Re-naming a valuable skill

The re-naming debate is interesting, and wherever you stand on the issue, I’d just like to note that re-naming is an important skill. We need to get better at it.

First, we now have more humans doing more research than ever before. That means that our understanding of the world is changing more rapidly than ever before. When we discover the beliefs we inherited are false, it’s critical that we adapt.

Unfortunately, that’s hard. It’s a lot easier to just do what we’ve always done. It’s a lot easier to mock, insult and degrade the humans that request a re-naming. It takes courage and humility to consider new points of view and accept them as a truer version of reality than what we believed before. Courage and humility are hard to find sometimes.

Second, a number of writers noted that it is difficult to decide where to draw the line. Fortunately line drawing exercises are a manageable challenge. It is absolutely possible to draw new lines that reflect a more accurate version of reality. We just need to learn how to do it.

As we continue to debate when and where re-naming is appropriate, please consider that the ability to re-name is directly connected to our shared resilience. Re-naming is directly connected to our ability to understand and experience the world as it is. In general, it’s a valuable skill that we should hone and improve over time.

Randy Campbell, Charlottetown