“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names”- Chinese Proverb

In Stop Calling Me Names! Mrs has drawn several fallacious points about criticism and labeling.

"I must explain why labelling and criticizing weren't the best thing for human growth and mental health since sliced bread, I left the room. "

For millions of years mankind lived just like the animals then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk.

If that's not the best thing that ever happened to we humans then, OK, I'll entertain that possibility. But you've got some explaining to do!

Language is a system of labels for ideas. Words are tokens within langage. Mrs loves her words and her grammar, I don't see her giving those up. What she seems to have trouble with are the labels which describe people. Such as, for example, "bad" or "mean."

So then, that would leave an individual disabled either in language from expressing their ideas about other people. I suppose it would be permitted to know intellectually that a person were kind or honest or afraid or useful or generous or tricky or funny or bad or mean. But it would not be OK to have the means (the use of labels) to communicate this to others. Nor even write it in your private diary or talk to yourself about it or think it in words inside your head!

No longer shall we be able to hold and share estimates of our fellow man. No more shall we express displeasure about our political leaders except in cartoon thought bubbles. We can't say "No, that guy's bad" or "He's a good, keen, man." Price mechanisms, reputation itself, the social network itself will all be without medium and we will now live alone unable to attribute meaning to the existence and actions of others. Nor they to us.

"Stop calling me names." But then what do I call you? How do I distinguish you from a king or a cabbage?



The great dictator of words makes allowance only for self-applied labels. Only oneself is able, you see, to have the full contextual picture. Only that person knows their own motives, thoughts, emotions, and history well enough to be allowed to confer meaning. Everyone else has to forego their natural born ability to draw conclusions. And so we must rely on the likes of Benito Mussolini, Joe Stalin, or Nicki Minaj to front up and give voice to what we all know but could not say. "I'm a scum bag two dimensional cartoon wackjob so don't listen to me." Never again will anybody say "Oh thank god! You just said what we were all thinking!"

But I don't think we're playing it safe leaving it up to them, the worst of mankind.

Likewise I'm not willing to censor my ideas about the best people in the world, nor anybody in between. I need all the words I can get my hands on, I have too few. I want more vocabulary, not none. I want to understand myself and others. I want to be able to explain it to myself and to them. I want the language of Shakespeare on my side, in all detail and delicacy. I want to be able to tell about it.

This may be the best reason. If I think you're being bad and don't say so then answer me this, how will I ever find out I am wrong?