In my personal observation it seems that in our culture we simultaneously embrace and reject stereotypes. It is easy to both observe and understand the rejection of labels that one self-identifying group places upon another. However, more difficult to understand – and equally harmful- are the labels people place upon themselves.
But perhaps label isn’t the right word. The word label commonly implies an identification of some intrinsic quality. If I make a jar of peach preserves, I will place a label on them to identify the content that is inside the jar. There is nothing wrong with this sort of labeling. It improves communication and provides a means of placing the object in its proper context. This allows predictability (I know how it should taste) and efficacy (I can find it if I need it).
It seems, though, that many of the people today place labels upon themselves to not identify content, but to determine content. It would be the equivalent of me going to a store, finding some jars already labeled, picking the one that looks most appealing, and letting the label already on it determine what I make to store in them. This would not only be backwards, it would most likely be inefficient, inconvenient, or downright impossible. Say, for instance, I don’t have the ingredients to make the item on the label, or perhaps the item on the label is not used in any recipe I know. Maybe I don’t even like the item on the label or I may not have any clue how to make the item on the label. A whole world of potential misfortune awaits me.
But this is how people often act with social labels. It could be anything from sports enthusiasm to nationalism to ethnic identity. But there are two types of label that seem especially egregious - or at least they’re the ones I want to complain about anyway.
I am speaking of course about religious and political identity.
As I consider this matter, I feel the ranting beast rising up within and understand that it will probably be far too much to present at once in this format. Therefore, it will be presented in two parts. This allows me to tame the frustration and present my case clearly and also allows me to interject various thoughts, opinions, or complaints as they occur, providing consistent updates to the blog without feeling obligated or pressed to complete this line of thought.
The first part will focus on religious identity. It will be posted before I consider it complete because otherwise it would never see the light of day. I will take into account all of you who must be waiting in giddy anticipation (insert sarcasm here) but I hope you will be content with whatever rubbish I throw up in the meantime.
