A recent conversation about what constitutes a naturist among some nude bloggers and tweeters spurred this post. The question is not new nor is the practice of attaching labels to various practices or persons to be able to quickly determine whether they are friend or foe. The thing is in today's social environment labels are becoming less and less useful.
When we all lived in small towns and other closed environments labels were effective ways to create social order and communicate the parameters of that order. When people knew each other and had an agreed upon set of norms and others things that created meaning in social intersection labels were very helpful. They helped us developed a shared understanding and know the social boundaries. Now time in a time of global interaction in cyber space I don't think labels are as useful. That doesn't mean we don't need or should not use words to define things. It means that over time the meaning of words get up for grabs. We should not assume the meaning a word carried in the past is the same meaning it carries today. Take for instance the word gay. There was a time when that word had nothing to do with a person's sexual orientation. It meant being happy, joyful or care free. Today the word cannot be used with out attachment to that subject. The meaning of the word has changed and people who use the word with the old meaning will find themselves completely out of step socially.
