Labels

Friends,

How do you identify yourself politically? And how fairly do you identify others? Do political labels even matter, and if so, why? Perhaps you can identify yourself politically fairly easily and definitively, but I personally am not satisfied with any individual label by itself, whether positive or negative, and I have been exploring a more nuanced label that has more integrity for myself. So bear with me in my thoughts with the hope they will give you some basis of to consider how you might better identify yourself. 

Public labels, whether personal, social, or political are just part of our human nature. As useful and important as they are to compare, evaluate and track helpful information, in a political sense they are also a great source of harm when they create, sustain, and justify biases and prejudices. I have been especially aware of our political labeling this week as the election season heats up. Labels like progressive, conservative, liberal, socialist, communist, Trumpie, democrat, Muslim, just to name a few are in current usage. And each label carries some particular weight and stigma whether positive or negative. We prefer, of course, to claim our own preferred and positive label for ourselves, but often we may be labeled in terms meant to demean or dismiss us, and we may do the same to others. Perhaps we need to ask ourselves what it says about ourselves when we so easily repeat only negative comments about a candidate or any other person .(I confess, of course, how strong my negative thoughts and labels are when I am prone to hurl derogatory names at members of our current administration, and even then I wonder what negative effect this mindset has on my own mental health.)

So after weeks of deliberation about how I might label myself with greater clarity and integrity I have recently settled on my own chosen label. I have described  myself as a Christian Democratic Socialist. For me that combination of words/labels adequately represents my values and my politics. But when I recently told a friend how pleased I was to have found such a satisfying way to describe my political self, he asked me why I needed to define and label myself at all. My description, he pointed out, actually begs more questions about what each of my terms mean. He pointed out that if I were trying to communicate as clearly as possible to an inquiring political audience, each label would likely be interpreted differently and challenged by many if not most people. Most political labels are, after all, especially susceptible to oppositional responses in the political arena. Being a Christian in the current public arena can easily be controversial. Democrat, yes, not an autocrat, is fairly clear. And, oh dear, how complicated the label of socialist can become when yoked to communist, the tactic often used by critics of anything that challenges capitalism. 

But at the end of the day I have concluded that if I really want or need ideological and political label for myself I might just as well stay with my label as a "Christian Democratic Socialist” and let that suffice. I will then continue to simply assume others will respect my intentions of integrity and well meaning and see whether my choice might also invite reflection on however they may want to define themselves. And perhaps they may then ask me to further explain why my chosen political label is important to me.

But then I still come back to my friend’s question about why I need a label at all. Depending on the political or personal context it can be both an asset and liability. So I have ultimately concluded that the label that most honestly defines me - politically, personally, ethically - is how I actually live my life. I would ideally like to believe my life itself is my clearest “label,” far better than any words. The Quakers advise us to “let your life speak” more than your concern about right beliefs or creeds. And how we live is a clear and honest identity with which we can be most fairly judged and known, for better or worse. In terms of a self identity, then, we might best ask how our lives correspond with our faith and practice, and how does our life then also describe our politics and personal ethic?

Peace,
Tom