Labels

Labels are everywhere. They can be exceptionally helpful. When I'm in a grocery store, particularly in the canned food aisle, I must rely on the labels. The label tells me which cans are corn and which are beets. They can contain pictures which help me to envision the meal which would include each. In the US, labels are required to indicate nutrition information such as protein, carboydrate, and sodium content. As I said, these labels are helpful.

I use labels in my e-mail inbox to help myself categorize threads. Items from or to my family get labeled "family". I've used this same system for a while and it is helpful when searching for a message with specific content. An interesting phenomenon, though, is that the meaning of the label changes over time. In college, I was a member of a certain club (I'll call it "The Club"), so all correspondance from people I met there received the label "The Club". After I graduated, some of the members still e-mail me and through force of habit, I still give them the same label. I've even met new people through these people and when the new people e-mail me I'll at first label their conversations as "The Club" even though they were never members of "The Club". Over time, the meaning of the label "The Club" changed from people I met with at a certain event, to people I still kept in touch with through a common event, to people who I met because I was part of a common event long ago. So, while labels are useful, they can change meaning over time.

Another drawback of labels is that they are usually only able to give aggregate and averaged data. Grocery labels will not tell you, "This is the best can of green beans in this entire state" or "this can of fruit cocktail came from the bottom of the batch so it's mostly those tasteless whitewashed grapes that you don't like". There's also the problem of labels being misinterpreted. A label saying "garbanzo beans" could be overlooked by the person looking for "chick peas".

I think it's important that the issues with labels are understood before they are used (or misused). Labels are useful to communicate generalized data, but they can change meaning over time, do not give the entire picture, and can be misinterpreted. In general, it is best to have the person applying the label give the definition. As such, I'd like to define some of the labels which I apply to myself in the next series of posts. I'll try to give the positive definition as well as point out limitations found in present-day usage.

See these blog entries on specific Labels:
Christian
Creationist
Evangelical
Trinitarian
Calvinism