they're simply offering up a rhetorical label, drawing a line between the two of you, and then assuming that you're one and the same, and can thus be easily dismissed.

Often, labels are simply baggage that you sling on someone when you want a lazy way out of a debate.