I have been thinking about this a lot lately, especially given the current political climate, the Black Lives vs Blue Lives Matter Movement, the rise of the “Alt Right” and their supposed counterpart “Antifa” the two party state of the U.S., (Arȩ ͜y͡ou ͘n̢òţic̀ing̴ ̨a̢ trend̕ ͘h͟e͠r̶e?) and the portrayal of all this on the media. These labels affect the news, our interactions with others, and our understanding of world events. We see the world through a filter of labels, and this filter causes great misunderstanding, conflict and violence.
Labels, by their very definition, limit the understanding of an ideology, a belief, a social movement, a political affiliation to one word or phrase.
Labels did not arise out of necessity. Labels were invented out of a desire to simplify or shorten communication. It is not necessary for us to have shorter conversations or abbreviate the scope of our beliefs, yet it has become common practice in our civilization to do so, almost impulsively, on such a wide scope that it has become truly difficult for an individual to be an individual anymore.
Part of this problem is due to the size of our population and the increasing frequency of our daily interactions with others. This creates a desire for us to speed up our conversations and limit the complexity of our discussion with others since we will be interacting with potentially hundreds of people in any given day. For example, when someone asks you, “how’s it going!” they don’t really expect you to respond with the intricate struggles and successes of your life, they expect a simple response because they really just mean “Hello.”
But then, why not just say hello?
It may seem obvious, why we shorten our beliefs, our ideologies, our desires, to words and phrases which are easily exchanged so we don’t have to spend hours on basic definitions every single time we ask a person “what do you believe?” For we could not possibly get to know every single person we come in contact with or learn the intricate details of their personal ideologies because we could spend an entire lifetime doing so and still not learn all their is to know about even the people in our immediate proximity.
But therein lies a problem: a problem which causes great conflict, violence, argument and allows for easy manipulation of our civilization by an outsider. By our very act of shortening our beliefs, ideologies, social movements, political affiliations to one word or phrase for what we believe is for the benefit of our audience, we at once eliminate all possibility of effective communication with whom we are having our conversation.
The act of saying “I am a _______” (this does not apply to your career) to someone who does not share that label is equivalent to saying “I am different than you.” It creates a wall, a barrier to friendship to brotherhood, to understanding one another. Sure it creates a quick explanation for brevity’s sake, but it also creates a parochial understanding of an otherwise extremely intricate personal ideology and belief system for which you can be misunderstood, and from which you perceive yourself as separate from others.
By subscribing to labels, especially ones regarding politics, religion and social movements, we are instantly creating an array of problems both in our own perspective and in the perspectives of others. It is bordering on an act of violence. To simplify what I mean here I am going to list only a few problems this labeling causes in our society:
- We can not possibly agree with (or even be aware of) every single perspective presented by a particular religion, ideology, political group or social movement. Even if we believe we agree with every possible aspect, there will still be members of the same label who we disagree with. This is impossible to avoid.
- We create a sense of separation with others which makes us less inclined to view them as “one of us” unless they agree to subscribe to the same label. Similarly we subject ourselves to being separated or excluded in others’ viewpoints.
- This separation can create immediate conflict over disagreements in definition, mental biases and prejudices toward a label, and cause misunderstandings between people who share very similar ideologies but disagree over these labels.
- It allows for manipulation of public opinion on large groups of people through fake news, propaganda, and the possibility for someone to commit a crime in the name of a label, and subject all other members of that label to the repercussions of the crime. (What better way to decrease the popularity of a social movement than by disguising oneself as a member of the movement and committing acts of violence?)
So what is the alternative? It is quite simple, really. The solution I am going to present has been spoken of by men and women far more wise than myself for countless centuries past. The solution is:
Silence.
When you do not have the time to explain the scope of your beliefs or at least the portions which are most relevant to the current conversation to others, or when they do not have the time (or patience) to listen, then silence is your key to creating no conflict, no misunderstanding, no separation.
When you do not have the time to hear the full perspective of an individual, or at least the portions of their perspective most relevant to the current conversation then silence is your key to creating no misunderstanding, no conflict, no separation.
For if we are to understand only in part, the massive scope of a person’s being for purposes of debate, discussion, or understanding, then what is the point? So we can argue over shallow misconceptions? So we can feel like we agree or disagree, only to find out in later conversation this was not the case? So we can share brotherhood only with those who share our labels, only to find out in future interactions they are not at all how we expected them to be, and exclude those who do not share our label, not realizing those individuals could have been our best friends and deepest connections with another person?
This is a tough solution to grasp the importance of. It is easier said than done. I understand this, even in my own life. Sometimes you don’t feel like explaining the entirety of what you believe just for a person’s benefit whom you may never even see again. But then again, I ask, what is the point of having a partial understanding? Truly, what is the point in dictating our laundry list of labels to others when they cannot possibly understand the details of what we mean? Are we to also describe how our personal beliefs differ from each label at the moment we speak it? That would look something like this:
“Well I’m a Democrat but I believe in a lot of republican viewpoints, and although I feel conservative on some political stances, I am also liberal in others. Religiously, I am an atheist, but I have problems with some of the explanations of science, and I have read a few religious texts which I believe have truth in them”
Though this is agreeably better than saying “I am a Conservative Democrat Atheist.” it still leaves much room for discussion. What points do you agree and disagree with? Why do you define yourself as atheist while still believing in religious texts? How can you call yourself a Democrat when you believe in _______ or _______? It instantly creates opposition, confusion and separation.
To truly be understood, to truly have intelligent, productive discussion and conversation we must eliminate this incessant impulse to shorten our beliefs. We must dictate what is relevant to the topic of discussion in it’s entirety. There is no point in having a conversation if no understanding, or a limited, prejudiced and biased understanding, is made.
In these times silence is the answer, the key to peace, the key to understanding.
- Another Hero
Become The Change
Become Another Hero
Hey@anotherhero! Another excellent piece of writing. I came across you via another post written by a fellow Steemian on Envy, I also left you a comment there. That post interested me so much I had to drop by to see what you were about and read your introduction post, it was fascinating!
It's not very often that a post on Steemit holds my interest, but your writing is just unbelievable - you get it! Your writing is clear and concise, moving and thought-provoking, given your experiences you're definitely on Purpose. I'm sure you're a talented music producer, but you're also a brilliant writer with an important message. Have you thought about writing for a paper or magazine? Or even writing your own book? The world needs to know who you are, and they will. Peace.
By the way, I've upvoted and resteemed. Peace.
@fiercewarrior this is the nicest thing anyone has said to me in quite some time. On other platforms I felt as if I were shouting into a void, but thanks to comments like this one I know I am in the right place and that I can make an actual difference.
Thank you so much for showing me I'm heading in the right direction and for taking the time to read so much of what I have written (I know it must have been a lot, I am long winded haha) You are very kind.
: ) ...keep heading towards the light. Peace.
There are multiple definitions for what left and right mean, the most common one being big or small government.. almost no one actually means that when they say it however. George Lincoln Rockwell referred to left and right in terms of how they were used originally, in the French revolution. The side which supported the states control was the right, the monarchy. The side which supported power for the people, anarchy and chaos - was the left. Generally theres two different groups and then theres some people in the middle - who Rockwell referred to as the comic book readers, people who spend their time unconcerned with important issues and who merely desire to live their lives and get as much personal enjoyment out of their time here.
So you have the two sides, communists and anti-communists, or National Socialists, or Nazis, or Fascists, or whatever you want to call them. The people who say all races are absolutely the same despite all scientific evidence showing thats factually incorrect, that everyone deserves to have equity and the same amount of stuff. Some want to ban private property, others just want to ban rich people. The other side opposes these people, thats your fascists. Radical leftists want to kill all the intellectuals, and the "radical" right realized you cant fight a crazed manic with a gun - using words. So either you support the idea of killing everyone with half a brain and the black farmers of Zimbabwe controlling the world, or you dont and think thats terrible, that the people pushing for that must be stopped. Or, more likely in your case, you dont care. You care about small issues that are being chosen by thought leaders of each side without realizing the real reason they are being pushed. You think feminism is about womens rights instead of destroying the family. You think anti-gun laws are to stop gun violence. You think forced immigration and open borders is because... muh feelings, instead of the Kalergi-Coudenhove plan.
I should add, technically National Socialism is not right or left, its third position.
I don't believe this is a natural process human beings arose to as a consensus, I believe it is a strategic process of manipulative rhetoric and propaganda utilized by a small group of the population which divides the civilization unnaturally into these left and right concepts: extremes.
Divide and conquer.
No one is really "left" no one is really "right" we all have aspects of both.
If we were allowed to live naturally, rather than having a tiny fraction of the population divide us and pit us against one another with their control over media, politicians and the economy utilizing us as tools to raise their portfolio value, none of this extreme labeling would happen, or at the minimum, the population would see past the labels to recognize the unique perspective of each individual.
People who measure the value of another human being by their genetics are sick in the head. They have a mental impairment that may be genetic or could be a product of a toxic environment, either way it is counter-intuitive to a species' survival and evolution.
Luckily those people are a small fraction of the population, and the rest of us want to help one another and grow together to see a more positive world take form regardless of what dumb ass labels people want to call it. Language has been used to divide our population for thousands of years. Those with intelligence see this and those with a moral compass do not abuse this knowledge, but those who pursue only self-interest and are ignorant of the inherent unity of all consciousness abuse this knowledge and use labels to manipulate others.
So when I see people try to force labels onto others I see one of two things:
Let us not mistake the word "Tree" for an actual tree.
A US general who I failed to remember the name of said he sees it in terms of nationalists and globalists, hes pretty much correct. The people who cry about non-citizens while citizens are being enslaved and tortured are your globalists, the people who dont like MS-13 blackmailing them by torturing their kids can be called your nationalists. Theres shades of the two. Either you care about the people who are of the country, or you care about the globe over your own countries interests. All decisions come down to these two mindsets. This is too simplistic though because its not "globalists" who are controlling the world, its a people who happen to be globalists but who also happen to be nationalists... except they cant be "nationalists" because they arent part of the countries they take over and form two sides in. So the "right" are actually controlled by foreign people. The republicans, conservatives etc. They are "right" but "not nationalist" because zionism is alien to Europe, and so they cant be nationalists because they dont care about their own country, they care about Israel.
So there are three positions - and this isnt really the correct usage of third position, but there are globalists, zionists, and nationalists. Nationalists are the only ones who care about their own country over the world, or over Israel.
Oh, and whites have a right to exist.
I agree with you that this concept is useful for explaining ideologies to people and giving a quick rundown on the major ideologies vying for control in the world. This is an insightful comment and well thought out.
I think it is possible to live in a world with nationalists and not have war or extreme stratification of wealth and resources. I think it is also possible to live under a global government without a handful of psychopaths running the show from the top.
The only reason we are presented with such limited choices is because the most wealthy and influential people on the planet right now are trying to make it that way. All we have to do is adopt more and more decentralized platforms until eventually the power is stripped away from the few and put into the hands of the many.
The population can then decide for themselves, with a TRUE equal-weight voting system, what form of government they want, whether it be global or nation-state, and all nations can cooperate with one another for the benefit of the collective instead of utilizing third world countries as sources of cheap labor or oppressing their citizenry.
Learn More About the Decentralized Government Project Here: https://dsound.audio/#!/@anotherhero/20180416t015204082z-how-to-build-a-new-government-on-the-steem-blockchain--succeed-in-its-non-violent-implementation
@anotherhero, you are 200% correct again. The movement is REAL! Peace.