LABELS - The Thread!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I know I'm me and not my gender (which is, ftr, not "woman" anyway because that word's not complex enough),

You'll have to bear with an old fart, here.  I'm still a little at sea on this whole thing.   

[The Good Reverend Roger]

We desperately need a thread split, but I can't figure out where.

Garbo, what post # should be the first one to be split?  We WERE talking about labels, but we're WAY off target now.

Split it at my "this bar is full of people who bring out the inner scared monkey"?

Post number, please?  I'm gonna do it when I get back to the house.  I'm just about to leave the office.

[Freeky]

Regarding garbo's first point in reply #149:

Oh holy shit.  That needs a thread all on it's own.

Even decent human beings buy the whole "You're a woman, and I don't understand why you're being so emotional, ergo you are overreacting."

Everybody does it and it is always bullshit. Everybody, even ourselves, which feeds into doubting our perceptions, and gives credence to victim blaming, and arrgh arrgh arrgh arrgh arrgh.

Also, Torch doesn't afraid to beat the shit out of people.

Yeah, but the wrong people.

And here's the thing:  Nobody has to be an asshole, but everyone should be CAPABLE of being an asshole if circumstances demand it.  I don't mean violence, necessarily, but the ability to break out of the "ladylike behavior" bullshit.  Or the "good citizen" bullshit.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating...Being a good citizen only works if you live in a good society.  We don't.

True enough I guess.

[Juana]

#78/http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php/topic,33039.msg1199856.html#msg1199856

I know I'm me and not my gender (which is, ftr, not "woman" anyway because that word's not complex enough),

You'll have to bear with an old fart, here.  I'm still a little at sea on this whole thing.   

No worries. Not directed at you anyway, lol.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Regarding garbo's first point in reply #149:

Oh holy shit.  That needs a thread all on it's own.

Even decent human beings buy the whole "You're a woman, and I don't understand why you're being so emotional, ergo you are overreacting."

Everybody does it and it is always bullshit. Everybody, even ourselves, which feeds into doubting our perceptions, and gives credence to victim blaming, and arrgh arrgh arrgh arrgh arrgh.

Also, Torch doesn't afraid to beat the shit out of people.

Yeah, but the wrong people.

And here's the thing:  Nobody has to be an asshole, but everyone should be CAPABLE of being an asshole if circumstances demand it.  I don't mean violence, necessarily, but the ability to break out of the "ladylike behavior" bullshit.  Or the "good citizen" bullshit.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating...Being a good citizen only works if you live in a good society.  We don't.

True enough I guess.

Believe it or not, I prefer being nice.

I just can't do it with everybody. 

[Juana]

Regarding garbo's first point in reply #149:

Oh holy shit.  That needs a thread all on it's own.

Even decent human beings buy the whole "You're a woman, and I don't understand why you're being so emotional, ergo you are overreacting."

Everybody does it and it is always bullshit. Everybody, even ourselves, which feeds into doubting our perceptions, and gives credence to victim blaming, and arrgh arrgh arrgh arrgh arrgh.

Also, Torch doesn't afraid to beat the shit out of people.

Then start one.

[Juana]

The problem with labels is they aren't, and can't be, all encompassing.  They ignore tons of bars in our cell.  That's different than, say, descriptors, where you can prioritize bars for another person, you can say those are bars that are REALLY important to you, but it is acknowledged that there are still many other bars that inform the makeup of the individual. 


There are all kinds of descriptors for me.  The Husband.  The Preventionist, The Straight Male, but no single one of those labels defines, or comes close to defining me, the entire person.


That's why labels are useless and pointless.

I think we're on different pages here, a little bit. I'm using labels the same way you're using the word "descriptors" (I'm the Eldest Daughter, Older Sister, Feminist, People-Positive, etc.). Labels are not intended to define ALL of you, at least the way I'm using them. Maybe facets of you, your bars, or whatever, but not the whole shebang.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

The problem with labels is they aren't, and can't be, all encompassing.  They ignore tons of bars in our cell.  That's different than, say, descriptors, where you can prioritize bars for another person, you can say those are bars that are REALLY important to you, but it is acknowledged that there are still many other bars that inform the makeup of the individual. 


There are all kinds of descriptors for me.  The Husband.  The Preventionist, The Straight Male, but no single one of those labels defines, or comes close to defining me, the entire person.


That's why labels are useless and pointless.

I think we're on different pages here, a little bit. I'm using labels the same way you're using the word "descriptors" (I'm the Eldest Daughter, Older Sister, Feminist, People-Positive, etc.). Labels are not intended to define ALL of you, at least the way I'm using them. Maybe facets of you, your bars, or whatever, but not the whole shebang.

Thus the difference between selecting descriptors for yourself and being labeled in a category with others.
"I describe myself as ..."
vs.
"He is a ... "
or
"You are a ... and therefore..."

[Juana]

I ignore them, for the most part. I don't need "lapsed Jesuit straight CIS caucasian former drug addict professional artist felon american right-handed blah blah blah" when "Joe" will do.

I also see that most of us here who could be considered "CIS" don't LIKE "CIS". So what happened to self-determination? When I use a term, I use the ones people generally WANT to be called. Labels that people don't want to be called are known as "slurs". If a label's going to get hung on ME from somewhere else, of COURSE I'm going to swat it off.

Those labels tell Joe's story. Maybe I'm alone in this, but I like knowing people's stories.

I'd rather hear stories from people, not labels. Labels don't tell me what I need to know, anyway, I have to get that from observation. "Professional artist" could mean anything from "creative/successful", to "creative/underappreciated" to "bum". "Felon" only tells me he got popped for who knows what, maybe decades ago. It doesn't tell me what he's like now. Etc.

Saying people are "CIS" has already resulted in the CIS tears debacle and gotten Roger shoved in a box with some fat politician's kid whose darkest hour was probably the time he ended up screaming at the housekeeper for arranging his sock drawer wrong. It's retarded.

Cis doesn't lock you into anything, precisely. What you do with you, or what "woman" means to you, or whatever, is still what you determine. If you don't like cis, well, *shrug* I'm going to find another word that means "born into a female body, identifies as a woman" because that's, so far as I know, what your story is. Mostly because I'm not and I need a word that describes people who are. Which I realize and respect that you don't like it, but I need to be able to explain how I'm different and that requires that I understand and can describe how most other people are.

I'm not sure how putting labels on other people helps with your identity. Self-determination.

Am I making sense here? Like, I'm not using the word to box you in (you're still Stella, lady who lives in a town populated by 'you werkin'?' robots) but I need to be able to describe how I, and other people, are different than the dominant set of gender identities, which you, so far as I know identify with, in order to explain myself to myself.

"Now the Star-Bellied Sneeches had bellies with stars,
But the Plain-Bellied Sneeches had none upon thars..."

And then a guy came to town with machines to attach and remove labels until nobody knew who was who, just that they were all broke as fuck.

I'm no stranger to identity issues - I was adopted, remember? My lifetime up through my early adulthood was spent wondering who the fuck I was. But labels don't fix that.

You're not your family.

You're not a label.

You're not a sex, or a gender, or a sex or gender with qualifiers.

I didn't have a word for what my gender is and it wasn't something I could ignore, because I kept catching on it any time someone referred to me in the third person, and like I said, I found not having a name for the weirdly shaped thing that kept poking me in the face unsettling (you should know your BiP inside and out, yes? - I like having words that describe the shape of the bar "this word looks like that bar, this one doesn't have a name but that's okay, this one also doesn't have a name but I want to name it", etc.).

In order to figure out a word for the stupid bar, I had to learn what the bars on other people's cages looked like, get a feel for the experiences that come along with it, etc. Because there are, I would argue, categories of bars, of which we all have some - even if you're gonna dump all the bars that come with gender and sexuality in our society (which should be interesting to observe, because reshaping the BiP reshapes the experience, yes? Are you dumping the descriptor/label of those bars or are you actually hauling them out? how are you going to do the latter? is that a void or new vista?), there's still a slot where they used to go, or would go if you ever had any of a specific set of them and not everyone does). Which meant I needed to have words to sticky-note on those other people's bars to for my own reference ("Okay, I keep catching on feminine pronouns, and I've noticed my nature shifting along the Western masculine-feminine spectrum a lot, which means that bar is not a woman's bar. Where do I go from here?").
This process didn't pin down for me what it meant for other people to be whatever gender they are, because those bars are criss-crossed with all sorts of other things (culture, race, sex, general tendency to say I DO WHAT I WANT, etc.) but gave me a way to quantify what one bar in my BiP looks like and why it kept poking me in the face.

Does my explanation make any sense to you now, Stellz?


Hmm, I'm somehow suspecting this is going to lead to a "what is gender?" discussion.


I'll come back tomorrow to keep catching up.

The problem with labels is they aren't, and can't be, all encompassing.  They ignore tons of bars in our cell.  That's different than, say, descriptors, where you can prioritize bars for another person, you can say those are bars that are REALLY important to you, but it is acknowledged that there are still many other bars that inform the makeup of the individual. 


There are all kinds of descriptors for me.  The Husband.  The Preventionist, The Straight Male, but no single one of those labels defines, or comes close to defining me, the entire person.


That's why labels are useless and pointless.

I think we're on different pages here, a little bit. I'm using labels the same way you're using the word "descriptors" (I'm the Eldest Daughter, Older Sister, Feminist, People-Positive, etc.). Labels are not intended to define ALL of you, at least the way I'm using them. Maybe facets of you, your bars, or whatever, but not the whole shebang.

Thus the difference between selecting descriptors for yourself and being labeled in a category with others.
"I describe myself as ..."
vs.
"He is a ... "
or
"You are a ... and therefore..."

I feel like it's an issue of semantics. Are you gonna say, "I describe myself as a man/heterosexual/whatever" or "I'm a man/heterosexual/whatever"? Because I'm saying the latter (in situations where's it's relevant because broadcasting "I'm x" ALL THE TIME, ON EVERY CHANNEL is a uniform), but each of these words still doesn't describe all of me. They're not supposed to.

[AFK]

Pardon my brashness but I think this whole fucking discussion is a big ball of semantics.  I mean, what's the point?  Labels feel, to me, very arbitrary.  I mean, the PD tells us, using gender as a specific example, it's all just arbitrary.  Fuck labels.  I'm me. 


I'm not an X.
I'm not a Y.
I'm not a Z.


I'm a bunch of things we can talk about over a cup of joe, or over the course of a one week conference.


Maybe I'm just dense, but I just don't get it.

[East Coast Hustle]

I think rather than stating it as an affirmation, you could state it as a question:

"Can one make use of labels/titles without becoming them?"

Making a reference to your current project as an example, I dont label myself a discordian; "im" not a discordian, i have use for discordian thought, i emphatize with the metaphor of discordia, but "im not a".

Why? Because just as in any group or within any label, there are the "crazies", nutjobs that i dont want to be identified with, Uncle BadTouch the pedophile (or was it Clockwerk? im not sure), or some guy that murdered a person for fame discussed recently that used to post here.

I enjoy hanging out with "goths" and they are what i might consider my "brethren" or whatever, but IM NOT a goth, because in any group there are "crazies", etc.

I am male, I am heterosexual, I am tall, but if someone asks me "What am i?" am i gonna say "Well, gee, Im tall"? What the fuck would that even mean?

Ideas and representations are things that i think and i can emphatize with (or be opposed) but they are not the same thing as "being".

Im nothing, im everything - when someone categorizes there is intent that is socio-politically charged.

Also, by fact and nomenclature, "I am" Mexican, but by fuck do i identify as one.

"16 de septiembre" is coming up when everyone celebrates their "Mexicanity"... yes, let us all REJOICE in being citizens in a nation full of corruption.

Also, im a man, as in, i have a dick, but whats the point of stating it unless someone is interested in sexy times with me? There is no point, other than if i engage in a conversation, devalue my argument with something among the lines "you just say that because privilege", a crude attribution of cause, when a female could very well be making the same argument and be attributed to "omg brainwash"; but if we know if they are female or male, it gives us a nice representation and data point to work around with, frame the debate, assume groupality allegiances, which ultimately sums up to not listening.

JohNyx wins the thread.

[East Coast Hustle]

I think rather than stating it as an affirmation, you could state it as a question:

"Can one make use of labels/titles without becoming them?"

Making a reference to your current project as an example, I dont label myself a discordian; "im" not a discordian, i have use for discordian thought, i emphatize with the metaphor of discordia, but "im not a".

Why? Because just as in any group or within any label, there are the "crazies", nutjobs that i dont want to be identified with, Uncle BadTouch the pedophile (or was it Clockwerk? im not sure), or some guy that murdered a person for fame discussed recently that used to post here.

I enjoy hanging out with "goths" and they are what i might consider my "brethren" or whatever, but IM NOT a goth, because in any group there are "crazies", etc.

I am male, I am heterosexual, I am tall, but if someone asks me "What am i?" am i gonna say "Well, gee, Im tall"? What the fuck would that even mean?

Ideas and representations are things that i think and i can emphatize with (or be opposed) but they are not the same thing as "being".

Im nothing, im everything - when someone categorizes there is intent that is socio-politically charged.

Well put. However for me it is an affirmation. I do believe it one can use labels without becoming the label.

It seems odd to not identify with a group because of nut jobs. It's not like any (sane) person hates on Richard Dawkins because of Mao Tse Tung (though of course this could just be because theres much better reasons to hate on Dawkins).

Actually speaking of Dawkins, the Brights movement is a good example of a lable used to compress a complex set of ideas into something thats simple enough to spread.

It's also a perfect example of the trap of labels. The Brights may have all the "right" values, but the very name of the group is so fucking arrogant and off-putting that it makes me want to smear poop all over their bedsheets just for having the temerity to call themselves that. And I'm the very pinnacle of logic and reason. There are no shortage of monkeys who would find it just as insulting as I do and wouldn't hesitate to actively oppose those values just to spite some effete leftist asshole.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I was wondering how long you could restrain your bile gland, ECH.   

[East Coast Hustle]

Wow. This was a spectacularly shitty way to prove a point. Bad, bad example. Sorry Roger. D:

But anyway, women spend their entire lives trying to stay safe (go find Pixie's comment string in OH NOEZ on the subject, since I have effectively proven myself to be neurotic). We're socialized to deal with Schrodinger's rapist (we have no idea who is and who is not, but we have to prevent him from doing it anyway).
That's not something men have to live with. You can empathize, but you don't actually live with a perpetual, low-level fear of rape.

You might or might not have thought of this by this point, since I'm obviously just catching up on this thread, but you're implying that perpetual fear of rape is somehow different than perpetual fear of any number of other horrifying things. You don't have to be a woman and have had the specific fear of rape to understand EXACTLY how it feels to be constantly fearful.

[Signora Pæsior]

Wow. This was a spectacularly shitty way to prove a point. Bad, bad example. Sorry Roger. D:

But anyway, women spend their entire lives trying to stay safe (go find Pixie's comment string in OH NOEZ on the subject, since I have effectively proven myself to be neurotic). We're socialized to deal with Schrodinger's rapist (we have no idea who is and who is not, but we have to prevent him from doing it anyway).
That's not something men have to live with. You can empathize, but you don't actually live with a perpetual, low-level fear of rape.

You might or might not have thought of this by this point, since I'm obviously just catching up on this thread, but you're implying that perpetual fear of rape is somehow different than perpetual fear of any number of other horrifying things. You don't have to be a woman and have had the specific fear of rape to understand EXACTLY how it feels to be constantly fearful.

But are there things -- and I'm not being facetious, I'm generally unsure -- that men generally have to fear that women generally don't have to fear? And I am speaking in general, all-other-things-being-equal terms.

Men can absolutely understand how it feels to be constantly fearful, I'm not arguing that point at all. I'm just wondering whether or not women in a particular socio-economic group are constantly fearful of everything men are in that same socio-economic group, with the added fear of the possibility of being raped.