Ideological Labeling and Common Sense

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People love to put things in categories. Maybe categorization provides some type of comfort to the mind to file and categorize things.

Take music for example. There is not just plain “music” … it has to be Rock, Pop, Classical, Country and so on. Even under those categories there are sub categories. This may just be an aid to allow us to find what we like and avoid being exposed to what we have found to be unlikeable in our past experience.

When it comes to the political, that is where things get ticklish. While well defined categories seem to exist, people tend to cross over many of these categories.

Perhaps there is a component of the “labeling theory” at play. However, history proves that ideologies change their labels in order to avoid stigmas or to redefine itself into something acceptable where it was not acceptable in the past. This is very true with communism for example. However, a tree is known by the fruit it bears, not for the fact it is a plant that bears leaves with a trunk and branches.

Labels are also hijacked by other ideologies. Like a wolf in sheep clothing, negative ideologies can take on a label to become more acceptable. But it is the fruit it bears – the end result – that matters and not the label itself.

No other political identification has gone through so many different changes as the claim of being “liberal”. Today, those who bear the fruit of the “classical liberal” have been forced to change their label to “libertarian” because socialism has hijacked the term liberal. A simple test of the end result and goals of any group is more apt to reveal what it is rather than the label on the box. Even the term “conservative” is in a confused state in the present day.

You can call an orange a banana – but it is still an orange. You can call communism something else also but it still has the same failed results.

Can freedom be called something other than freedom? Can responsibility become something other than “being” responsible? Can true freedom exist devoid of an equal measure of responsibility?

Can we put a bird in a cage and claim the bird is free because it can fly anywhere it wishes inside the cage?

Common sense demands that we look beyond mere labels. Can we be so wreckless as to take a stranger’s word just because they are well groomed, smile and speak well?

One person’s fun is another person’s agony.

Medicine can become poison. Poison can become medicine. Yet – sin and addiction is a terrible master. Can we truly choose to be a slave or a master?

It is not a question of the label on the substance, but the substance behind the label. It is also the application. Use or misuse.

If responsibility is an equal component to freedom, do free people need to be protected from themselves? As Cicero wrote “more laws equal less justice”.

Common sense is a true measure. Yet can it be only relative to a given situation or time? A truly free person who is responsible has no problem knowing where common sense comes into play.

It is wise for us to wait and see. It is best to weigh and measure before committing ourselves. This is a true definition of the use of common sense.

Common sense is something that must be applied to function properly. Common sense is patient. It waits for the full story to be told. It weighs and seeks balance. It does not jump to conclusion.

As an unknown tree first sprouts you cannot tell what it will become. You may anticipate the fruit it will bear and make a best guess. You then can see signs of what it may be as it grows such as the pattern in its leaves and then can know by past experience what you can expect. But you cannot be sure until it bears its fruit to know for certain. However, the signs along the way are proof to what your results will be.

Common sense is interpreting the signs properly. This comes from experience and wisdom.

But beware of wolves in the clothing of a sheep! Some mistakes are more expensive than others.

Some people learn by listening to wisdom. Some learn by experience. Some learn through pain. Yet there are some who will never learn.

This brings me to an excellent example of labeling and common sense from an early 1960s broadcast of “Open Mind”. Today there seems to be many opinions about what path our great nation should take without regard to past truths or common sense.

At first, labeling is attempted, but common sense comes forth –

Use common sense. Wait. Measure. Consider all. Draw upon wisdom of experience. If not from your own experience then draw from the experience of those who have already traveled where you wish to go.

Remember these words from Socrates:

“Youth is so easy to fool because it is so quick to embrace”.

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Category: Tony Rollo Blog