I will admit that once upon a time (about six months ago) my facebook political views said, "Socialist." I got a lot of backlash at school for posting such a horrible, horrible thing on my facebook page. Didn't I know that communism just doesn't work?! We've all read the chapter on Marx, so there's no need to go into a discussion about true communism here, so back to the point. I defended my decision to post that political ideology by saying that I had been driven to extremes by the staunch conservative/capitalist attitudes around me. This would imply that I was an extremist for being a socialist, which is false. I see no extremism in challenging the capitalism that has failed us time and time again. I made an excuse so that people wouldn't label me as some crazy Marxist, but wasn't that exactly what I was? If I'm crazy for believing in a little bit of economic equality then so be it. I think that we need to stop looking at socialism as the enemy here. I find it laughable that we are still influenced by the propaganda of the Cold War and the Red Scare. We should all be able to embrace whatever social/political ideology that we truly believe in.
Professor Johnson pointed out that labels strongly effect the way that we see someone before we ever really look at them. I can think of many times that I have formed opinions on people due to the way that others described them. Unfortunately, the words that people use carry connotations that none of us can avoid, no matter how good of a person that we are.
My question is: Do you ever think there will be a time that labels will no longer matter?
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Hey Hallie. I commented on this post in my blog just so you know. :)
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