“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

It is Flag Day as I write this and I am thinking about identity. What is it? What is yours? What is mine? These are human questions and in some ways uniquely Canadian questions as well. What is the Canadian identity? Whatever the answer it has eluded us since Confederation.

I raise these questions because increasingly it seems to me that the question of identity is getting smaller and smaller to the point where it is losing the very thing it seeks – freedom and uniqueness.

Let me explain – a giant California redwood is a beautiful majestic tree. The closer we get however the more likely we are to lose sight of the big picture. If one takes the atomic components that make up a redwood and smashes them in a particle accelerator to their constituent sub-atomic parts we get something profound in its simplicity but we have lost the unique majesty of the whole.

In our continuing search for identity we spend millions of dollars annually on name brand products like Aeropostale or Hollister which, in the inevitable twist of irony, make us like millions of other consumers. The reverse is also true as certain other “rebels” seek to create a brandless image only to look like so many other “consumer rebels” and the cycle ever continues and narrows.

One penchant we have as identity seekers is the rabid hunt for the label (almost as if it were literally stitched to the back of our necks). Nice neat, increasingly smaller boxes that separate us from the crowd: “I am a (FILL IN THE BLANK)” or increasingly: “You are a (FILL IN THE BLANK)”.

The problem with creating boxes in our search for identity is that boxes have a way of halting growth. Boxes and labels are static while we, as humans, as not…we are always in motion, always changing, always learning, always growing. A box/label tends to limit, halt and sometimes even reverse growth.

This is unfortunate because limiting growth often limits potential – and humans have nearly limitless potential.

Another problem is that labels and boxes are often couched in the form of increasingly clever, over-descriptive language. Words. Words are political – always. Assigning certain labels is always inherently fraught with a taking of power. Some labels are created purely to dehumanize and this has historically led to some brutal atrocities – see the Third Reich or Stalin-era Russia for more details.

The removal of a label or brand can be an exceptionally good thing as when the label of slave is slowly removed and the proper designation of human being is accepted. This is a taking of power in the right sense and direction.

What I am referring to is a labelling that has become so microscopic that all sense of uniqueness and beauty is lost and the label becomes a binding chain.

Labels, when employed, need to be employed cautiously and with an awareness of these things. Anyone seeking to employ labels and brands on humans should be extremely cautious when doing so – especially with children.

The greatest period of change and confusion in a person’s life is childhood through adolescence. These years from zero to 20 (to put it broadly) are critical to what we come to believe is our sense of value and self, and creating categories/boxes/labels for the youngest of us runs the risk of doing the opposite of what well-meaning people may be attempting – becoming a concrete sarcophagus entombing a person rather than freeing them.

No matter who you are, who you think you are or who you have been told you are there is one thing that is absolutely certain – you are a human being with all the dignity that should entail…maybe that is the only identity we need to defend in the end.