Human beings love to find patterns and to label things. We do it obsessively, compulsively and without thinking about it. It’s an instinct that we have evolved (again without thinking, of course) over perhaps a million years; or if you prefer it has been gifted to us by your God of choice. The bottom line is that it has been helpful to us as a species to identify objects and their properties and to categorise them as we see fit. But what may be useful in some settings, say out in the wild whilst hunting or gathering, may not be so useful when the outcomes are not the continuing supply of nutritious, non-poisonous food for the tribe but simply a set of boxes into which we put ourselves, labels affixed on top.
Labels are pervasive things. When applied to our food supply it’s all good and useful: these fruits and vegetables are safe to eat, and these are more nutritious. These are sweet and give you a lift, these are bitter and may bite, but in a good way. These are hot and spicy, those are not. On the surface it’s a simple yes/no game: can we eat that safely, or will it make us sick? But humans delve deeper and categorise food not only by safety but by taste, abundance, locality, season and usefulness. Some foods may be good together, others may be useful as a medicine. Some may be applied topically to heal. Some may preserve. And so on. The depth of categorisation is seemingly limitless, and in our modern lives extends to caloric value, percentage of fat and the breakdown by constituent vitamins and minerals. Whilst this depth of analysis may go overboard at times and be largely ignored in its detail we feel compelled to offer the information anyway, just in case it’s useful. You may be watching your fat intake, or have an allergy or intolerance to certain foods, for example.
No matter the depth of detail it carries no particular weight or consequence beyond your own personal needs or wants. You take your pick, it’s a choice. The only apparent harm that may come from this degree of information overload may be your confusion in the supermarket aisle. Or so you may think. In fact there is harm lurking even here. There is a bias that inevitably arises when some information is emphasised over other facts. Like a fruit that ripens bright red to stand out and attract “customers” who may act as seed dispersers, so may the goods on the supermarket stores attract or discourage purchase in various ways. Cigarettes are for example often labelled by law to inform and discourage use, and standards are applied to all goods to allow valid comparison by the presentation of useful information in a standard way.
However there is always a “spin” to this information. Low-fat, no-fat, low absolute fat, low percentage fat, added this and that, low salt – you name it. Often it’s what is not stated that is truly pertinent, and the faddish or convenient is emphasised. Thus we find ourselves drawn to foods with poorer nutritional balance but greater ease or speed of preparation, despite the “facts” . And when we recognise the bias and the harm in this twist, what do humans do? We seek to address it with yet more labels. Thus we have fresh food, organic food, fast food, junk food, good food and of course plain old bad food. And again each label gets a definition, a spin, and a popular meaning that may or may not be based on some reality. The harm here is not just the confusion in our minds but the constantly shifting persuasion and emphasis that undermines our innately good intentions.
We are told to discriminate against “bad” food, such that we feel bad if we eat “bad” or “fast” or “fatty” food. We are somehow, by design or by accident, led to believe that certain types of food are to be preferred, even if they don’t appeal to us. And psychologicaly we bear the pain. When we “give in” and eat bad food, we must be bad people. That’s a gross exaggeration, of course. It’s way more subtle – generally. Salt is a case in point. We need salt in our diets but once it is labelled it becomes a target. If it’s sold to us as a good thing then we sprinkle it liberally; however if it’s linked to hypertension (as it is) then the label turns against it and we – or at least some of us – try to rid our diet of this evil. Even to the point where we become salt-deficient.
Or take another example – water. We have become “educated” to distinguish between tap water, fresh water, spring water, mineral water, filtered water and bottled water. Each label has perceptions tied to it, and we even manage to label the good and bad things that come with each “type” of water. The harm here is that perfectly “good” water, the type we need to drink and which runs freely from our taps, is “persecuted” by some people for a quality that may or may not exist, be it taste, additives, impurities or whatever. We may not see this as harmful, rather we may see it as helpful, but each of these labels carries costs, be they hidden or not. It may be the cost of bottling and transporting the mineral or “pure” water, both the pure monetary cost to the consumer and the allied waste of our diminishing resources; or the loss of important minerals from your drinking water due to the removal of “impurities” and subsequent dietary deficiencies and resulting health costs. When you choose to believe a label and begin to select against something else you are doing so in light of (a)perceived difference and (b)perceived advantage. Now these may very well be real advantages – less salt may be good for those with hypertension, and bottled water may be safer than local tap water in some places. But the universality of labelling and the trust that is built into the concept often means that we accept the label at face value, rather than performing our own analysis. This made sense when a poison berry may kill you, but when bottled water is perceived as “better” because its bottled, well Houston we have a problem.
This is the nature of discrimination. And it starts with identifying the features that we can most easily label, and working progressively and compulsively through every option available to us, until all categories and levels are covered. It’s not just food, or stamp collecting for that matter. We do it to ourselves. So what’s the harm in labelling human “generations”? Do I have to spell it out for you?
