At the end of the day the deeds define the word, not the other way around. Not everyone will use the word correctly or appropriately. It’s why only you yourself can truly categorize as such, but at that point you must come to terms with what that means, positively or negatively.
The bias thing is a real problem, but also sometimes not. It all depends on the context. Some people with unreasonable opinions will absolutely waste your time by never accepting difficult realities and talking around it, so identifying a mindset that’s immune to self reflection can be useful. But similarly if a label is all that’s needed to dismiss an opinion also is not very reasonable. But it’s how some people operate. So sometimes not standing behind a label can be more fruitful as not to entice those presuppositions.
There is another problem. People use slurs to derail the discussions. Calling people “libs” or “tankies” left, right and center removes focus from whatever is discussed and make people crawl into their foxholes. It is an easy way to devalue people’s opinions or simply derail discussions. I think I will keep on questioning when people use the word “tankie”, because once the word is on the table, the discussion has already been derailed one way or another. And maybe one day it will lead to better discourse.
At the end of the day the deeds define the word, not the other way around. Not everyone will use the word correctly or appropriately. It’s why only you yourself can truly categorize as such, but at that point you must come to terms with what that means, positively or negatively.
The bias thing is a real problem, but also sometimes not. It all depends on the context. Some people with unreasonable opinions will absolutely waste your time by never accepting difficult realities and talking around it, so identifying a mindset that’s immune to self reflection can be useful. But similarly if a label is all that’s needed to dismiss an opinion also is not very reasonable. But it’s how some people operate. So sometimes not standing behind a label can be more fruitful as not to entice those presuppositions.
There is another problem. People use slurs to derail the discussions. Calling people “libs” or “tankies” left, right and center removes focus from whatever is discussed and make people crawl into their foxholes. It is an easy way to devalue people’s opinions or simply derail discussions. I think I will keep on questioning when people use the word “tankie”, because once the word is on the table, the discussion has already been derailed one way or another. And maybe one day it will lead to better discourse.