Labels

Well, they might serve as valid criticisms, at least if their meanings hadn't broadened to the point where they've become ambiguous, but I get the impression that a lot of people have difficulty applying them without completely dismissing the person they're applying them to.

Well, it can happen to any label, really. "I am a nihilist." "I am a goth." etc. etc.

That's why I see them as problematic. If you say, "I am a nihilist", you might mean "I believe that there is no objective meaning to life" or "I believe that there is no objective morality", but what you convey might instead be "I am a depressing git who has seen Fight Club far too many times and thinks it's cool to be bleak and confrontational".

But at the same time, they are very convenient. It means that one can more or less use one or two words to define what might else be seen as a rather long and annoying process.

That's why they are here. They are very convenient. The question is, does the stigma and problems outweigh the convenience?

But if you may be understood as meaning something distinct from what you intend the labels to mean, that's not convenient, it's misleading, and you still end up having to define your terms more precisely.

Oh, but they do refer to those things. That's what the words mean nowadays. Chav = working class British person only it's a bad thing. And hipster, as far as I can tell, currently means being a Westerner. It's only a matter of time before it is extended to the entire human species.

Thank god. I do hate these particular labels myself.

Chav in particular is classist, but attempt to tell an otherwise reasonable University student that and most of the time they start frothing at the mouth and spewing Daily Mail articles at you. Or it's "don't be so serious about everything", the classic retort of the casual bigot. I'm breaking my own rules on labels here, but to be honest I was...not playing Devil's Advocate exactly, but exploring the argument rather than elucidating a previously held position.

As for nihilist, it was derided as meaningless even as people first began to claim the word for their beliefs. In Russia, according to Dostoevsky, young people would call themselves nihilists by virtue of having a blue ribbon in their hair - so similar to silly fads today!

All the nihilists I've met mean not 'nihilist' but 'determinist'. One of them had arrived at almost all of Sartre's conclusions about existence on her own, but still described herself as nihilist. I suppose this is the limit of labels. I also suppose that true nihilists wouldn't be bothered by the idea of their label being as good as meaningless.

That's why I see them as problematic. If you say, "I am a nihilist", you might mean "I believe that there is no objective meaning to life" or "I believe that there is no objective morality", but what you convey might instead be "I am a depressing git who has seen Fight Club far too many times and thinks it's cool to be bleak and confrontational".

Ironically - or perhaps appropriately - it was Fight Club that convinced me that my teenage pre-occupation with violence and irrational impulsive behaviour as signifiers of an 'edgy' reductionist determinism was childish in the extreme.

edited 31st Jan '11 10:05:01 AM by mmysqueeant