Labels

December 27, 2008



This is me getting dragged, kicking and screaming into the age of technology! I hardly know how to spell Blog, let alone create one, but I am inspired by several different sources to record my semi-regular, or is that irregular, thoughts and notions. As many people have pointed out, I rarely lack for an opinion, just for an audience that wants to hear it. I can't give you the benefit of a definite focus for this effort but as the title, Mind Gass would suggest, I expect it will be somewhat irreverent, occasionally unexpected, possibly a relief and rarely politically correct.



The idea of "Labels" has been floating around in my mind for the past few days and some of our assumptions surrounding labels, frankly scare me. At this moment in time, I can be labelled a blogger and if this is the last thing you read from me, then the label sticks forever. It means that I can never become anything else. The same holds true for many public figures especially politicians who are almost always labelled Conservative, Democratic, Socialist, Liberal and all those other capitalized words. They usually do this by choice but then paint themselves into a corner as a result. The public, influenced by a too-powerful media, can't accept them as anything other than what the one word label implies. The "conservative" politician who eschews socialized medicine or embraces environmental causes, is an aberration that we attribute to some sort of sleazy, slight of hand designed to further a secret agenda. I suppose that what I am trying to say is that we need to be careful of single word descriptions that forever condemn someone to one course of action. Public leaders should be able to change their minds when confronted with new information, without the withering condemnation of their peers and the media. To see how dangerous this practice is, use 25 words to describe yourself ( words that explain your various interests) and then imagine a scare-mongering, media snoop looking for anything that may be conflicting and then implying to the world that you are some sort of fraud. No wonder that we are left with the lowest common denominator in our government leaders. Only a milquetoast with no real opinions or wide ranging experiences can stand up to the scrutiny.

That's my opinion, it doesn't have to be yours.