09 - Labels, what are they good for?
Jock, Nerd, Muso, Asian, Curry, Left, Right, Doctor, Lawyer, Singer…
I never really liked labels.
I couldn’t put my finger on it when I was younger…but I remember feeling very uncomfortable when I was being labelled. I would rebel against them; they felt so limiting…as if you had to live up to that label and only choose that path to go along.
I keep delving into my childhood on this newsletter (how Freudian) but I have an inkling that it was probably because, somewhere in my childhood, I was labelled something that I didn’t feel like was me. Maybe it was being a smart asian…maybe it was about being short and angry…who knows? The mysteries of young Vincent’s mind.
I had this great identity crisis somewhere in Year 10 that I still cringe about - in a history class, I remember, where I essentially tried to work out whether I was Chinese or Australian in front of the whole class, peppering the teacher with questions like ‘yeah but what if I’m actually Chinese? BUT WHAT IF I’M AUSTRALIAN?’
It helped pass the time 😄
Continuing rapidly along!
Labels help us to identify groups of people, shortcutting what we think about that group, so that we can use less mental resources in finding out who a person is, what they may be like, and what they believe in. It helps to grease the wheels of conversation and connect with others.
But it can also encourage us to categorise and label others into groups that aren’t exactly who that individual is. And that can be a problem.
The nuance of what someone believes in, or what their identity is, is spectacularly difficult to understand. Even if I identified myself as Asian, am I really? What does it mean to be this label? Do you have to know the culture? Do you have to live it? What are the different levels of it? Is it enough that you were born that way?
It took me a very long time to be comfortable about myself in that way. I don’t believe I’m a stereotypical Asian-Australian…whatever that means…but that’s the point. It shouldn’t matter what other people think about you, or your labels, or your identity. If you believe it, it should be enough.
And yet…
I’m sure you see it all around you. We use labels and generalisations to build up a picture of this ‘other’ group, that must be a certain way - usually the ‘wrong’ way - and that that justifies how you look at them. There’s no reason to engage the other party, because they are definitely wrong, and you know this because you have this solid picture of the group in your mind.
This comic sums it up pretty well!
I’m just fascinated by that. How can someone, who I usually believe is just as intelligent than me (or more so), come to different views about a subject that I believe is so clear cut? Why have they labelled themselves in a particular way? How have they come to believe what they believe??
The best way that I’ve found to get around this is to ask people to be more specific when they try to label themselves, or others. What does it mean when you say you’re a feminist? What do you mean when you say you dislike religion? What does it mean when you say that protests in HK are useless? (yay for asian families and having this come up in conversation all the time yay omg it’s so good to discuss this to death yay /s)
I find that you get a much better understanding of people this way. It uncovers the views that they hold which you probably agree with somewhat, but it also allows you to identify the root difference of where your thinking has diverged, and more fruitfully discuss from a base that you both can agree on. If we just stopped at labels, we might never have had those conversations.
So anyway…bottom line of this post is - I’ll try to get to know you, rather than your labels.
Let me know how I do.
Chat soon :)
✔️ Real Life Recommendations
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Secret Kitchen Doncaster - There aren’t many consistently good Yum Cha places (both taste and cost-wise) that still exist in Melbourne, but this one is right up there! No points lost for being literally 5 minutes from my house, but they are also really good at being consistently good with their dim sum and fried foods. Some places close by me in Doncaster are good, but expensive (Plume, Golden Dragon)…so try this one out! They used to have a place in Ringwood as well which was their ‘experimental’ store - but I think it’s shut down :( Anyone have any other great Yum Cha recommendations?
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The Expanse - the TV series (linked) got me hooked into the books, which are wonderful explorations into a hard sci-fi world. I was amazed by the cinematography and special effects in the tv series, as well as the world that had been built. I voraciously devoured the first 3 books - the world-building, the plot, the tension, the characters, the dialogues - it’s reads like a thriller movie, and I love that. It’s such an easy read. There are now 8 books in the series that I’m slowly getting through - check it out!
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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The Haberman Paradox - a fascinating short read about a neighbourhood on Google Maps…that nobody knew about?! I love these little short reads where someone has gone down a rabbit-hole to try and uncover the truth behind a small corner of the world. It’s like investigative journalism, but reaaaally small.
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Phone punishment backfires - a cute piece about a mum trying to punish her daughter by giving her a shitty burner phone…which backfires tremendously:
“The burner phone’s a huge hit with my friends,” she says. “Everyone wants to see it. It’s so bad it’s, you know, good.”
She holds the phone to her ear and pretends to dial.
“Good day, fine sir!” she says in a thick British accent. “I’d like to purchase some of your finest drugs using the cool new burner phone my mother bought to teach me about responsible behaviour.”
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What the Great Hack got wrong - per my Netflix recommendation of ‘The Great Hack’ a few newsletters ago, I thought I would be remiss if I didn’t include an article that rebutted some of the key findings from the doco. Though I don’t think these are very strong arguments, it’s worth a read if you did end up watching it!