Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is indeed an intereseting and quite a solid theory/model/study and is remotely related to this topic but not really. It is about human’s growth potential as they satisfy hierarchy of needs while the post was about people’s ways of using labels are causing harms to each other.

It is not that label is wrong per se, nor the fact that people should all be the same. The beauty of this world lies in differences and imperfection. The thing I am most mad at is the use of label to justify themselves, to alienate others, or to demote others. That is what leads to in-acceptance and the inability to see things in wide perspective, or as you said, both ways.

It is not my intention to force others to accept my opinion. I actually believe everyone is already doing the best they can every single day because they are. I write here, sometimes in too serious of a tone I suppose, not to be right or call others wrong but to say things for myself and others to think about.

We must all think for ourselves.

example : “fat, glasses, squared shirt… He’s a complete no-life geek !!!”

But still, that shouldn’t stop you from at least making contact with this person (if that was the original idea, I don’t mean you have to try talking to every single person you meet, that’s just impossible), for a whole bunch of reasons :

- Never judge a book by its cover
- You might like what you find under the cover
- If you don’t, the person can still be interesting, though not your type (intellectually, not talking physical here)
- etc… you get the picture

Agreed, that’s easier said than done, and the common behavior is :

“This guy/girl is totally not like me… I’ll avoid him/her because he/she is SO lame.”

And agreed, that’s a shame. But see it on the lighter, less dramatic side. Labels are like key-words in Google (geek label for me :P ), they help you get an overview of who you’re dealing with, and that’s helpful for instance when you need a specific service.

“This guy is a bit of a geek and my laptop broke down, I’ll go see if he can fix it for me”

or

“Shit, I can’t get this stupid door open because the hinges are rusty and half-broken, I’ll ask the quarterback from the football team to help me out”

And that works also without the service part, you just have to be a minimum open-minded. In my opinion, what you’re mad at are first impression labels, which you probably use too (I’d have doubt if you said you were completely first-impression-free) and most of all, people who stick to those first impression labels. These specific labels need to be dealt with differently, they must have a sort of removable/editable property on very short term, because as I said above, a first impression can be 100% wrong and that’s just a plain fact. And true, lots of people stick to a first impression so bad that it offenses/hurts others, and agreed that sucks.

But still, legit labels are ok, they help you confirm you belong to a specific group (doesn’t have to be a closed group mind you) and the need of belonging to a group is lower on Maslow’s pyramid than of esteem or self-actualization, which in my opinion is what this issue is about ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs ), at least from your point of view (I may be wrong, and I may be expressing myself really incomprehensibly, so you might not get where I’m going here).

Yes, labels separate people, but then again everyone is different from everyone else, so originally everyone is separated from the start. the way I see it, groups unite people with a common spec/interest/goal/whatever, and for instance when you’re in a tennis group it doesn’t mean you can’t also be in basketball or swimming group. That doesn’t apply once you see it from a political or religious point of view when it comes to belonging (kinda hard to be left-wing AND right-wing…), but that doesn’t mean you can’t accept others, I’m sure you have friends from tons of countries in the world, with tons of religious views and political opinions, and you’re still friends, right ? You can see things both ways, like in most issues (disputable). Don’t you think ?