I’m always concerned about the overuse of labels. Far too often, the use of a label, to describe a person, or concept or whatever, is a substitute for thinking. Labels are simply too easy to use and sometimes misleading.

To label someone a “liberal” or “conservative” is to avoid thinking about who they are or what they believe. Once a student is labeled as having a “learning disability” it is easy to make assumptions about what he or she is capable of learning.

The label of two recent federal laws as “The Patriot Act” and “No Child Left Behind” stifles debate on the subjects. Who wants to be thought of as “unpatriotic” for questioning the Patriot Act. Does questioning No Child Left Behind mean that you are in favor of leaving some children behind?

Labels are particularly risky in foreign policy. How we view an armed conflict elsewhere in the world may depend upon how we label the participants. Those so engaged may be thought of as “communists”, “anticommunists”, “rebels”, “nationalists”, “anti-colonials”, “freedom fighters”, “revolutionaries” or “terrorists”.

The problem is that people are motivated to participate in an armed struggle for a variety of reasons, and typically no one label can accurately describe them.

This leads to the label ”insurgents” to describe those people fighting against Americans in Iraq. I’m not sure what this label means, or how it came to describe those fighters in Iraq.

I will try to explore the word, and how it came to be used, in a future Café. I will also explore other misleading labels. If any of you have any ideas in the meantime, please let me know.