# Labelling the Self



## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Can you be black without black ancestry? Can you be gay without homosexual desire? Can you be a thief without stealing?

What gives these labels meaning, if they don't mean what they say?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

*Can you be black without black ancestry? Can you be gay without homosexual desire? Can you be a thief without stealing?*

I wouldn't have thought so, though one could use such a label as a metaphor; also, sometimes people fall in love with a culture or a cause that isn't their own. Thus, Maud Gonne was English.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

Well it was either him or _Wayne's World_ wot said it.


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## Guest (Jun 17, 2015)

brotagonist said:


> Can you be black without black ancestry? Can you be gay without homosexual desire? Can you be a thief without stealing?
> 
> What gives these labels meaning, if they don't mean what they say?


Is this prompted by a current news story re being black?

The label is only authentic when it concurs with actuality. A thief steals. If one does not steal one is not a thief.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

dogen said:


> Is this prompted by a current news story re being black?
> 
> The label is only authentic when it concurs with actuality. A thief steals. If one does not steal one is not a thief.


The concurred with 'actuality' may be arbitrary or even fleeting. Several times in the course of an average week I label myself. Very seldom is it a compliment.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Ukko said:


> The concurred with 'actuality' may be arbitrary or even fleeting. Several times in the course of an average week I label myself. *Very seldom is it a compliment.*


I can relate this this! The Mark Twain of our forum has spoken truly.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

I mean, I "identify" as straight so my family doesn't judge me, but I'm gay.

But in all serious, no.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Took the words out of my mouth.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

brotagonist said:


> Can you be black without black ancestry? Can you be gay without homosexual desire? Can you be a thief without stealing?
> 
> What gives these labels meaning, if they don't mean what they say?


This very much reminds me of the entry on Confucius, in the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy.

_When asked by a ruler of the large state of Qi, Lu's neighbor on the Shandong peninsula, about the principles of good government, Confucius is reported to have replied: "Good government consists in the ruler being a ruler, the minister being a minister, the father being a father, and the son being a son" (Lunyu 12.11). I should claim for myself only a title that is legitimately mine and when I possess such a title and participate in the various hierarchical relationships signified by that title, then I should live up to the meaning of the title that I claim for myself. Confucius' analysis of the lack of connection between actualities and their names and the need to correct such circumstances is often referred to as Confucius' theory of *zhengming*. _

_Xunzi composed an entire essay entitled *Zhengming*. But for Xunzi the term referred to the proper use of language and how one should go about inventing new terms that were suitable to the age. For Confucius, *zhengming* does not seem to refer to the 'rectification of names' (this is the way the term is most often translated by scholars of the Analects), but instead to rectifying the behavior of people and the social reality so that they correspond to the language with which people identify themselves and describe their roles in society._


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

brotagonist said:


> Can you be black without black ancestry? Can you be gay without homosexual desire? Can you be a thief without stealing?
> 
> What gives these labels meaning, if they don't mean what they say?


Can you love classical music without listening to any classical music?


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

ArtMusic said:


> Can you love classical music without listening to any classical music?


Yep, assuming that you are referring to the process over time - but non-current.

Examples to help remove the fog from the above statement:
1) I love my immediate family, though they are all dead and gone.
2) I have loved classical music for over half a century. If I had gone deaf last month, I would still love it today.

It is probably _possible_ for some folks to love the _idea_ of classical music - maybe because they have read descriptions of it - without having listened to any. Sort of like reading about an attractive utopian society.
[Disclaimer:_ I_ have never read about a utopian society that real people fit into comfortably.]

Thanks, _AM_. I don't know your intent here, but you gave me something to think about this morning. (Instead of doing housework.)


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Like many, I am afraid of labels, because I love Truth, and we can never reach the blazing Truth of labels in actual life. Or at least, our Truth is wanting when compared to the label.

But that leaves me forever outside of labels, forever yearning and striving, forever found wanting - as a lover of Truth, forever outside of Truth.

Language is cruel, isn't it? But at least we have the senses. When I sense something, I _am_ the sense, not a pitiful approximant of the sense. And we have the totally dependable index finger, to raise it before our mouths when we whisper: _Sssshhhhh....._ It is like Wagner said at old age: there may be salvation, by witnessing and being silent.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Nationality is definitely a label that is used with much discrepancy today. In America, the moment you become citizen, you are American. You could be called Irish American, African American, Hispanic American, etc. but you're still an American.

In Finland, you are Finnish, or you are not. There are no "French Finns." You are forever labelled by your ethnic ancestry. You are just a French person living in Finland. You will never be able to claim being a Finn, even if you go through the onerous process of becoming a citizen, and doing your loyal duties to Finland including military training for men. For most places in the world, you can only be a member of a country's label of nationality if you are ethnically related to that country. I can be French citizen but I'll never be "French." You are forever immigrant, or ex-patriot. But I am American though. That's what makes being labelled American so unusual in the world today compared to other nationalities.

Can you call yourself "American" _without _living for a significant amount of time in the US, becoming citizen, learning English, and being a tax-paying member of the work force? If you can't, then I doubt all the more you could be called ethnically from another country either for the same reasons.


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