Nuance is lost in culture of labels

Thanks to the editor for the Jan. 28 column “Labels are helpful, but not perfect.” We’ve gone way beyond the childhood chant that “names will never hurt me.” We spit out labels as insults or as substitutes for complete sentences or to avoid thinking. Bertrand Russell had it right in the ancient days of the 1970s: “What passes for knowledge in ordinary life suffers from three defects: it is cocksure, vague and self-contradictory.” Is anything more cocksure than a label?

Part of the label problem is this: it denies the variety, even the mystery of the human person. Variety being nature’s way, we ignore it at our own peril. Need proof of nature’s preference for variety? How about 350,000 species of beetles. But we don’t just hurl labels; we pat ourselves on the back post-hurling. Some say, “fascist,” then pat, pat, pat. Some say, “woke,” then pat, pat, pat. This is too much hurling and patting.

Aren’t we ingenious, though? With an alphabet of only 26 letters, we can offend each other, pledge allegiance to a tribe, pretend we are deep thinkers, bring a discussion to a screeching halt (or to blows) and consign each other to Hades or, worse, to that other political party. Think what we might achieve with the more than 50,000 characters used by Chinese.

Here’s a very local example of the labels problem: Benton County’s election for prosecuting attorney. By law, this election is nonpartisan. One candidate uses the word “nonpartisan” in campaign materials. The other candidate uses “conservative” and specifies a church affiliation. I think I know what “nonpartisan” means, but I’m not sure about “conservative.” Dwight Eisenhower conservative? Barry Goldwater? George Wallace? Nixon? Trump?

That first candidate for prosecuting attorney honors both the letter and the spirit of a nonpartisan election law. The other candidate resorts to a label and a dog-whistling label at that. The second candidate seems to have found some wiggle room, hardly a virtue for a prosecuting attorney. (Note: “Dog whistle” is defined as a “coded message communicated through words or phrases commonly understood by a particular group of people, but not by others.”)

We’re going to need a substitute if we kick the label habit. How about a new acronym, one that captures our variety and reminds us we are all in this together, an acronym that we can actually pronounce? How about CLMIIRQ+ — conservative, liberal, moderate, independent, irreligious, religious, questioning. That plus sign covers everyone else, including flat-earthers, Swifties and my great aunt Kate. Two of those last three terms are labels. See how hard this is?

SHEILA GALLAGHER

Rogers