Complex Numbers

On the Label

A Slate article from half a year ago takes on an issue I've been wondering about for a long time.

    On Both Sides of My Brain  
For years now, I’ve been puzzled—and annoyed—by the way people seem to insist on labeling what type of person one can be. I’ve finally solved my problem.

Ah, I recognize that personality type! The author must be a non-labeler!

June 25, 2024 5:40 AM

Yeah, I don't usually copy timestamps in here, but this one gave me pause. Is the writer an extreme night owl, or an extreme early bird? (Or was the article's publication time scripted? Different time zone? Who knows?)

Recently, after I did a silent retreat, I was trapped on a five-hour car journey (long story) with someone who was obsessed with labeling everything. People have “math brains” or “creative brains,” there are “boy chores” and “girl chores,” and in any relationship you will have “the person who reads the map” and “the one who is social.”

Well, there's your problem: you did a silent retreat, and then got stuck as a captive audience while someone spewed out all the words they couldn't during the retreat.

This labeling tic is all over the internet too; indeed, much of the content I see online seems premised upon the idea that everything can be better understood if we simply group it as a type.

Yes, maybe we should call that kind of person a Tag Hag.

The relief in the comments is palpable: Oh, I’m that label! Everything makes sense now.

That's kind of what's been bugging me about labeling, to be serious for a moment. I am what I am (to quote either God or Popeye), so how does putting a label on it help? Like, we all know I'm into science, pedantry, gaming, and science fiction; how does it help me or anyone else if I get put in the "nerd" box?

Usually when I find myself dealing with a “labeler” in real life, it’s because this idea of there being two types of brains has come up.

There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who think there are two types of brains, and those of us who know that's been thoroughly and completely debunked.

It’s not just attachment styles. All over those platforms, you see vlogs and infographics declaring that people can be understood best as bundles of fixed, unchanging symptoms, related to corresponding bundles of trauma, grouped neatly under buzzy labels.

This is, of course nonsense. People can be best understood by their astrological natal chart.

Yes, I'm back to making jokes. But speaking of astrology:

Then there is the enormous popularity of astrology meme accounts. I find it hard to take exception with this iteration of labeling, though, because my star sign is Aquarius, so the @costarastrology account (with its 2 million followers) always presents me with flattering personality reads that position me as a cool, aloof, intellectual sort.

That's not your star sign. It's your sun sign. Your personality is also influenced by what sign the moon was in at your birth, and which one was intersected by the eastern horizon (which is what I said above). As I'm an Aquarius sun and moon (rising sign unknown), I know that astrology is complete horseshit (but sometimes fun horseshit).

On that five-hour car journey with the labeler, though, I could not simply go outside. They were always rushing to finish my sentences too, with an ending they expected might fit with the kind of thing I had been saying. There was a manic, frantic energy to every exchange. As if something terrible might happen if I were permitted to finish a sentence by myself.

Note to self: if I ever do a silent retreat (which I won't), arrange my own damn transportation. Alone.

And speaking about it, I should admit, to my psychoanalyst a few days later helped me clarify my thoughts further. (That’s right, my psychoanalyst. This essay was not eccentric and unhinged enough already.)

Right, because everyone who sees a shrink is eccentric and unhinged? Come on, lady, if you're going to rage against labels, at least stop enhancing the stigma surrounding mental health issues.

But in the wake of the silent retreat, everything seemed bathed in a rosy glow of calmness and goodwill. My thoughts were infused with peace and love and so forth. So, after my frustration had exhausted itself (and, mind you, that did still take a while), I had a sort of epiphany. After all, wasn’t there some of the labeler in me? Even by calling this person a labeler, I was assigning them a type.

I can almost forgive the dig on psychotherapy after seeing this level of self-awareness. Almost. Not quite.

There is, of course, more to the article, including another epiphany about some people needing to maintain control over social situations, or something. I don't know; I'm not sure if that revelation makes things better or worse. Just like with labels. So, I leave the article, my own curiosity unresolved, more confused than ever.

Maybe I should see a shrink.