I was just talking to a friend this afternoon.... he's from Nepal and we were talking about how labelling him "brother" keeps those beautiful Nepalese girls away from him. In Nepal, the term brother or sister is very sacred and once used.. you cannot court the girl because you are her brother. So things remain clear of the relationship between the girl and the guy. He laments that too many girls call him brother in Nepal. Haha....
But I was pondering... wow.... what power words can give. Which is true. We have no romantic affections and feelings for our siblings and cousins because it is a huge taboo if we do. We can actually will ourselves to fall in love with people. Strange. And if we rationalise, we can also will ourselves to stop loving people in a certain manner. I wonder how does the process of falling in love go about. Is it really involuntary and just hits you like cupid's blind arrow? Or your brain goes through mind games, subconsciously telling you that he/she is eligible, and entices you to go deeper and deeper with your fantasitc imagination.....
The magic word between brother and lover. HA... Sounds like some Korean drama. Once there is a clear cut information that the relationship with a person is actually brother rather than lover, your views and mannerisms treating the person as lover is immediately removed from its root and totally changes with a whole new mindset of "brother". Even thinking of having romantic notions with this brother seems incestrous and unimaginable. Eek.
Such is the power of the mind, and the power of social norms... Weber talks about the power of ascribing meaning to symbols. and once meaning is ascribed to it, the roles it play, and how others play around it comes alive. You are socialised only to see things as is ascribed to it. It is far fetched, obnoxious to think otherwise.
This power of labelling of course goes far beyond relationships. It applies to labelling people and things. Say a group calls you stupid. Soon it becomes a social norm that people thinks that you are stupid. And when you accept the label stupid that people call you and you internalise it within yourself, you will believe, and suscribe to the role of a stupid person. Then stupidity becomes you.
So what can I learn from this? I have to be wary of resigning to my fate. If people think I am silly or something, all the more I have to prove them wrong... if not I will really become silly. And another thing I learnt- labels can really affect people and relationships powerfully.
