Actions Speak Louder Than Labels
(CW: Mentions assorted recent instances of bigotry as examples.)
If you will allow me one word of psychobabble for today: “essentialism”. For the purposes of this piece, basically the idea anything that is a [thingamajig] necessarily shares properties with all other [thingamajig]s, and having those properties necessarily means that thing is a [thingamajig]. My hot take today is we need less of this.
Sometimes it makes sense. It is fine to say, “this shape with 3 corners is a triangle,” and, “because this shape is a triangle, I know it has 3 corners.” But there are also places it commonly comes up we generally agree are bad—for instance, assuming all people of a nationality are necessarily similar, and the anti-immigration sentiments that can result; or sex and gender essentialism correlating with sexism and forcing people into gender roles.
And of course it comes up in political Discourse™—it sometimes seems you can hardly go five minutes without hearing Candidate X is a bigot, a groomer, a RINO, or whatever other term your team is using to imply a Person Whomst Is Bad.
This has the—sometimes intentional—effect of abstracting away what the person has actually done. When one person straight-up calls for the eradication of transgender people from public life, another felt threatened by a trans woman due to her own unhealed trauma, and another just wasn't aware someone had changed preferred pronouns, those often all get reduced into “she is a transphobe.”
So let's focus on those actions.
A few extra words feel a small price to pay for restoring that clarity, precision, and nuance—which anyone who has spent five minutes on Twitter can tell you we could use a little more of. Further, focusing on actions over labels can make points more effective.
It can defuse forceful language.
In some cases, people get reduced to very loaded terms. “Watch out—she is a criminal,” can be used to make someone seem much more dangerous than, “She got caught shoplifting once when she couldn't afford food,” or, “She got arrested for cannabis possession in college, and it still shows up in the system even though it's been legalized.”
It can also bring clarity to terms that are sometimes misunderstood, misused, or used hyperbolically. “He is a gaslighter,” is sometimes precisely the case, and other times a more exaggerated recounting of, “He genuinely thought they said Wednesday, and made an ass of himself when they tried to correct him.”
It can be more forceful.
I like Yiddish curses. Any adult in the U.S. has heard enough “fuck you”s that they start to become a string of empty sounds, but if someone told you, “I hope you eat a lavish banquet with your favorite foods, and you choke on every bite,” you would process that. (Tumblr culture has created some modern insults with similar energy—e.g., “You are the personification of the look you share with other people in the grocery store when some dude is causing a scene for no reason.”)
Many people have become numb to hearing certain charged labels—“Donald Trump is a misogynist,” “Donald Trump is a racist,” “Donald Trump is a hypocrite,” “Donald Trump is an ableist,” “Donald Trump is—” And people (defending him or just tired of hearing about him) can dismiss your assessments with a “nuh uh”—the mindless “fuck you too” to your “fuck you”. But they can't just mindlessly “nuh uh” his actions—Donald Trump said, “grab 'em by the pussy”; Donald Trump banned transgender people from the military; Donald Trump said people who participated in a white supremacist march were “very fine people.”
It avoids semantic debates.
Sometimes the people defending him will keep the conversation bogged down quibbling about their definitions of ableist, misogynist, racist, etc. Anyone who has heard the “What is a woman?” mishegas knows some folks love to sidetrack a political discussion with a semantic debate.
“Michael Knowles is a genocidal proto-fascist,” tends to lead to debates over whether calling for the eradication of queer people or culture is really, technically, by definition, a “genocide”. OK, fine. Michael Knowles said, on video, “Transgenderism [sic] must be eradicated from public life entirely.” That is just a thing he said, in a recorded speech, in front of a big crowd who all heard him. Regardless of whether you call it “fascist” or “genocidal”, I think that is a bad thing to do. (Hot take of the day #2, I know¡)
It communicates our values.
Sometimes people with very different values like or dislike the same label or person. If you have read the news recently, you probably know a lot of people say Elon Musk is bad. And while you may be very brave risking Twitter suspension to say such a thing, I don't know what you are really trying to say with that. If I think Elon Musk is bad because he spoke against California building high-speed rail, and you think Elon Musk is bad because convinced millions of people to buy electric cars and solar panels, we are not the same.
It enables parallels to be drawn.
On the flipside, if you are an Elon Musk Hater and I am not (maybe you even identify with a different political party than I do) but you speak in favor of high speed rail, and so do I, we have something in common!
Where essentialism might lazily (and often incorrectly) say everyone who is a Democrat has particular traits and everyone who has them is a Democrat, focusing on actions can lead to identifying more valuable parallels. When you don't need to agree on the definition of Democrat or Republican, it matters less whether someone is a Democrat or is a Republican, and more whether two people align in what they are saying and doing.
This can go both ways. If you are a Republican but a candidate who is a Democrat is effecting policy decisions aligned with you, why focus on the letter next to her name? And if a candidate who is a Republican is effecting policy you disagree with, those actions should matter even if you are on the same “team”.
It allows nuanced comparison of different situations. If Jair Bolsonaro's actions in response to losing the 2022 Brazilian presidential election paralleled Donald Trump's in response to losing the 2020 U.S. presidential election, we don't need to agree what label to apply to them to discuss that. And on the flipside, reducing them to a label (“he is an authoritarian”) might also get in the way of noting where their actions still differ.
It acknowledges time.
People change. You probably aren't entirely the person you were in middle school, but this sort of essentialism tends to reframe actions as permanent, immutable truths about who people are.
“You can't trust him! He is a Republican!” Could be true; maybe focusing on his actions would reveal, “Him? Yeah, he straight-up celebrated the Dobbs decision. Yikes.” But it could also be, “Him? He used to vote for a lot of conservative candidates, but he hasn't in 12 years.”
It can acknowledge character development that is (hopefully) still in progress. “Ew, you know he is a transphobe, right?” could be, “He actively donates to transphobic organizations.” But maybe it is more, “He quoted some transphobic talking points a couple years ago. He's grown since then, but I'm still a bit wary around him.”
And it can account for people putting in the work to redress past harm. You might have said, “Don't talk to her; she is an abuser!” because, “Her? Yeah, be careful; she tried to get our whole friend group to excommunicate one of my friends.” But the present reality might have become, “Her? She had a really unhealthy relationship with one of my friends in college, but he said she reached out last year to make amends, and they're chill now.”
It helps us know ourselves.
Beyond communicating our values to and drawing parallels with others, thinking of ourselves in terms of our actions helps us explore who we are, and just as it does for others, it acknowledges we change over time.
Certainly anyone versed in a bit of queer theory knows it can mean quite a few different things for someone to say she is a lesbian, is bisexual, is asexual, is polyamorous, and so on—not to mention a common part of the queer experience is figuring out your previous understanding of yourself wasn't quite on the mark. But even the straightest cisgender person has labels whose meanings can change with time and depending on who you ask.
“I am a Democrat”? What does that mean to you? That you maybe supported the Iraq War in 2002? That you didn't engage with a lot of people with differing opinions in 2016? That you take action with climate justice groups, or that you work with natural gas companies? Just that your parents are Democrats, so you feel obligated to carry on the label?
“I am a Bostonian”? As in you live in Boston? You live in Worcester, but you commute to Boston? You live in France, but you grew up in Boston, and it shows?
“I am a Christian”? You go to church every Sunday? You just celebrate Easter and Christmas? You love thy neighbor? You judge and damn thy neighbor?
What about “I am a man”?
That can mean a lot of different actions to a lot of people. Is it literally just having an “M” on your birth certificate? Is it having a penis? Is it having a Y chromosome? Is it having body hair? Is being a man never crying? Is it never expressing joy? Is it punching holes in walls? Is it owning a sleek, fast car? Is it owning a big truck? Is it drinking cheap beer? Is it drinking expensive Scotch? Is it wearing a boxy t-shirt? Is it wearing a tight muscle shirt? Is it wearing a 3-piece suit? Is it growing a thick beard? Is it shaving a clean, sharp jawline? Is it putting on a show to attract women? Is it putting on a show to intimidate women? Is it having only male friends? Is it having no male friends? Is it hunting animals to feed your family? Is it working your way up a corporate ladder to earn a 7-figure salary? Is it playing catch with your kids and talking with them about their lives? Is it beating your kids and demanding they follow your commands? Is it sexually satisfying women? Is it sexually satisfying yourself?
Is it saying, “let's rock and roll” every time you leave the house?
What do you do if you spent 25? 30? 50 years saying, “I am a man,” but you have a nagging feeling that isn't quite accurate? Sure, maybe in a transgender sense, but maybe just in a dissonance between your actions and those of other men. Do you need to redefine man? Do you need to invent a new label—you are a metrosexual? A sigma male?
Isn't it easier to start with what you like to do and go from there?
In conclusion:
I like biking; and rock climbing; and dancing; and playing Team Fortress 2; and playing Animal Crossing; and being able to lift heavy things; and painting my nails; and wearing heels; and being emotionally stoic in intense situations; and hugging my friends and telling them I love them; and flirting with men in an achillean way; and flirting with women in a sapphic way; and making hamentashen, latkes, and matzo brei; and eating bacon; and eating garbage plates, shopping at Wegmans, and going to The Strong; and riding the T; and eating anywhere but Dunkin'; and speaking in favor of some of Barack Obama's policy decisions; and speaking against some of Barack Obama's policy decisions. Am I a man? A Jew? A Rochesterian? A Bostonian? A Democrat? Until someone says I need to decide, I generally don't care.
Labels are convenient shorthand. Again, much easier to say “triangle” than, “that shape that has 3 sides and 3 corners.” And this sort of simplification is fine and reasonable in casual contexts—yes, your dog is a good boy.
But especially with sensitive topics, and especially on the Internet, that extra precision can go a long way. So when tempers flare and nuance matters, swap some nouns for some verbs.