I have decided to make my previous post, Labels - The Modern Demon Attacks The Past into a series. I am going to explore over a series of posts about the meaning of the label, the impact of the label and should they exist?
Monday, 30 March 2015
Tuesday, 10 March 2015
Labels - The Modern Demon Attacks The Past
Labels. We all use them in everyday life whether it may be because they label objects or we label people. How many labels do you have? Your gender is a label, your ethnicity is a label and even disabled people have a label, educationally also known as Special Educational Need (SEN). It could be argued that labels are harmless, but is this necessarily true. Labels are such a predominant part of society we don't realise we use them to create categories for everything even people in the past we has a label that had a very different meaning.
I tell you this, because when I watch The Imitation Game several times over, it still frustrates me that they say Alan Turing was autistic. Autism did exist at the time of Alan Turing's life but the research highlights that there was very little connection to autism being a social, emotional and behavioural issue but it was linked to schizophrenia. The evidence suggests that even though Alan Turing may have shown what we now consider to be autistic traits may not necessarily mean that it is truly correct. This has all stemmed through the way in which the media say Turing was autistic. I believe that portraying some traits does not call for a label, it calls to dig deeper for reasoning. I found a man who lost his great true love at age 14, so decided to honour his love's memory by working towards a bigger goal and making him proud.
This shows that labels are an overpowering cloud of personal judgement, due to the way in which the classification system of society becoming the dominant way of understanding people. This is not fair, even though the labels describe who we are, they are not the pinnacle we are individuals with emotion and love. So, the next time you look back to admirable, brave and intelligent people of the past, do not make them a product of today's unfortunate calculations.
I tell you this, because when I watch The Imitation Game several times over, it still frustrates me that they say Alan Turing was autistic. Autism did exist at the time of Alan Turing's life but the research highlights that there was very little connection to autism being a social, emotional and behavioural issue but it was linked to schizophrenia. The evidence suggests that even though Alan Turing may have shown what we now consider to be autistic traits may not necessarily mean that it is truly correct. This has all stemmed through the way in which the media say Turing was autistic. I believe that portraying some traits does not call for a label, it calls to dig deeper for reasoning. I found a man who lost his great true love at age 14, so decided to honour his love's memory by working towards a bigger goal and making him proud.
This shows that labels are an overpowering cloud of personal judgement, due to the way in which the classification system of society becoming the dominant way of understanding people. This is not fair, even though the labels describe who we are, they are not the pinnacle we are individuals with emotion and love. So, the next time you look back to admirable, brave and intelligent people of the past, do not make them a product of today's unfortunate calculations.
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