Life After Labels

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When I was young, I needed to know where you stood.

I had to know your political ideology, which (marginalized and privileged) identities you carried, and what you called your philosophy of life and/or religion. I convinced myself that labeling — granular, unambiguous, broken down into an endlessly-precise fractal — was the method of understanding the world. It would let me get a handle on what was happening, force it to make some…