Beware of Label-Phobia

I'd like to refer Golden Gater readers to the San Francisco Bay Guardian's Sept. 27 cover story on bisexuality. As a bisexual, I found it both positive and insightful, but a side note that particularly interested me was lesbian Kris Kovicks's comment to the effect that young people are embracing bisexuality in practice because they are rejecting labels.

The people I know and talk to who are my age and younger (I'm 25) are indeed often rejecting labels of all sorts. If this makes them willing to embrace bisexuality, that's wonderful -- everyone should try sleeping with someone of the non-preferred sex at least once in their life, in my opinion.

But I see a darker side to label-phobia as well. It's an attitude that goes all too well with the cynical, apathetic outlook that is pervasive among members of my generation. I find that many of them seem to be operating without a moral compass. Too often the refusal to be labeled seems to be a convenient and fashionable excuse for being ignorant; a way to avoid criticism and the questioning of their beliefs by others; an intellectual veneer designed to disguise the fact that they have no moral or even rational reasons for their actions.

The one label I've observed many of my peers freely applying to themselves is "spiritual." This is easily done, because unlike being "religious" it comes with no belief system that must be defended, no connections to any established order. It is a way to convey depth without having to be deep.

None of this is to say that everyone who considers themselves spiritual or forsakes labels is shallow or brain-dead, so there is no need to be offended by this unless the charges apply to you.

Even if they do, please don't get angry -- just check yourself. Realize that there is an objective reality. Not everything is true, and not all points of view are equally valid. Slavery is wrong, to state one obvious truth that we all can (hopefully) agree on. Start with a few basic assertions like this, follow their logic, and see where it takes you. Then try to live accordingly. Take a stand for what is right.

By refusing to make judgments and identify yourself, you are in fact making judgment and identifying yourself. Remember that the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is that people of goodwill do nothing.

[ Golden Gater Online October 3, 1995 ]

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