Large Fierce Mammal

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, Caspar David Friedrich, 1818

The fundamental flaw inherent in the clamorously contentious phenomenon of identity politics is that the ticket to entry to the Promised Land of its adherents is a label, proudly applied to the self and demanded of others. You may note that this looks a lot like forced conversion as historically practiced by the Catholic Church and Communist dictatorships to name but two of the better known players, but it’s a repeating theme through human history, played on an endless loop by tyrants, petty and otherwise.

Refusal to play the game and accept such a thing is itself a label of the most damning and indelible sort as far as the zealous faithful are concerned, and I have previously gone on record here in the matter of the folly of this practice —

“Written words are visual guides to the making of sounds that, when uttered aloud, convey meaning. An example is the word ‘label’.

“A label can be a physical object that, when applied to another object, conveys important information about it. What it is, who made it, what it’s made of, how to use it, how long it may be kept, and the best means of storage before use or consumption. Things like that. These sorts of labels abound in today’s world and are vital to navigating the perils and pitfalls of acquiring and using the commodities we take for granted to feed ourselves and our families, clean our homes, ourselves, and possessions, and maintain our surroundings. To wipe our bums and blow our noses. Cure a headache.

“And then there’s the other kind of label. This kind also abounds in today’s world, but less as a means of conveying important information than as a short cut around understanding. Understanding requires a desire for knowledge, and a willingness to be observant. To study, think, and draw conclusions. Unlike labels of any description, these attributes are not common in the world. If this type of label is applied to a controversial thing – a firearm for example – or worse yet, a person, the label alone comes to replace the true substance of that to which it’s applied. That’s how we get terms like ‘gun violence’ for example, flying in the face of the fact that violence doesn’t come in flavours, and notwithstanding the implement that is used to bring it about, there is only violence, and it springs exclusively from the mind of its perpetrator

“Similarly, there is no ‘gay love’ or ‘straight love’, there is only love. There is no ‘gay marriage’ or ‘mixed marriage’, there is only marriage. There are no ‘women’s rights’ or ‘gay rights’, there are only rights. In not one of these examples is there justification for tagging violence, love, marriage, or rights with a qualifying label branding it as something different from every other expression of it. The term ‘racial hatred’ doesn’t define a special brand of hatred. There is only hatred, and ‘racial’ is the excuse for its existence – a label. The same goes for ‘religious intolerance’.” ~ Worldly Wisdom Wednesday – Beware of Labels

It’s quite rightly said that the best way to find out how much you know about a subject is to set about teaching it to someone else, and the Truth of this is lost to those for whom the objective is to “teach someone a lesson”. To settle scores. Get even. Simply to win in a misbegotten screaming match rigged to make sure everyone loses, whether or not they’re willingly, or even knowingly, involved in the contest.

Death by a thousand selectively collected and sloppily presented narrative du jour serving statistics to “settle the science” that by definition can never be settled even if there was such a thing as “the science” any more than someone can catch “the cancer” or lose their mind to “the old-timers“.

Think on this, if you haven’t lost the will.

And as you embark, here’s Thomas King with a special request …