Whoops — was trying to write and something got deleted. hopefully this attempt works.

I appreciate your article — interestingly enough I think we have opposite approaches for addressing the same issue! I am experimenting with building a community that leans into labels as a way to generate deeper, healthier, more nuanced, more complex forms of discourse and thinking about polarizing issues… so far its going great. I’m curious if its possible to truly transcend labels, mental models, heuristics, frameworks, etc.. including how we classify people, given the human propensity to do so. Informed by my dabbling in anthropology, cognitive science, sociology, politics, philosophy, etc.. my position is that it isn’t possible, so we might as well “own it.” Perhaps my community will be successful, perhaps not. I’m curious how a community of people, who take your article seriously, are able to implement it, to resist such a deep human tendency. Also, I would say that being against labels/frameworks is (in my definition) an ideological stance and a lens to understand reality, predicated on a set of assumptions (the world/people are complex, labels can’t capture that, labels are not conducive to dialogue), and that normatively it would be better to not label. But again we are using definitions differently here, so I respect the divergence.

Also I’ll add I agree with a lot of what you said about the dangers of labels, my only point of disagreement is that imo they don’t have to be a bad thing, and can actually (if used appropriately) can engender solidarity, healing, complex thinking, generative discourse, and open up new vistas of thought. For example, Braver Angels, an organization promoting political depolarization, uses the labels “red” and “blue” to describe people of left/right political leanings, and for a lot of people, civilly engaging with a “red” or “blue” or someone of the “other side” is a deeply meaningful and healing experience, and promotes robust community building. So labels can be dangerous, but if we can’t avoid them, we should learn to use them in a helpful way, that promotes increased awareness of our tendency to label (and to reduce complex reality into our own mental frameworks). My 2 cents.

Thanks for engaging!