Labels are someone's perception of an individual or group based on social status, educational level, race, age, gender or looks. Labels can be put on a person in the few brief seconds in which we see, hear and observe them for the first time, they can occur because of an event that happens after you know them, or even because of a trait that becomes apparent some time into a relationship.
Some people are happy to conform to the labels that society gives them, whereas others work hard to escape them and become unique, which in itself is conforming to stereotypes. Can we ever be free from stereotyping and labelling people? Would it be beneficial? Labels will affect the person they are attached to in various ways, from conforming to it to rebelling from it. Now imagine the typical teen stereotype. Most that I know are vastly different – but if the media keeps portraying the younger generations as foolish, troublemaking, violent... then how do they expect them to grow up with a true sense of decency and fairness? Luckily most people choose to ignore the stereotype and not let it affect them, but even if these stereotypes exist, should they be incorporated into the mainstream media, and can they ever be useful? They provide a method of which to quickly asses someone. Often however that's not an accurate method, and there are always those that match a stereotype only in appearance, but in terms of character are vastly different – so then are labels purely a hindrance? Should we avoid them? Well even if they are only bad news for social interaction, I don’t think people will ever stop judging.
How much of our judgemental nature is based off what we have been taught, and how much is instinctive? Certainly clothing and appearance style judgements are mostly culture based – what means one thing in one culture could mean something completely different in another. So would children who have yet to learn social complexities still judge people? If they did, they would not in the same way as others. It is likely their only judgements would be comparing people to others they already know, and so use more rational criteria then more developed individuals. From a young age however children learn to label people, and from then on it becomes a process so quick, many people make snap judgements about another person before they can even open their mouths to say hello.
RB
Some people are happy to conform to the labels that society gives them, whereas others work hard to escape them and become unique, which in itself is conforming to stereotypes. Can we ever be free from stereotyping and labelling people? Would it be beneficial? Labels will affect the person they are attached to in various ways, from conforming to it to rebelling from it. Now imagine the typical teen stereotype. Most that I know are vastly different – but if the media keeps portraying the younger generations as foolish, troublemaking, violent... then how do they expect them to grow up with a true sense of decency and fairness? Luckily most people choose to ignore the stereotype and not let it affect them, but even if these stereotypes exist, should they be incorporated into the mainstream media, and can they ever be useful? They provide a method of which to quickly asses someone. Often however that's not an accurate method, and there are always those that match a stereotype only in appearance, but in terms of character are vastly different – so then are labels purely a hindrance? Should we avoid them? Well even if they are only bad news for social interaction, I don’t think people will ever stop judging.
How much of our judgemental nature is based off what we have been taught, and how much is instinctive? Certainly clothing and appearance style judgements are mostly culture based – what means one thing in one culture could mean something completely different in another. So would children who have yet to learn social complexities still judge people? If they did, they would not in the same way as others. It is likely their only judgements would be comparing people to others they already know, and so use more rational criteria then more developed individuals. From a young age however children learn to label people, and from then on it becomes a process so quick, many people make snap judgements about another person before they can even open their mouths to say hello.
RB
All words are a label: the signifier for the signified... 'Table'. What aspects of 'table'/ the 'table'/ a 'table' are signified / stereotyped? DA
ReplyDeleteDo labels give us certainty? Are they ever reassuring? I cannot think without the language of labels and I cannot act with thought. I either conform to a type given by another or one I have created myself. And since I cannot think without language this creation can never be original. I can function only by using what has been instilled in me and what I have consciously/unconsciously conformed to. We are all constrained by a language-thought-action cycle.
ReplyDeleteFM
When is a label no longer a label? When does it become a prejudice? Or a label that doesn't conform with society? Or it doesn't conform to the law? Labels can no longer be labels but can be opinion of an individual or society. When does it get to far? And who will speak out, if anyone does? Will they be then not conforming to an action of labeling that was once it's self not conforming? As Howard Becker wrote in 'Outsiders' his book on the labeling theory 'social groups create deviance by making rules whose infraction creates deviance, and by applying those roles to particular people and labeling them as outsiders. From this point of view, deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by other of rules and sanctions to an 'offender.' The deviant is one to whom that label has been successfully applied; deviant behavior is behavior that people so label." HD
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