Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Shakerag]

In the case of mental disorders, it's helping them live properly

Who establishes what is a disorder?  Who establishes what is "living properly"? 

Let's all remember that Drapetomania and Dysaesthesia aethiopica were things once. 

[GlyphGryph]

And Homosexuality, it would be prudent to note.

Having had experience with the mental health system, at least in the US, "labels" are another word for "things I can use so I can get your money and get you out of my office without having to do my job".

[Lectorog]

Oh, I'm not saying we'll throw out the gender identity or orientation labels. I'm talking about demisexuality and that sort of thing.

Demisexual doesn't seem like a useless label to me, and I don't know of any harm coming from it. Because of that, I think it - and others like it - will stick around; though I admit there is a labeling fad currently in progress. Doesn't mean that people will stop labeling themselves later, just that they'll have a lessened tendency to flaunt labels.

If THIS is the question you're asking, if this is really all you got out of that, I have to believe you've completely missed the entire point of the analogy, and, in all likelihood, every one of of the points from my entire post, for the good of my sanity. It's not even a sensible question! It literally means nothing unless you give it some context.

So, if you think it really is a valid question, and you actually want to know the answer, and you can explain why you're asking and what sort of answer you want, I'll do my best to respond.

Or I can break the analogy down and explain it to you piece by, if you don't think you've understood it.

It seems that I took some of the wording in the analogy too literally. My apologies.
Though I must admit that I don't understand the meaninglessness of my question, so I doubt the meaningfulness of all of what I'm writing here.

In the case of mental disorders, it's helping them live properly

Who establishes what is a disorder?  Who establishes what is "living properly"? 

Let's all remember that Drapetomania and Dysaesthesia aethiopica were things once. 

A "disorder" has both personal and cultural roots.
"Living properly" is simply reducing the bother a person experiences from their own disorder. Obviously not applicable to all traits that are deemed disorders.
And I really don't think slavery logic is valid anymore, but like I said there's a strong cultural element to "disorder".

Having had experience with the mental health system, at least in the US, "labels" are another word for "things I can use so I can get your money and get you out of my office without having to do my job".

There lies one of the problems with overlabeling.

[GlyphGryph]

Oh, I'm not saying we'll throw out the gender identity or orientation labels. I'm talking about demisexuality and that sort of thing.

Demisexual doesn't seem like a useless label to me, and I don't know of any harm coming from it. Because of that, I think it - and others like it - will stick around; though I admit there is a labeling fad currently in progress. Doesn't mean that people will stop labeling themselves later, just that they'll have a lessened tendency to flaunt labels.

The entire PURPOSE of labels is to allow us to stop thinking and skip right to drawing conclusions. Encouraging people to base their identity in superficial details and to dig no deeper is NOT the sort behaviour I think we should encourage if we want to actually improve as a society.

It seems that I took some of the wording in the analogy too literally. My apologies.
Though I must admit that I don't understand the meaninglessness of my question, so I doubt the meaningfulness of all of what I'm writing here.

Who were you asking the question of? What sort of answer did you want? Were you asking me, personally, of my thoughts? Were you asking the boys and girls in the analogy? Were you asking the transfolk in the analogy? The androgynous? Or wee you looking for some objective truth? Because each of those would likely end up with a different answer, and it's not clear at all to me which answer you were looking for or why.

[Lectorog]

The entire PURPOSE of labels is to allow us to stop thinking and skip right to drawing conclusions. Encouraging people to base their identity in superficial details and to dig no deeper is NOT the sort behaviour I think we should encourage if we want to actually improve as a society.

Adjectives are labels.

Who were you asking the question of? What sort of answer did you want? Were you asking me, personally, of my thoughts? Were you asking the boys and girls in the analogy? Were you asking the transfolk in the analogy? The androgynous? Or wee you looking for some objective truth? Because each of those would likely end up with a different answer, and it's not clear at all to me which answer you were looking for or why.

I guess I was looking for an explanation of something I found unclear and confusing, in order to discern a broad graphic of your views. Why, for example, you constructed the analogy so that trans boys can't be in the boys' clubhouse.

[Mr. Palau]

The entire PURPOSE of labels is to allow us to stop thinking and skip right to drawing conclusions. Encouraging people to base their identity in superficial details and to dig no deeper is NOT the sort behaviour I think we should encourage if we want to actually improve as a society.

Adjectives are labels.

Who were you asking the question of? What sort of answer did you want? Were you asking me, personally, of my thoughts? Were you asking the boys and girls in the analogy? Were you asking the transfolk in the analogy? The androgynous? Or wee you looking for some objective truth? Because each of those would likely end up with a different answer, and it's not clear at all to me which answer you were looking for or why.

I guess I was looking for an explanation of something I found unclear and confusing, in order to discern a broad graphic of your views. Why, for example, you constructed the analogy so that trans boys can't be in the boys' clubhouse.

Because I highly doubt little children would allow a transboy in their clubhouse, children are intolerant. I wouldn't let a transboy into my clubhouse, I would have just said she was a girl an made her get out of  my club house (had I had such a thing).

The entire PURPOSE of labels is to allow us to stop thinking and skip right to drawing conclusions. Encouraging people to base their identity in superficial details and to dig no deeper is NOT the sort behaviour I think we should encourage if we want to actually improve as a society.

I think you are both right and wrong here. First, you are right that it is impossible to fit all of oneself entirely under one label, but multiple labels could very accurately describe someone. You may need many labels, but you could definitely do it. Just on an odds basis someone has to share some behaivor or trait with at the very least one other person, so you could create a label for all those people who have it, and then construct individuals by combining multiple labels. Since you have to share at most everything with someone, then there would be a label for practically everything that makes up you. To focus on one label would be naive, you have to consider the sum of all the labels that make up a person. One is not simply straight or transgender-ed, one is also black or white or Asian (etc.), liberal or conservative, cautious or carefree, social or introverted, ad infinitum (or just for long enough that I don't want to write it all up  ).

also if you really got into it we would need sub-labels too, like I am white, with ancestors from x,x, and x  places since the last common ancestor's death (listing people all humans have in common would be superfluous, when addressing humans). Also, I am liberal but specifically I believe in x,y, and z, so I am not just liberal but I also belong with other people who believe in x,y, and z more specifically.

[GlyphGryph]

No, they aren't. At least not the ones were talking about here. Labels convey membership and identity based on properties of the object in question. Adjectives can convey quite a bit other than that. Simply by dint of the ability of adjectives to be relative and hold degrees of applicability, they are quite different. Labels are binary and exclusive by convention and definition, while adjectives as a whole are not. Now adjectives can certainly be used as labels no question there, but the statement that adjectives ARE labels is outright false. 
If you aren't following that here is an example.
"That (animal) is a quick thing" is a label without being an adjective while."That is a quick (animal)" is an adjective without being a label and holds a very different meaning even though it is superficially similar.

I think as far as mental disorders go, the big change that will sweep through and change psychology is going to be when they realize what the taxonomists and other scientists realized years and years ago - classifying things by their most obvious features is a damn good way to get things incredibly wrong. Reality tends to be complicated, and obvious features tend not to the be the important ones if you're seeking a meaningful understanding. A bat is not a bird and a whale is not a fish, despite how "obvious" it is that they are, and for damn good reason. Psychology in specific, and good chunks of the medical profession in general, have a real problem with this.

I guess I was looking for an explanation of something I found unclear and confusing, in order to discern a broad graphic of your views. Why, for example, you constructed the analogy so that trans boys can't be in the boys' clubhouse.

Because that tends to be how it works - the whole point of the analogy was a demonstration of labels being used primarily as a means of exclusion and establishing superiority through group affiliation. It doesn't matter who really is or is not a boy - there are plenty of cases where a "girl" will be given an honorary membership in a boys club and treated as one of the boys, even though "girls" still won't be allowed, because the label isn't actually what anyone cares about - it's used as a shothand, a shortcut basis for justifying exclusivity, and that's all.

[Loud Whispers]

Adjectives are labels.

An adjective would be describing a certain attribute whereas a label would be a restrictive, classifying phrase for a person or thing.

[Mr. Palau]

Loud whispers, how many pictures are there in your avatar?

[sneakey pete]

Reading this thread has made me realize what I always find... Interesting about these threads. Its that the whole conversation is sort of just... above what most of the world thinks about. You can argue about how this label does this and that label does that, but when it comes down to it most people are just what they are and don't really care what other people are, and have too much other stuff going on in their lives to put more thought into it than that.

[Glowcat]

So I might be missing the point, but what's with the focus on labels? They're used for pretty much everything and that's never stopped most people from realizing there were nuances between individual instances on a conscious level, but rather they're used because human pattern-thinking operates on that level for quick decisions. If we tried to be exact about everything, rather than giving a starting point, conversation would be incredibly confused. Labels help give us a starting point which we then hopefully use to find the nuance.

I realize it's a legitimate phrase. I don't like it because I only ever see it used when a) someone is apologizing for their "cis privilege", or b) someone is accusing someone else of it. I never see it detached from implications, if not explicit accusations, of someone's privilege. It has its home in the SJ community, and it seems like it's never left that home.

I can see why the word might make you think that, but when somebody talks about privilege in that sense it's not some mark of shame, or at least shouldn't be since using it that way in wrong and confusing. Privilege in SJ jargon means that a person's experiences are heavily biased in some manner that makes them blind to the situation others face. iirc GG's explanation in the original thread was pretty spot on.

Hence the phrase "Check your privilege" means to consider that your argument may suffer from certain assumptions based on your lack of experience, or that you're even dismissing the experience of other people who do actually have more experience than you, because you're an outsider looking in. It probably can be misused. Anything can (see 'ad hominem' and 'strawman', constantly misused on the internet).

[LordSlowpoke]

* LORDSLOWPOKE SPINS VIOLENTLY

this is going to be a very nice thread to watch

[Mrhappyface]

All these labels confuse me. What do they mean? Gender is binary except in the case of hermaphrodites, but that's something quite rare. Sexual preferences are something else though.

[Loud Whispers]

All these labels confuse me. What do they mean? Gender is binary except in the case of hermaphrodites, but that's something quite rare. Sexual preferences are something else though.

For the former, that's only to be if you take the biological sex to absolutely always mean the gender someone identifies with.

Loud whispers, how many pictures are there in your avatar?

One, many.

[GlyphGryph]

All these labels confuse me. What do they mean? Gender is binary except in the case of hermaphrodites, but that's something quite rare. Sexual preferences are something else though.

Ah, but transgender and cisgender aren't actually even about gender, but rather identity. And that's not really binary.