Identity and identifiers

I am nitpicking? There is no difference between identity and identifiers? YOU are the reason why people think that an attractive label is enough to sell a product. After all, if the identifier - the label - is good, you will assume that the identity - the product - is also good.

Ah, so YOU are not that sort of person? Too clued in to be taken in by labels? Good for you. Ever had a nickname at school or college? More often than not they tend to be derogatory, though quite rarely they may be complimentary too. Those pesky nicknames...except where they were initials or shortened forms of your own name, which is only for convenience...the nicknames, as I was saying, tend to pick on something that people consider your identifier - caste, a physical peculiarity, whatever - and, invariably, THAT identifier was picked because it could be used to make fun of you. Children, those pure souls, are that way, only. NOW, can you say that you have never assessed another person's abilities based on what the nickname made you think of him?

You see, these identifiers are not innocuous - they have identities of their own. You create a nickname that makes fun of the other guy...sooner or later, you start looking on him as a figure of fun. Identifiers are dangerous that way. You see someone as Babar Azam, then you MAY see him as a likable, friendly, talented, ambitious young man; you see him as a 'Pakistani'...oh, well! When you allow identifiers to stand in for the identity of the other person (OR for yourself)...

But, then, as I have had occasion to say before, who has the time, energy and ability to assess other people. Far easier to read those labels and assume who or what they are...

Cannot spend all day on ONE tweet, now, can we?