Actually, not true.
If you can run a mile in 4 minutes 8 seconds, and I can run it in 4 minutes 32 seconds, it's not "just another damn Label" to say that you are faster than I am at running the mile. It's just a fact. It's not necessarily true to say generically that you are faster than I am, because I may be faster than you at other distances. But to say that you are faster than me at running a mile is a fact, not a label. Of course it may change -- I may practice and get down to under your time, or you may get slower. But at a given point in time, it was a simple fact.
Similarly, if person A was measured with an IQ of 138 by so-and-so test and person B was measured with an IQ of 889 by the same test, it's simple fact that to say at that time, but the measure of that test, A is smarter than B. Not a label, just a fact.
The question is what we do with the information. In the former case, you make the track team and I don't, and nobody complains that I have been discriminated against because of my race or sex or whatever. But to use that to give you a job over me, when the job has nothing to do with running speed, may be wrong.
What bothers me is closing our eyes to facts because some people may abuse them. That has gotten mankind into a lot of troubles in the past, and will in the future if we don't learn. |
