A few thoughts on labels.
First, labels are often wrong and always insufficient in describing what is.
“Mary is an engineer.” What if she quits tomorrow? Does that fundamentally change who Mary is?
“Tony is wealthy.” We see mansions, fancy cars, and lavish parties. How about his hopes, his struggles, and his love?
“Jimmy is Chinese.” What does being “Chinese” represent?
Second, labels are unimaginably powerful.
What do the atrocities in the 20th century like Auschwitz, Cambodian genocide, and Cultural Revolution have in common? Labels.
Jews. Khmers. Rebels. Intellectuals. Counter-revolutionaries.
Labels, when abused, are licenses to be desensitized, to stop understanding, and to reduce someone, including yourself, to a single phrase.
If we believe in a label, it becomes a fixed lens we use to filter the world. In many cases, facts no longer matter. Existing assumptions prevail. Disapproving information, even right in front of us, changes nothing.
As Søren Kierkegaard once said, “Once you label me you negate me.”