Labels

People often manage to control other people with words. There are even people who describe themselves as “Social Influencers.” What a LAUGHABLE title! And yet… it happens, more so to the young than to those of us who grew up reciting “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” That wasn’t always true, but at least it gave us armor enough to step back and breathe before making a major retaliation error.

I could go into a whole treatise about the development of targeted marketing, advertising, and propaganda and show you that it is all one thing. And while some have claimed marketing should be based on researched facts, we can all see that the most successful persuasion is based not on facts, but on emotions. We are all being attacked by pseudo-facts and bald-faced lies wrapped in blood-curdling emotion every waking hour.

PART of these acts of persuasion is the use of labels, not just product labels. I am talking about human labeling. Sometimes those labels can help us understand a specific kind of problem, but I fear more often they can serve a very different purpose.

One way to knock down your opponent, or someone who publicly disagrees with your propaganda or plans for “a better society” is to somehow label him as inferior, implying your own superiority.

Let’s start with a couple of much abused labels, which too many people seem ready to accept, ADD and ADHD or Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. I found this quote from the CDC, which I consider to be dangerous and wrong:

People with ADHD may have trouble paying attention, controlling impulsive behaviors (may act without thinking about what the result will be), or be overly active. Although ADHD can’t be cured, it can be successfully managed and some symptoms may improve as the child ages.

I have a problem with this on two separate levels. The first red flag is that until classrooms became overcrowded and based more on maintaining compliance, there was no such “disorder.” The second red flag is that this can also be tied to other culturally created problems such as over-vaccination and a sugar and gluten-based diet, both of which were non-existent two generations ago. You can argue that you don’t believe that too rapid and too excessive introduction of foreign substances into the body can affect its natural balance (if you didn’t believe that, then WHY would you do it in the first place???) and you can argue that sugar and sugar substitutes can’t possibly have that effect. Have you ever heard of an “excito-toxin?” Go ahead. Look it up.

My point is that excessively disordered behavior DOES cause problems in a classroom. But, such a broad-based focus is NOT a disability. Those children probably were not BORN with such noticeable divergent behavior. And consider that the opposite of a multi-faceted focus is called “tunnel vision,” which is, in my opinion the less desirable condition. In the “olden days” individuals with broad-based or multi-faceted focus were called “Renaissance Men (or women).” They exhibited interests and developed expertise across many divergent subjects and skills. They could connect the dots between seemingly unrelated areas and bring deeper meaning and advancements to humanity. Such people were Charlemagne, Galileo, DaVinci, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and others. I am CERTAIN that today’s educators and “psychologists” would label them ADD or ADHD and try to slap them on Ritalin to “control” them. What a loss that would be to all of us!

Then, there is Autism and its relative “Asperger’s Syndrome” which seems to cover a very broad “spectrum” from mild to severe. But where do you draw the line between mild Aspergers and an individual who simply has a different perspective? Where is that line? AND, I would add that autism used to be relatively rare in the populace. I have seen studies that outline a direct correlation to, over- and too early- vaccination.

Next, we get into the recently popularized spectrum of Narcissism, which I believe also exists on a broad spectrum. I think anyone without the slightest degree of self-importance is doomed to life as a hopeless doormat. But then, please show me a serious presidential candidate in the last 30 years who couldn’t be labeled somewhere near the upper end of that spectrum! In the farthest extreme, a narcissist could be not only a difficult person, but a hurtful and dangerous one as the issue can sometimes slide into extreme sociopathy or psychopathy. And while we are on the topic of medical diagnoses for behavioral labels, let’s recognize that there are public records of extremely intelligent people with criminal behaviors who can fake symptoms to wrangle a different diagnosis from each psychologist or psychiatrist who assesses them. They might all agree on narcissism, but one might pair it with bipolar while another pairs it with schizophrenia and another with dissociative personality disorder. It might be that the person is simply an out-of-control narcissist who loves to “play games” with the “experts.” By the way, I don’t know WHERE narcissism comes from. In the extreme, to me, it just looks like a person born without a soul.

So, where am I going with this? Oh yes, back to the “social influencer” who wants to move all of us with his or her social labeling or relabeling.

Very recently I watched a documentary series on Netflix (a platform I shouldn’t be watching because of its overall DARK subject matter). It was titled “Don’t F**K With Cats.” It was the story of a small group of self-described “Internet Nerds” who having found and been horrified by a video of a young man murdering kittens, joined forces to identify the “sicko” and expose him to whatever authorities might be appropriate. The originals were individuals with high level professional careers who thought sleuthing for a good cause might be a nice temporary diversion. The narrative was coming from the woman who started the online search. She was an IT specialist in Las Vegas. Others in the group had special skills which when combined were able to track him down.

But the whole thing went viral and their small group somehow expanded into thousands of out-of-control people who jumped on the bandwagon. At one point an individual was named as the culprit, and before they could prove the wrong man had been outed, members of the angry Internet mob hounded him until he committed suicide. Whatever his problems, he had been labeled incorrectly. At that point, the mob, discovering they were as bad as the guy they were going after, contracted back down to the few founders who being horrified at that outcome also tried to back off the case.

But the original villain posted more animal snuff films and the group was able to pinpoint where the posts were coming from, discovered his name, and recognized his extreme narcissism. One group member was a clinical psychologist who noticed all of the signs of a potential and escalating serial killer of humans. To their horror, their target started posting films that proved he was aware of them and was watching them watching him. Their little short-term sleuthing activity turned into 18 months of tracking this guy who, as predicted, brutally killed and dismembered a young man and posted it online. They notified Canadian authorities as they tracked him from Quebec to Montreal, then to France and Germany before they were able to convince the authorities to pick him up. As they admitted, “Who would believe a bunch of online computer nerds as having any credibility?”

That’s the clean explanation of the long, ugly story. The narrator voiced HER concern at the end of the documentary, “Did WE create him or did we egg him on? Do WE have any responsibility for escalating his heinous acts or was what we did noble and necessary?” She wondered aloud if their group had also been his victims. He had used them to give him the worldwide notoriety that he was seeking all along, the labeling, the social influencing. Were they as bad as he was? In the end, she suggested, “It’s time to turn off the machine.”

My point, despite good intentions, we are ALL being targeted and manipulated into labeling each other. The sooner we recognize this, the sooner we can stop falling for it, stop warring with each other, and regain our humanity. The problem is, if the OTHER side refuses to stop the attack, who wins when we refuse to defend ourselves?