Labeling fellow humans 'anti-vaxxers' and 'conspiracy theorists' is the new McCarthyism (although the gross falsehood around Russiagate pretty much takes the cake itself). We are entering into precarious times of division games being orchestrated by oligarchic media and AI algorithms in social media commons that are anything but. Rather many of these digital spheres are intended to rip society apart and are doing a darn good job of it lately, as our empathy is terribly eroded and our emotions relentlessly provoked by manipulative social engineering via sensationalist 'media' masquerading as journalism. There is a morbid fascination with righteousness that I know only too well and it's sinking the best of ourselves.
Do away with labels. Welcome another's multifarious humanity into the realm of your awareness. Be open to acknowledging and accepting their nuances and seeing them as a collection of diverse perspectives, all with stories elaborating the roots and branching of their beliefs and behaviours.
Labels are grossly dehumanizing but their convenience often far outweighs our desire for fairness. Know that we have all been conditioned to be narcissistic, each and everyone one of us, and we are liable to defend and project our beliefs irrationally even in the face of clear erroneousness. Know then that berating with labels, disrespect and ad hominem attacks doesn't offer space for a potential noble transformation but provokes hardened shells to armour more. Why then do we participate in such actions? Is our true motive to co-create a mutual truth and even gently persuade someone to something better or are we just lusty to be righter; lusty to sit in the high chair? We have been more conditioned to battle and for war then to love. This is one of the great tragedies of modernity...
There is so much more beyond labels; a world of being. I have witnessed the most stubborn, arrogant and detestable be softened and swayed to at least admitting their willingness to learn something novel by excuding a warrior kind of kindness; resilient, nimble and perpetually patient before the most provocative of barbs. I have opened armour as a flower opens to the nurturance of water, when it is safe and even sacred to do so.
There is another way, many more. Let go of labels and sit, wonder and contemplate on our motivation to use them in the first place. Face that morbidity that would rather hate in the ease of reactivity rather than love in the challenging journey of transformation. It takes high skill to love those who might even seem our enemies. So difficult that it is largely misunderstood, belittled as callow naivete. But to those who know through experience, who have wielded love's enigmatic alchemical force, love is all powerful.
Let us go on an adventure now and tell the endless story of love's magnificence. Let love be embodied and expressed in ruthless abundance; an imperial force of compassion and affection that will dominate all ill will with sweet nectar of connectivity. Admit humbly that we have hardly expressed nor embodied even an iota of love's true potential. Let the story moving onward be of when humanity, in the dark night of its soul, discovered the indomitable, magnanimous and infinite powers of love. So profound is this discovery, so captivating that it ushered in a whole new world of unimaginable beauty and geniust; the living truth of a long held secret dream in the hearts of all.
All that I'm saying is give love a chance...