“Labels are a necessity to the organization of knowledge, but they also constrain our understanding.” Discuss this statement with reference to 2 AOKs.
As a society, we have become entrenched in labels and we have associated our entire world with descriptive or identifying words or phrases. Labels provide order to a chaotic world by arranging all the knowledge we have using certain schemas and categories. We live in a knowledge society, and play our part to work out the best modalities, to facilitate sound organisation of knowledge using patterns. Constraints refer to limitations to a knower which prevents acceptance of a rationally justifiable claim which may be conflicting with the existing perspectives. These restrictions affect the ability of knowers to fully grasp any knowledge because before even understanding a concept they become prisoners of self definition of the label.
In The Arts, labels help in identifying the class of an art piece which depends on its quality measured in terms of genres, intent of the artist, difficulty in creating an art work or acceptance by audiences. Similarity in Human Sciences labels are associated with the quality of data used to produce new knowledge collected by questionnaire, surveys, anecdotal records. The qualitative and quantitative data is used statistically to make the knowledge more objective so that it has ready acceptance by the community of knowers. Labels depict the associated ideas and emotional connections which further adds to the existing perception.
Labels in the arts can be generalized and shape the reader or viewer’s perspective, making it reductive. In literary art novel associated labels act as a signpost to give potential readers an idea of the subject matter a book deals with, they also prevent certain individuals from reading the novel. Pride and Prejudice for instance, has been considered as ‘classic’ but some of my peers consider it to be fitting more with it being a ‘chick-lit’ as for them the label ‘chick-lit’ implies that the book is exclusively femanine, as it lacks an element of ‘enduring influence’ on the readers. This differing perspective about novels is the result of the changing mindset of society where now females generally enjoy equal social status. Another example of visual art would be the “Fountain” by Marcel Duchamp, a French artist from the earlier 20th century who used a “male urinal” as sculpture by naming it as “Fountain”. The intention of the artist changed the focus of household objects to art due to intellectual interpretation. His contribution was significant in the ‘Dada Movement’ and he is considered the father of ‘conceptual art’. By using the label ‘Fountain’, the sculpture can be perceived as art because the audience has been invited to look at it in a gallery, thus the gallery acted as authority to influence the minds of audiences in accepting a novel idea. Thus labels may or may not constrain the knowledge of audiences in ‘The Arts’ depending on their sense perception making its effect subjective.
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