Complexity is a constant, compulsory concept. In order to grapple with the limitless intricacies that life offers, humans utilize a coping mechanism, an adaptation that we innately apply to manage the trials. Human beings strive for simplicity. We subconsciously attempt to squeeze unfamiliar people, ideas, and objects into our pre-existing schemas.
Despite novelty and unfamiliarity, our subliminal goal is to streamline the number of categories in our minds. We elbow these new people, ideas, and objects into whichever pre-existing category we can, shoving them like Lego pieces into pinholes, expecting them to fit.
The desire for simplicity and schemas leads to the desire to label.
We LOVE labeling: categorizing people, places, and things into binaries. Smart, dumb. Strong, weak. Black, white. Gay, straight. Rich, poor. Pretty, ugly. Man, woman. Advanced, basic. This action of labeling satiates our brain, nourishing our stream of conscious with a light workload and a sense of clarity. The brain gets high off of these identifiable labels.
The process of labeling and categorizing imitates the effects of a drug, forming permanent impacts on neurotransmission and brain classification.
Yet, the action of labeling emulates the idea of linguistic determinism, whereby language reins the way we perceive the world. Labels flatten each human being into a one-dimensional mechanism. Labels strip a person of quirks, talents, fluidity, emotion, viewpoints, idiosyncrasies...humanity. The person thins into that lone, defining label, incapable of expressing intricacies. Labels force people into compressed cardboard boxes that cannot bend into any alternative shape, nor transform into any other material.
Labels restrict, imprison, and confine complexity down to a singular, simple term.
But life - a rich, complex and intricate existence - cannot be flattened into a singular label. Every convolution is far too fluid. A predetermined label cannot capture these complexities. In fact, it is an assault on the superb diversity of life to attempt to simplify it.
Labeling, although an innate response to combat confusing complexities, has influenced our society, breeding some of the gravest issues and controversies and polarizing people and their ideas.
We label based on sex: man, woman. Man = superior, women = subordinate. Roles, stereotypes, limitations transpire with these labels. Gender binaries are the very basis of domestic violence, rape, wage discrepancy, downward mobility… the list is inexhaustible.
We label countries based on their advancements: “third world country” = poor, dangerous, corrupt, antiquated. Clearly, this label that superficially defines a developing nation, confines peoples’ beliefs into a limited perspective that steers them into considering the human beings living in these areas as defective and lesser.
We label based on body shape: fat, thin. Fat = bad, thin = good. This results in the unattainable beauty standards that endorse eating disorders, obesity, mental health issues.
The list of binary labels provides us with a false sense of familiarity as if a singular word or phrase can adequately depict the object or person as a whole. Each complexity that life provides us with: humans, things, places, is not a package of Pillsbury cookie dough. It is not the identical shape, width, and consistency as every other cookie.
These complexities are not pre-cut, nor ready to bake.
By assuming they are, by labeling them, by baking them in our own brains, we are drastically oversimplifying and stripping away the nuances and unique qualities that enrich human existence. We are striving for a simplicity that would actually be dystopian.
Let us embrace the complexities and ambiguities that life presents. Let us strive to gain further knowledge and understanding, rather than oversimplifying, labeling, compartmentalizing. Let us appreciate each and every ingredient in miscellaneous recipes of homemade chocolate chip cookies, rather than baking the pre-packaged store-bought competitors. People, places, and things, are far too sophisticated to settle for a single label.
