The Social Improvement Project

Throughout man’s history, and certainly in today’s popular culture, labeling people and creating stereotypes can be a very damaging practice for both individuals and whole populations. It creates a separation, a divide, a stance “against”; whether warranted or not.

A common type of labeling that occurs today is with addictions and mental disorders. The documentary film Curing Addiction talks about some of this with regards to substance abuse. Once someone is labeled as an “addict” it can be hard for them to shake it, whether they are still one or not. This also is the case with kids who are rambunctious or very active and then labeled as having ADHD. The mental disorder labels continue on from there to include things such as PTSD, Social Anxiety Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, et. al.

In school kids tend to get labeled as being nerds, jocks, skaters, rednecks, preps, and so many others, as if their interests or activities somehow define them. In reconnecting with people over time, especially through social networks such as Facebook, most of these prior school labels seem to vanish as people grow up and recognize that we are all, well, just people. Having compassion for one’s fellow human beings doesn’t really go well with creating major classifications and divisions within society.

Religions also have a tendency to label people who don’t follow their path as somehow being “less than”, and entire wars are fought with countless lives lost. Yet we are all here ultimately trying to achieve the same broader goals, more or less. We are trying to survive and grow, to experience life through contributions, love and happiness, and to coexist peacefully.

When labels become more than just a simple adjective for lack of better description at the time, they can be extremely hurtful, and give people the wrong impression of others, as well as significantly damaging individuals’ rights. Labels like that become tools for propaganda and hate, used toward achieving some other objective that often further divides populations and creating enemies along the way.

The more people become labeled, the more often some begin to act like what they have been labeled as. The example in Curing Addiction talks about addicts who wind up believing that they are somehow diseased for life and therefore have no hope and so continue to relapse. With kids who are labeled as ADHD it can become a script they then continued to live out through adolescence and well beyond, with a “reason” for their behavior. With religions, it continues to be a way to create even greater barriers to accomplishing what their original teachers set out to do – to help their fellow man find some type of spiritual salvation for eternity.

Maybe before you try and pigeon-hole someone in your life with a label, you can take a look at what that person really is all about and what his or her true intentions and activities are in life, and see if labeling them is the right thing to do. Tolerance and understanding breeds more of the same, just as the opposite is true.