Labels
So what category would you fit me into, how would I be
judged, in what way should someone prepare themselves to interact with me? Am I
any of those labels, none of them, do any of them describe me accurately enough
for a valid stereotype to be applied and therefore a predetermined way of
interacting with me to be effective in any shape or form?
What if I said I’m an advocate for animal rights, a musician
for over 30 years and a vegetarian and pacificist. Does this change how you see
me and would this affect the way you interact with me? Am I now more
approachable, less, do you see me in a different way than before?
To add to this, I’ve been happily married to my partner (wife) for 18 years (together for 26 years), have two children, was a scout leader, a member of the parent/teacher group at my kids’ school, had a poor upbringing (social housing etc), was bullied at school, despise any ism (race, sex, age etc) and wish people could be a bit nicer to each other. I think that humans can be amazing and terrifying, kindness is free and priceless, and that respect should be granted automatically as only disrespect can be earned (through actions).
When you act on an ism or stereotype you limit your own ability to learn
and improve yourself because you limit the variety of your interactions. We
unconsciously surround ourselves with similar looking and acting humans, this
stifles creativity as it reduces risk and friction in our discussions and
therefore the need to adapt and grow to changing situations or viewpoints.
However there is the flipside to this in that by deliberately choosing those
that are different to us simply because we are driven to select variety to meet
some preconceived notion of diversity we also risk labelling those we selected
as only having value because of the value of the label for which they were selected.
When you look at someone that you do not know you are seeing
the front cover of the book, not the content. Objective decision making based
on facts and experience, balanced with an awareness of your conscious and
unconscious biases should be the only way to interact with others. An awareness
of the external risk surrounding the interaction must be considered however our
approach to each new interaction should start on the basis that the only label,
the only category that can be applied 100% to the individual that you are about
to interact with is that they are human.
Every new interaction should be looked upon as opening the
first page of that book, it should be exciting and challenging and a learning
experience for both you.
Am I what other people choose to describe me as, and if this
is based on their own experiences whether that be actual or inherited is that
an efficient and effective way of managing risk in human interactions? I would
suggest that it is not as it discounts the potential benefits that can be
gained from new and varied interactions. What if you spoke to people based on
only one predetermined data point, species? You don’t make any assumptions
about all the other labels that we often just assume automatically such as
background, language, ethnicity, gender identity, job, learning level, income
level, age, physical ability, interests. You start out by trying to introduce yourself and
things quickly advance from there. You may not know their language but being
human we have other ways of communicating (body language, sound pitch and tone,
gestures) and you find that you start to learn things about them. Its
challenging but by trying you learn things about yourself, about your own
abilities, preconceptions and place in the world.
We are trained to think that learning is an academic,
organised and structured thing delivered in cubes with windows and doors
(schools etc), yet every moment you are conscious you are learning something.
It is only the structures and restrictions of our societies that limit our
opportunities for learning from social interactions. By following predefined,
safe social patterns and rules that support those aforementioned labels you
limit your learning and restrict other’s ability to learn too, because there
are at least two participants in every conversation!
The only label that matters is HUMAN.
See the human, not the label.
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