On Labelling

In his marvellous book, A Fair Dinkum Pain in the Neck, author Peter Henri relates an argument with a hospital doctor. With his permission, I'll quote the section here:

While I was working at the hospital I went to the ear nose and throat department for another check-up, or down as the case may be. I was seen by a visiting doctor from the ENT at Royal Adelaide. I hadn’t met him before, and when I arrived in his room I was still wearing my hospital identity badge. He had my file in his hand, and by way of greeting he said, “Ah Mr Henri, I see you’re a laryngectomee.”
I said, “No I’m not.”
He looked confused, obviously reading my name badge and checking the file at the same time.
“It says here that you had a laryngectomy in August 2001.”
“That’s right. I’m Peter, not Mr Henri, and I had a laryngectomy in August 2001.”
Now he looked even more confused, and I’m sure he probably thought that he had just met a Territorian who had ‘gone troppo’ or had developed ‘mango madness’ as we are wont to do up here in the Top End.
“And if I had an arm amputated I wouldn’t be an amputee. I would be Peter who had his arm amputated. You see, doctor, I don’t identify as being a thing, a laryngectomee, or any other ‘ee’. Nor do I identify as a cancer victim. I was afflicted by cancer, or got cancer.” 

Who has not seen someone who is, or who has a friend or relative, on the Autism Spectrum, making the point that those people should be referred to, not as 'autistics', but as people who have autism? The issue isn't particular to autism, either, by the way.

This is not a situation peculiar to a particular person, or to hospitals, or to any particular conditoin or industry. It is a general issue, and the issue is one of courtesy. The reason for this is that this kind of discourtesy is labelling.

Let's take a look at what we are doing when we say to someone, 'you're a xxxxxx'. By using a noun to describe a person, we are assigning him to a category. Even if it's a compliment, there's a shade of arrogance to that. We are implicitly saying that it is for us to define what that person is, a thing we have no right to do. 

This is why it goes to courtesy; by arrogating to ourselves the right to define a person, we have implicitly placed ourselves above him. And that's rude as hell.

What To Do About It

The whole problem can easily be made to disappear. There are two possible ways. 

One way is to examine whether the remark was even appropriate. There are many situations where the whole thing would be just better unsaid. For example, if it's a comment you're making about a person's physical appearance. These are generally better avoided. Whatever it is you want to say, the person has almost certainly heard it a million times, it is not going to be news to him, and unless you know him very well, it's intrusive. Commenting about a person's body is just the first step on a path that leads to touching him.

If it is still something that needs to be said, there is an easy fix: it is to use a verb instead of a noun. Not 'he is autistic', but 'he has autism'. I am using autism for my example because that's the context in which I most often see people complaining about labelling, but this method has quite general application. For example, not 'he is an animal lover', but 'he loves animals'. Of course, statements like this are unlikely to give offense, at least not consciously, but as courtesy is so often a matter of unconscious habit, it does no harm to err on the side of strictness.

Labelling Enables Bigotry

A huge benefit of forcing yourself into this more verbal approach is that it can support your effort to behave well in other ways. A great example of this is racism.

Why is it so, you ask. Let's try an experiment. Pick a person, any person. Try to make a racist remark about that person, without first saying, or at least thinking, something like 'he is a (insert noun). I'll be surprised if you can do it, very surprised indeed.

It is the very act of labelling that enables bigoted thinking. For this reason, if for no other, it is a habit we all do well to overcome.

Try my new short story, Uncle Zan's Dog.
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