The Power of Labelling: How People Are Categorized and Why It Matters by Joy Moncrieffe; Rosalind Eyben

Author:Joy Moncrieffe; Rosalind Eyben
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: &NEW, Civil Law, Psychology, Social Interaction, Stereotypes (Social Psychology), Cultural, General, Anthropology, Interpersonal Relations, Social perception, Discrimination, Law, Discrimination & Race Relations, Social Science
ISBN: 9781844073955
Publisher: EarthScan
Published: 2007-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Poverty as a Spectator Sport 101

Figure 6.1 The knife-grinder 17

Friend of Humanity: ‘Needy Knife-grinder! Whither are you going? Rough is the road, your Wheel is out of order. Bleak blows the blast; your hat has got a hole in’t, So have your breeches! Weary Knife-grinder! Little think the proud ones, Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike-road, what hard work ‘tis crying all day “Knives and Scissors to grind O!”

Tell me, Knife-grinder, how came you to grind knives? Did some rich man tyrannically use you? Was it the Squire? Or Parson of the Parish? Or the Attorney? Was it the Squire for killing of his Game? Or Covetous Parson for his Tythes distraining? Or roguish Lawyer made you lose your little All in a law-suit? (Have you not read the Rights of Man, by Tom Paine?) Drops of compassion tremble on my eye-lids, Ready to fall, as soon as you have told your pitiful story.’

Knife-grinder: ‘Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, Sir. Only last night a-drinking at the Chequers, This poor old Hat and Breeches, as you see, were Torn in a scuffle.

Constables came up for to take me into Custody: they took me before the Justice. Justice Oldmixon put me in the Parish Stocks for a Vagrant. I should be glad to drink your Honour’s health in A Pot of Beer, if you would give me Sixpence; But for my part, I never love to meddle With Politics, Sir.’

102 The Power of Labelling

Friend of Humanity: ‘I give thee Sixpence! I will see thee damn’d first. Wretch! Whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance. Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded, Spiritless outcast!’ (Kicks the Knife-grinder, overturns his Whell, and exit in a transport of republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy.)

This parody is valuable not only because it attacks the comfortable romantic imaginations (or labelling) of the poor and the consequent hypocrisies inherent in that position, but also because it represents the divergences of view about the label ‘poverty’ itself18 – divergences that have continued to the present day – and because it suggests that the label of poverty may be entirely uninteresting to the knife-grinder himself, even though he may be doing a variety of things to ensure the quality of his life.19

Labels are valid principally for the creator

As Kant so clearly identified, the validity of labels is never with reference to some possible external ‘truth’ since the labels are a creation of human beings – so the validity can only be for the creators of the labels and to their utility in categorizing actions in a manner satisfactory to the creators. It is commonplace to say that the ‘terrorist’ for one person may be the ‘freedom fighter’ of the other. And since people of different environments, backgrounds and education will see the same picture in different ways it is quite clear that the different labels they bring may only be reconciled with one another by mutual interest. This therefore also means that there is much scope

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