🌐 Unraveling 'Incompatibility': The Depths of 'Diversity' and 'Labeling' That Shake Your Common Sense

[Introduction] Why Can't We Understand Each Other?

❶ The Opening Question

Why do I feel I 'cannot understand' that person's words and actions?

Why does what is 'self-evident' about a certain event not get through to others at all?

And—why does that sometimes create anger and disconnection?

❷ Introductory Lead (Motivation for this essay)

We live surrounded by 'incompatibility' every day.

Misunderstandings at work, conflicts at home, online firestorms.

What lies there may not be a mere difference of opinion, but a 'difference in the very way the world is seen.'

What this book questions is not 'difference' itself.

It is the structure of 'labeling'—how we end up perceiving those differences.

❸ Deepening the Problem: What is Labeling?

Humans are constantly 'naming' things to understand the world.

'That person is such-and-such,' 'This is such-and-such an event.'

It is a cognitive energy-saving device for compressing information and making quick judgments.

However, this labeling unconsciously 'fixes' others and pushes them into a frame of understandability.

In other words, 'naming' sometimes becomes an 'act of stripping away otherness.'

❹ Core Proposition: Diversity is a Difference in Structure

Diversity is not merely a 'difference in attributes.'

It is a 'difference in the very structure that generates meaning.'

And in many cases, we label that structural difference within our own context.

At that moment, 'difference' turns into 'wrongness,'
and 'the other' transforms into a 'foreign object.'

❺ Presenting Hope: Beyond the Violence of Naming

However, 'not naming' does not mean 'abandoning understanding.'

Rather, it is 'listening to what has not yet been named, just as it is.'

That is the first step toward being-with the other.

What this essay aims for is the construction of an intelligence for 'being together' beyond differences.

It is not classification or empathy, but something that appears in a 'posture of enduring the unknown.'

❻ Conclusion of the Introduction: Guidance for the Reader

In the chapters that follow, we will unravel the following questions:

• Why can we not help but 'label'?

• What kind of 'structural difference' is diversity?

• How do named beings 'suffer,' and how can they be 'renamed'?

• And, are 'non-labeling words' or 'resonant silence' possible?

Part 1 | The Birth of Labeling: 'Naming' as a Cognitive Energy-Saving Device

By 'naming others,' we are actually 'stabilizing ourselves.'

And the way the world is seen is governed by that structure of naming.

■ 1.1 Definition of Labeling: Operation as Instant Meaning Compression

❶ Question

'I don't really like that person,' 'Oh, that type.'

What are we doing the moment we say that?

❷ Experience Example

Have you ever judged someone you met for the first time as 'scary' or 'kind' in just a few seconds?

Or have you ever decided, just by seeing one sentence on social media, 'This person is that type'?

❸ Theoretical Background

This is 'labeling.'

It is an instant compression operation to grasp the world as something 'meaningful.'

A cognitive energy-saving device that makes you 'feel like you understand' thousands of pieces of information in an instant.

A 'label' is nothing more than a 'convenient operation' that gives temporary order to a brain that cannot endure the complexity of the world.

❹ Turning Point

The labels we attach daily are not 'truth,' but 'temporary labels for processing cost reduction.'

Yet we treat them as 'definitive meanings'—here lies the structural root where misunderstanding and disconnection are born.

❺ Reader Action

• In your daily life, try asking yourself the following:

'Is this "understanding"? Or is it a "label for processing"?'

• Before 'categorizing' the words and actions of others, let's start practicing keeping an 'open margin.'

■ 1.2 Understanding from Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Psychology: High-Speed Classification for Survival

❶ Question

Why are humans so good at 'instant classification'?

❷ Experience Example

When you first went abroad, do you remember instantly judging the local people as 'scary' or 'friendly'?

That may not be prejudice, but an expression of the brain's 'old habits'.

❸ Theoretical Background

In the process of evolution, humanity has developed brain mechanisms to instantly judge 'friend or foe' and 'safe or dangerous'.

This mechanism is a pattern-processing method called 'schema' or 'heuristic'.

For example, someone who has had the experience that 'a person shouting = dangerous' will automatically react that way in similar situations later.

This 'short-circuiting of reactions' has worked as a brain bypass process advantageous for survival.

❹ Turning Point

The problem is that it is being applied indiscriminately to the complex human relationships of modern society.

In other words, the 'labeling function that should be used selectively' is running wild in every situation.

❺ Reader Action

• When you feel the urge to judge quickly, take a breath and ask yourself the following:

'Is this a "past pattern"? Or is it an understanding of "here and now"?'

• The moment you feel scared or dislike someone, try to focus on it as 'proof that the labeling switch has been turned on'.

■ 1.3 Connection with Ego Structure: Labeling = Self-Stabilization Device

❶ Question

Why do we want to say, 'That person is like that because...'?

Is it for the sake of others, or for yourself?

❷ Experience Example

'He has a lot of pride, doesn't he?'

──Have you ever felt like you became a 'relatively better person' the moment you said that?

❸ Theoretical Background

Labeling is not just about classifying others.

What is more important is the fact that by labeling others, you are stabilizing your own 'contours'.

• 'That person is self-centered' → 'I am considerate'

• 'That person is insensitive' → 'I am sensitive'

Such a 'relative identity' is one of the most basic stabilization devices of our ego.

However, it is also a structure that buys ego stability by depriving others of their freedom of meaning.

❹ Turning Point

The label you applied might actually be a 'tool to stabilize your own position' rather than the 'other person's characteristics'.

And it is not just the other person who is bound by the label, but you yourself.

❺ Reader Action

• The moment you label someone else, ask yourself, 'Why did I choose this word?'

• Observe 'What am I protecting by naming this?'

Part 2 | Inner Diversity and Labeling: Noticing the 'Differences' Within Yourself

Diversity is not something that exists outside.

Rather, the 'other' that is most difficult to understand is the voices within yourself.

■ 2.1 Unconscious Automatic Reactions and Self-Labeling: Fixing Inner Voices

❶ Question

'Because I am this kind of person'──

Is that word truly a word that 'knows yourself'?

❷ Experience Example

For example, after saying 'I am an introverted person' in a self-introduction,
have you ever had the experience of actually arguing more eloquently than anyone else?

The moment you decide 'I am this kind of person,' don't you hear the sound of one possibility closing?

❸ Theoretical Background

We have a desire to bundle our diverse voices—anger, sadness, kindness, sarcasm, reason—into a 'unified personality'.

That is the desire for 'identity'.

But in reality, humans are internally polyphonic beings.

As Bakhtin says, 'the self' is nothing more than an 'intersection of many voices'.

Nevertheless, by applying a label like 'I am a person who is X',
we unconsciously exclude other voices—anger, conflict, weakness, and ambiguity.

❹ Turning Point

In other words, the phrase 'I am this kind of person' is,
often a 'simplification for self-defense',
and has the function of 'self-limitation' rather than 'self-understanding'.

Self-labeling is also a structure that limits the range of the self while pretending to protect its possibilities.

❺ Reader Action

• When you are about to say to yourself, 'I am a person who is X', try rephrasing it like this:

'The current me might just happen to have a tendency toward X'

• Try the 'practice of leaving other voices'—unpleasant voices, opposing voices, weak voices—within you 'without excluding them'.

That is the first step toward coexistence with the 'inner other'.

■ 2.2 Memory as an Editing Device: Labeling Where the Past Creates the Present and the Self

❶ Question

Why does the 'meaning' differ from person to person even though they had the 'same experience'?

And why do we believe in the past as an 'unchangeable story'?

❷ Experience Example

'Because of that failure back then, I am no good'

──Have you ever noticed that every time you feel that way, your memory is labeling 'future possibilities'?

Conversely, have you ever been confused when someone else said, 'That is an amazing experience'?

The discrepancy where what you perceived as a 'setback' was seen as 'growth' in the eyes of others.

❸ Theoretical Background

Memory is not a warehouse that stores past facts.

Rather, it is something where the 'past given meaning' from the current perspective is reconstructed.

• Flashbulb memory: Memories rewritten with strong emotions

• Narrative psychology: The self is constructed by 'told stories'

This 'memory editing device' generates labeling based on the past, such as 'Because I was X back then, I am...'

Furthermore, the problem is that the story becomes 'fixed' and becomes a frame that binds self-perception.

❹ Turning Point

The past is 're-editable material' even after it has been given meaning once.

Nevertheless, we often continue to label ourselves with it as the 'only truth'.

Memory is not the preservation of the past, but merely a dynamic structure of how the current ego is 'renaming' the past.

❺ Reader Action

• Try to remember the 'moment you named' a past experience.

• Example: 'That experience = setback', 'That period = dark history', etc.

• Try to rename it with a different name:

'That might have been a "preparation period"'

'It might not have been "broken", but "went to break it"'

→ The realization that labeling is a replaceable 'syntactic act' becomes the door to self-recovery.

■ 2.3 Resonance of Body and Emotion: Individuality of Genes, Brain, and Hormones and Labeling

❶ Question

'You are an angry person, aren't you'──What are we 'overlooking' the moment we name it that?

❷ Experience Example

Have you ever felt 'scared' or 'emotional' after seeing someone's intense angry reaction?

Or, have you ever had an indescribable sense of discomfort when it was pointed out that you were 'being swayed by emotions' during a period when you were unstable?

❸ Theoretical Background

Human behavior is often dismissed with words like 'personality' or 'temperament'.

But in reality, multiple layers are intertwined there:

• Hormonal response tendencies coded by genes (serotonin/dopamine systems, etc.)

• Brain structure and plasticity (response characteristics of the amygdala and prefrontal cortex)

• Patterning through childhood memories and learning

• The situation one is placed in (environmental stress, presence or absence of a sense of safety)

For example, 'anger' is not just an 'angry personality',
but an 'expression as a result' where the collapse of expectations × sense of threat to the self × hormonal response × bodily memory intersect.

❹ Turning Point

We look at the 'reactions' of others,
and without imagining their 'structure', we just apply a 'label'.

From 'being angry' to 'an angry person'──.

However, that is 'premature meaning-making' due to ignorance of the structure.

Applying a label without understanding the resonance structure of the body and mind can become violence that forces complex life reactions into a 'mere personality'.

❺ Reader Action

• When you see someone's strong emotional reaction, try asking again:
'Isn't this something that happened structurally?'

• Regarding your own anger or frustration,
try reflecting on it by asking, 'Did I "get angry", or did I "have no choice but to get angry"?'

■ 2.4 Variation in the Sensory World: The Spectrum of Five Senses and Empathy and the Limits of Labeling

❶ Question

"Why does that person care so much?"

Is that "hypersensitivity," or is it a "delicate sensor"?

❷ Experience Examples

• Have you ever felt intense fatigue when you were the only one in a noisy space at a drinking party?

• Conversely, have you ever blamed yourself for being "difficult" because you are overly sensitive to people's subtle gestures or tone of voice?

❸ Theoretical Background

Human "five senses" and "emotional sensors" are not constant.

There is a spectrum (continuum) for each of the following:

• HSP (Highly Sensitive Person): Deep processing of stimuli and fatigue

• Synesthesia: Perceptual characteristics where sound and color are linked

• Learning styles: Diverse information processing tendencies such as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic

• Individual differences in empathy: Ease of emotional mirroring

However, there are many situations where these sensory characteristics are belittled with "normative" labels such as:
"Thinking too much," "not reading the room," or "being too particular."

❹ Turning Point

Instead of evaluating others' "reactions,"
when we look at the "differences in the perceptual world" behind them,
we can finally get closer to "what that person is seeing."

Labeling is also a device that replaces "gaps in meaning" with "gaps in personality."

❺ Reader Action

• Try re-questioning the "discomfort" you feel toward someone you don't get along with like this:

"Isn't this person just having a 'sensory structure different from mine'?"

• Try to keep some space regarding your own "reactions" by considering that they might be "characteristics" rather than "abnormalities."

Part 3 | Diversity and Labeling Between Others: To Whom Does 'Common Sense' Belong?

It is not that others cannot be understood.

It may be that I have "already assigned meaning" to others based on my own "common sense."

■ 3.1 'Common Sense' and Labeling Created by Upbringing and Environment: Culture, Language, and Family Structure

❶ Question

"Usually, you'd do that, right?"

From whose "landscape" did that "usual" come from?

❷ Experience Examples

A boss who gets angry at work, asking, "Why don't you greet people?"

A parent who scolds their child, saying, "It's rude not to look someone in the eye when you talk," at home.

The other person was just confused—do you have any idea about such scenes?

❸ Theoretical Background

Culture is the "common sense we acquired like air" while growing up.

In particular, the following premises act as "unconscious rules" in human relationships:

• Collectivism/Individualism: Is consideration for the group "etiquette" or "restraint"?

• Language structure: Differences in "how to omit" between high-context (Japanese) and low-context (English)

• Family structure: Differences in the "culture of distance" due to three-generation households, nuclear families, and single parents

However, this cultural background does not appear on the surface.
That is precisely why we "process" it by labeling the other person's behavior.

• "Someone who can't read the room"

• "A guy who acts way too arrogant"

• "That's the type who was raised spoiled"

In this way, the invisible cultural strata are covered up by simple labeling.

❹ Turning Point

When we see the "differences" in others, what we are doing is

the work of forcibly pushing the "unseen background" into known frames.

Labels are also tools that replace cultural "heterogeneity" with "personality problems."

❺ Reader Action

• Try re-questioning yourself the moment you feel discomfort:

"Is this a difference in 'personality'? Or a difference in 'cultural strata'?"

• Try to confirm daily the premise that "usually, one does this" is "just one perspective" that came from your own upbringing and environment.

■ 3.2 Life Choices and Labeling: Values in Love, Work, and Parenting

❶ Question

"Why does that person make that kind of choice?"

Behind that question, isn't there a "gaze that treats one's own values as absolute" lurking?

❷ Experience Examples

• I accidentally said, "You're still single?" to a friend who chose not to marry.

• I felt, "Isn't that a bit too neurotic?" toward a parent who doesn't cut corners in child-rearing.

• I unconsciously held a doubt, "Are you earning enough?" toward someone working freely as a freelancer.

Such "inner retorts" are the first step toward processing others with labels.

❸ Theoretical Background

Modern society appears to be full of freedom of choice,
but in reality, implicit values that determine "correctness" or "maturity" still remain in many fields:

• Love:Dating = should marry / not marrying = a lonely person?

• Work:Regular employee > non-regular / professional > service industry / steady job = stability

• Child-rearing:Myth of motherhood / belief in early education / template of an ideal family image

When we see choices that do not match these values,
we often move in the direction of "evaluating" rather than "not understanding."

And the tool for that evaluation is "labeling."

❹ Turning Point

Is the label you are trying to put on someone

born from "anxiety about the incomprehensible" or "obsession with correctness"?

Labels might be "the result of giving up on enduring the unknown."

❺ Reader Action

• When you feel doubt or discomfort with someone else's choices, try asking yourself back:

"Is this discomfort because 'the other person is wrong'? Or because 'it's different from my premises'?"

• Try to perceive your own "correctness" as nothing more than a "historical, cultural, and personal accumulation."

■ 3.3 Differences in Beliefs and Labeling: Views on Happiness, Justice, and Life and Death

❶ The Question

"That is not right"—

Where did that "correctness" come from? Whose "correctness" is it?

❷ Examples of Experience

• "It's pitiful to leave your child at daycare"

• "People who support the death penalty are cold-hearted"

• "Relying on religion is a sign of weakness"

These statements are heavily saturated with the label of "correctness."

However, that "correctness" is often not standing on a common foundation.

❸ Theoretical Background

What we "believe in" is mainly composed of three layers:

• Morality:Internal norms formed by culture and habits

• Ethics:Principles conscious of mutual relationships and harmony with society as a whole

• Law:Norms that are codified as systems and have coercive power

These three layers of "correctness" almost never align.

For example,

• Actions that are legally permitted but ethically questioned

• Choices that are considered morally natural but legally unjust

If you do not notice this multi-layered structure, you will end up labeling others who do not follow your beliefs as "strange."

❹ Turning Point

There is no such thing as "the only evil."

However, "not reflecting" is the common denominator of many tragedies.

Before denying another's belief system, you need the intelligence to discern which layer of correctness it comes from.

Labeling is nothing more than a linguistic operation of stopping thought.

❺ Reader Action

• If you feel like asking someone, "Why do you believe that?", try rephrasing it like this:

"Is this a matter of morality? Ethics? Or law?"

• Let's examine which stratum your own "correctness" originates from.

■ 3.4 Communication Styles and Labeling: Cultural Differences in Silence, Jokes, and Apologies

❶ The Question

Why do we feel that people who are silent are "cold"?

Why do we think people who tell jokes are "frivolous"?

It might be because you are absolutizing your own "grammar of conversation."

❷ Examples of Experience

• I was irritated that the other person didn't apologize

• The atmosphere froze because a joke didn't land

• I felt "awkwardness" because the silence lasted a long time

These experiences are due to "differences in interpretation" of non-verbal interactions.

❸ Theoretical Background

There are "invisible syntactic rules" for every culture in verbal exchange:

• Meaning of silence:In Japan, it expresses "consideration" or "lingering tone," while in Western culture, it expresses "indifference" or "disagreement"

• Form of apology:Cultures that emphasize the expression of emotion versus cultures that settle for formal words

• Discrepancy in jokes:Differences in background context that distinguish whether humor is "friendliness" or "rudeness"

However, if you interact without knowing these backgrounds,

personality labels such as "insensitive," "thoughtless," or "cold" are immediately applied.

❹ Turning Point

We are culturally conditioned not only in language but also in "rhythm of conversation," "how to read the air," and "how to take pauses."

If you unconsciously process this as a "personality problem," the circuit for understanding others is severed.

❺ Reader Action

• If you feel uncomfortable with the "pause" between you and the other person, try rephrasing it like this:

"Is this a 'personality problem'? Or is it a 'difference in linguistic syntax'?"

• Try to relativize the way you apologize or tell jokes, which you take for granted, as your "own cultural code."

■ 3.5 Discrepancies in Time Perception and Labeling: People Who Rush, People Who Wait, and People Who Stop

❶ The Question

"This person is too loose / too impatient."
When you feel that way, it might be the moment you applied a "label of time perception."

❷ Examples of Experience

• Conflict between people who are strict about lateness and those who don't care

• Friction between people obsessed with keeping meeting times and those who talk freely

• Misunderstandings between people who rush to make decisions and those who think carefully

In these situations, the background is not a difference in "common sense," but a difference in how time is perceived.

❸ Theoretical Background

Each person has a different "time orientation":

• Future-oriented type:Always conscious of what's next, emphasizes early decision-making, task-driven

• Present-oriented type:Emphasizes the feeling of the moment, prefers intuitive judgment and flexibility

• Past-oriented type:Values experience and history, characterized by deliberation and caution

Furthermore, these are greatly influenced by culture (monochronic/polychronic) and upbringing.

However, when you look at the other person's behavior without considering those differences,

personality labels such as "lazy," "self-centered," or "dull" are immediately applied.

❹ Turning Point

Time is not absolute.

"How one feels, uses, and allocates time" is a deep structure directly linked to that person's philosophy of life.

Nevertheless, labeling that reduces it to "personality" is nothing more than the shallowest processing.

❺ Reader Action

• If you get irritated by someone's "slowness" or "rushing," first try asking yourself this:

"Am I making 'personality' the problem right now, rather than 'time'?"

• Try practicing recognizing that your own sense of time is also "just one style."

Part 4 | The Violence of Labeling: The Traps of Looking Down, Discrimination, and Classification

There is an invisible asymmetry in the act of labeling. We will elucidate how labeling creates unconscious structures of superiority and inferiority, prejudice, discrimination, and institutional oppression.

■ 4.1 | Labeling and Unconscious Structures of Superiority and Inferiority

The Namer and the Named: Asymmetry of Knowledge = Asymmetry of Power

❶ Question

Why does the 'side that names' unconsciously adopt a 'condescending perspective'?

❷ Experience Example

When someone describes another person as 'that kind of person,' have you ever felt that the speaker sounded a bit 'haughty'?
Or, have you ever had the experience of feeling strangely 'relieved' after defining someone yourself?


❸ Theoretical Development

While 'labeling' is a way of organizing information, it is also a way of securing a structural advantage by 'believing one understands the other.' • The act of naming grants oneself the initiative of knowledge

• By fixing the 'complexity' of others with a label, → one calms their own 'anxiety of not being able to understand'
• This is the moment when the asymmetry of knowledge is transformed into the asymmetry of power



❹ Turning Point


Behind the judgment that 'that person is such-and-such,' there exists an 'unconscious superiority of being able to understand that person.'

We try to stabilize our world by 'defining' things.However, that is also an act that creates a 'hierarchy' in relationships.

❺ Reader Action


• When you feel the urge to make a definitive statement about someone else, try asking yourself: 'Am I trying to escape from the anxiety of not understanding?'

• Try accepting someone's 'undefined nature' as it is.

■ 4.2 | Prejudice, Stereotypes, and Social Discrimination

'Because they are like that, they must be like that' — Linking with Confirmation Bias

❶ Question

'As I thought, they were that kind of person' — Is that 'as I thought' a fact? Or a prediction?

❷ Experience Example

When you thought, 'They must be this kind of person,' and they acted exactly as you expected, you thought, 'I knew it.'
…But looking back later, you realized you had ignored their other actions and attitudes — have you ever had an experience like that?



❸ Theoretical Development

Prejudice and stereotypes are closely linked to the 'confirmation bias' of labeling. • Once people label someone as 'that kind of person,' → they strongly remember only the information that matches that label, → and discard everything else (= selective perception)

• As a result, a phenomenon occurs where the other person 'appears to fit' that label

The problem is further compounded by the fact that 'systems' also contain labels:
• Example: Deviation scores / diagnostic names / disability names / educational background / employment status, etc.
• While these labels act as an 'instruction manual' for society, → they also become devices that 'grade' humans and bind them to 'expectations'



❹ Turning Point



Labels become not a means of 'understanding,' but a 'justification for not having to understand.'

'It can't be helped because they are like that,' 'They are just that kind of person anyway.'

When people think that, they stop 'thinking' and 'intellectually abandon' the other person.❺ Reader Action



• When you think 'I knew it,' try asking yourself: 'Am I overlooking information that is

otherwise

'?' • When you see institutional labels (diagnoses, scores, etc.), → try to have a perspective that sees the person from 'outside' of that.

■ 4.3 | From 'Classification' to 'Domination': Connecting Labels and Power

Naming is not merely an act of perception, but an exercise of power

❶ Question

When we say, 'This person is this kind of person,' who are we becoming?

❷ Experience Example

Within a group, someone was defined as 'that guy is a natural airhead' or 'that girl is a bossy type,' and that label became established as 'humor' or a 'role.'
Before they knew it, the person could no longer escape from that 'role'—



❸ Theoretical DevelopmentThe act of naming (labeling), while appearing neutral, is also an act that generates 'power' in human relationships and social structures.

• According to Foucault, power in modern society operates not through 'repression' but through 'the manipulation of classification and order'
• In all systems such as medicine, education, welfare, and law, → labels are used as codes for how to handle things, → to define discipline (normal/abnormal), and to 'make them obey'

In other words, the person who names is also a 'hidden legislator' who determines how things are handled.



❹ Turning Point



'Who does this classification protect? Who does it confine?'

A label is a device that exists for someone, and at the same time, silences someone else.

We must not forget that classifying can become a 'circuit for domination.'❺ Reader Action



• When you use labels, diagnostic names, titles, or positions, try asking: 'For whom is this classification a convenient label?'

• Instead of someone's name, are you calling them by their role? — Try to reflect on this.

■ 4.4 | Existence That Cannot Be Labeled: The Duality of Fear and Longing

Reaction to 'things that cannot be understood': Inability to recognize = Unpredictability = Object of anxiety

On the other hand, 'longing' for the inability to be labeled: As a symbol of transcendence and mystery

❶ Question

When you meet someone you cannot understand, do you feel 'scared'? Or are you 'drawn to them'?

❷ Experience Example

There was at least one person in class or at work whose thoughts were completely incomprehensible.

At first, you felt wary or anxious, but have you ever felt that they were somehow 'free and enviable'—

Ideas you don't have, eccentric behavior, unconventional judgments… have you ever held feelings that mixed 'incomprehensibility' and 'longing'?



❸ Theoretical DevelopmentExistence that cannot be labeled exposes the 'core of otherness' that exceeds human cognitive limits.

• We try to find 'peace of mind' by classifying and predicting others

• But an unpredictable existence = an uncontrollable existence = a source of anxiety

• On the other hand, people easily project mystery and freedom onto 'things that cannot be named'

• Example: Artists, outsiders, supernatural beings, geniuses, madmen, etc.

• This dual structure of 'fear' and 'longing' suggests the limits of labeling



❹ Turning PointWe react most 'strongly' to things that cannot be labeled.

Because that is proof that 'our own framework' does not apply.

Existence that cannot be labeled might actually be 'the very possibility of one's own expansion.'



❺ Reader Action • When you meet someone you cannot understand, try asking yourself: 'Is this discomfort an

anxiety

' caused by my inability to label the other person?'

• And try to carry the courage to withhold understanding = intellectual humility.

■ 4.5 | Inability to Be Labeled = The Essence of Otherness: Levinasian and Bakhtinian Perspectives

The Other as a 'Face' that is an 'ethical event' which cannot be responded to with labels

'The Other who waits to be spoken of': Reserving labeling opens up the possibility of relationships

❶ Question

Is the Other something to be 'understood'? Or is it something to be 'responded to'?

❷ Experience Example

Being misunderstood no matter what you say, and being labeled no matter what you do—

In such moments, have you ever thought, 'I don't want to be understood, I just want you to listen in silence first'?

Or, when you thought you 'knew' the other person,

have you ever been startled when they said, 'Don't make assumptions like that'?

❸ Theoretical Development

Here, two philosophical perspectives, Levinas and Bakhtin, connect.

• Levinas:'The Other is a "face," an "ethical event" that cannot be responded to with labels'

• Face = 'Something that speaks to us beyond explanation or definition'

• The relationship with the Other is not a 'relationship of knowledge,' but a 'relationship of response'

• Bakhtin:'A human being is a "being in the process of being spoken of"'

• The Other is a 'being generated within discourse,' not a completed definition

• 'Waiting to be spoken of' = Allowing time for a relationship to exist

What becomes visible through these is:

Not applying labels is what it means to be with the Other

❹ Turning Point

The attitude of 'withholding response' before defining the Other is ethics.

To know a person is not to manipulate them through knowledge, but
to allow for silence and listen to the 'person being spoken of.'

❺ Reader Action

• When the other person appears as an entity that is 'hard to understand' or 'cannot be fully explained,'
→ Try to withhold judgment and adopt a stance of 'waiting to be spoken of.'

• Instead of applying a label, try asking, 'What do you want to talk about right now?'

Part 5 | The Structure of Institutional Labeling: Diagnosis, Evaluation, and Stratification

We analyze in detail how labels become a linguistic apparatus that dominates social structure by being incorporated into institutions, rather than remaining mere private judgments.

While incorporating concrete examples from Japanese society, we clarify its duality and invisibility.

5.1 'Naming' by Institutions: Labels in Medicine, Education, and Employment

❶【Question】

Do the 'titles' or 'diagnoses' you hold truly represent you?

In our daily lives, we use words like 'teacher,' 'ADHD,' 'highly educated,' and 'temporary employee' as if they were natural.

However, to what extent is that self-perception, and from where does it become a 'given name' by the institution?

❷【Experience Example】

In elementary school, Student A attended a 'special needs class.'

In class, he was called a 'special needs kid,' but in reality, he was a perfectly normal child who played, laughed, and sometimes fought just like everyone else.

However, the essays he submitted were somehow always placed in a 'special evaluation' category.

As an adult, Person B received a 'diagnosis of developmental disability' and began working in a 'disability employment quota.'

In exchange for security, they harbor a vague anxiety that 'perhaps I am only accepted within that framework.'

❸【Theoretical Development】

● Institutional Strength of Naming

By the institution 'giving a name' to an individual, that person's role, potential, and range of rights are significantly restricted.

• Medicine: A diagnosis becomes an entry point for support, but at the same time, 'one's own narrative beyond that' can be lost.

• Education: 'Deviation scores' and 'report cards' function primarily for selection and ranking, not for the diversity of learning.

• Employment: Terms like 'non-regular,' 'temporary,' and 'contract employee' fix one's 'positioning' as a labor force.

● Social Recognition and Institutional Labels

Humans are social beings, and 'which institution labels you and how' is directly linked to self-image and the perception of others.

❹【Turning Point】

Since when did we get used to a society where 'you aren't supported unless diagnosed' and 'you can't choose your path without a deviation score'?

While institutions fulfill the role of support and security, they internalize a structure where 'if you don't fit into that framework, your existence is not recognized.'

Originally, support should have been 'reaching out flexibly to those in need,' not 'after the institution assigns a label.'

❺【Reader Action】

• Try to intentionally 'remove' your own 'institutional labels' (educational background, job type, diagnosis, etc.) and think.
→ When those are removed, what remains? Re-examine what you can no longer say.

• Examine the social structure that has divided into 'people who need labels' and 'people who don't.'
→ Why does support require a 'diagnosis'? Is that label really functioning?

• When naming children or others, have the habit of asking, 'Does that word narrow their freedom?'

5.2 The Invisibility of Institutional Labels: Invisibility as Common Sense

❶【Question】

Why do we believe that 'high educational background,' 'able-bodied,' and 'full-time work' are 'normal'?

Who, when, and how did what you consider 'obvious' become 'obvious'?

──The essence of institutional labels lurks where even that question does not arise.

❷【Experience Example】

Person C had a work history of 'junior college graduate' and was active in sales. However, in the job market, they were rejected every time by the 'university graduate or higher' requirement and were not even given the opportunity for an interview.

Person D wrote in the motivation section of a recruitment test, 'I would like to request shorter working hours because I am not confident in my physical strength.'

The interviewer gave a bitter smile and said, "I'm afraid we really need someone who can work full-time."

In neither situation was anyone conscious of "discriminating." Yet, an invisible structural label functioning as a "premise" was firmly at work.

❸ [Theoretical Development]

● The Structural Label of 'Normal'

• The "normal line" created by social systems is established by setting "standards," both numerically and linguistically.

• Even without "discriminatory intent," these "standards" reinforce structures of exclusion and maladaptation as a result.

● Perspective of Bernard Smith-style Structuralism:

• "Meaning" is constructed through relationships. In other words, the term "person with a disability" is built by the institutional category of "person without a disability."

• "High academic background" also gains its meaning only because "low academic background" exists.

• Therefore, these are not objective entities, but relative institutional languages.

● The Invisibilized Structure

• Institutional labels appear to be "neutral" terms, but they imprint social norms as premises in the form of "You understand without me saying it, right?"

• Particularly in Japanese society, the three elements of "atmosphere," "conformity," and "self-responsibility" accelerate the invisibility of institutional labels.

❹ [Turning Point]

"This isn't discrimination, it's just a standard" — have we become insensitive to the violence lurking within those words?

• Discrimination and exclusion are not always carried out through derogatory terms.

• Rather, the most dangerous thing is the structure where "normal" is mass-produced by systems and customs, and "everything else" is invisibilized, all while "no one has any ill intent."

❺ [Reader Action]

• How would you feel if the conditions you consider "obvious" were reversed?

• Example:Imagine settings like "a department manager who only finished middle school," "an autistic boss," or "a non-regular employee father," and if you feel a sense of "discomfort," try thinking about where that discomfort comes from.

• Try taking an inventory of the vocabulary of "structural labels" you use in your daily life.

• Example:Healthy/ill, regular employee/non-regular, adult/child, effort/laziness, etc.

• Be aware that "common sense for you" might be a label for someone else.

• Keep asking the question, "Whose perspective is 'normal' anyway?"

5.3 The Shift in Institutional Design: From Classification to Generation

Not fixed labels, but toward "generated relationships" — the next design philosophy for institutions

❶ [Question]

Are we really only capable of "giving names"?

As long as support and evaluation are carried out through "classification," the system will always push someone to the "outside".

But wasn't the system supposed to be something that opens up our possibilities in the first place?

❷ [Experience Example]

E (a high school student) was diagnosed with a "developmental disability" and began attending a special needs class.

His parents were relieved, thinking "he finally has a place where he belongs," but E himself could not fully define his place on the boundary line between "healthy" and "disabled."

A few years later, E, who had advanced to university, got the opportunity in a seminar to "launch a project under his own name."

It was a framework where what was evaluated was not "what kind of disability you have," but "what kind of questions you have."

The experience of creating meaning through one's own 'axis' was, for E, the first time they had experienced co-creation with a system.

❸ [Theoretical Development]

● What is a 'Classification System'?

• A system was originally a device for giving 'certain labels' to 'uncertain things' in order to process, manage, and support them.

• However, it simultaneously contains a structure that discards 'people who do not fit the mold' as exceptions.

• Labels (diagnoses, evaluations, rankings), while convenient, carry the danger of severing the 'context of living'.

● Turning toward a 'Generative System'

• It is necessary to establish systems not from 'classification' but from 'relationships'.

• A generative system is one that dynamically shapes the system itself through 'individual dialogue' or 'joint action' rather than 'existing frameworks'.

• 'Disability' and 'evaluation' are also not 'named in advance', but are based on a structure where they are '**defined together within relationships'**.

● Three New Principles

1. Self-naming (self-naming) : Verbalizing one's own role or position and positioning oneself as an involved agent.



2. Plural evaluation (plural evaluation) : Intersecting multifaceted and contextual evaluation axes rather than ranking with a single yardstick.

3. Co-creative support

(co-creative support) : Moving away from a fixed relationship of supporter/supported to a relationship that is designed together and can be updated.❹ [Turning Point]



From 'the system defines us' to 'we redefine the system'Classification is an 'operation that narrows the framework of existence.' On the other hand, generation is a 'process in which meaning is opened up within relationships.'The future of systems lies not in fixed correct answers, but in spaces of reversible dialogue and creation.



❺ [Reader Action]



• Re-examine the systems you belong to (school, workplace, home) to see 'who they classify and who they exclude'. • Try asking the question, 'Who is the person who

cannot be

here?' • Try 'self-naming' once. • 'I am called XX, but I think of myself as △△.' 'The current me is an existence living out the



question of □□

.' • Think about the conditions for support or systems to become 'co-creative

'. • Example: A space where the relationship between the evaluator and the evaluated is not fixed A support structure where self-determination is a prerequisite A system where dialogue is included in the design

5.4 Supplement: Concrete examples of institutional labeling in Japanese society

"Common Sense" Labels Embedded in Our Lives: The Invisible Classification Devices That Define Our Existence

❶ [Question]

How many "names" are you surrounded by as you live? "Developmental disability," "non-regular employee," "standard score of 60," "ordinary family"—when, by whom, and how were these words defined, and why do they affect you?



❷ [Experience Example]Ms. M (a woman in her 20s) was told in junior high school that she was "not suited for a college-prep school" and went on to a public "

general course" high school. After entering, amidst an atmosphere where "standard scores are everything" and "a good university is the goal," she unconsciously began to believe that she was "someone who cannot go higher." Meanwhile, her younger sister was diagnosed with a developmental disability and attended a "special needs resource room" in elementary school. In an atmosphere where those around her said, "I don't want you to treat her specially," her sister became isolated because people were "being overly cautious and keeping their distance.""Having a name protects you. But sometimes, a name can also shut you out." This was their realization.



❸ [Theoretical Development]

● 1. The Duality of Developmental Disabilities and the "Special Support" System

• While support is available, the "emphasis on being

special" creates a psychological distance from those around you. • The structure where an "easy-to-understand label

" becomes a condition for institutional support (exclusion of the gray zone). • Situations where the "presence or absence of a diagnosis" determines the availability of support rather than the individual's changes.● 2. "Standard Score Culture" and the Stratification of Career Paths

• Standard score = ranking by a single indicator. • Not just academic ability, but even "expectations as a human being" are judged by standard scores (e.g., "standard score 40 = difficult to instruct"). • The reality where "division through classification" takes precedence over the "guarantee of the right to learn" that education originally possesses.

● 3. The Myth That "Non-Regular" Equals Lack of Effort

• The phenomenon where labeling regarding employment status (regular employee/non-regular) is directly linked to personality evaluation. • Image labels like "non-regular = unstable/irresponsible/cannot manage oneself" strip individuals of their own narratives. • Even though, in the first place, both those who "



could not choose

" and those who "

chose



" have their own backgrounds.● 4. "Invisible Labels": The Standardization of Able-bodied, Heterosexual, and Family-oriented • Cases where labels act more strongly precisely because they are "not explicitly stated." • Many systems assume implicit standards such as "ordinary person = able-bodied, heterosexual, family-oriented." • Those who deviate are "treated specially," but the "

definition of deviation

" is rarely questioned.❹ [Turning Point]The problem with institutional labeling is not just being "



labeled." The real problem is that "invisible standards" are deeply intervening in our choices and evaluations without anyone questioning "whose yardstick it is

." And we also have the "right to redesign those standards."

❺ [Reader Action] • Try writing down the "labels you have / have been given." • Example: "Woman," "eldest son," "educational background," "middle management," "XX disability," "single," "minority," etc. • Re-question "by whom," "when," and "how" they were formed. • Dare to verbalize the "invisible premises." • Example: "What is 'normal

'?" "Who decided what 'being proper

' is?"" → This becomes the first step toward deconstructing unconscious institutional labels. • Re-question the "correctness of the system" from your own story. • "Is this mechanism really there to '

help

'?" Observe the systems you are involved in from the perspective of "is someone being placed on the '



outside



'?"

5.5 Visualization of Institutional Labels and Structural Redesign

From a “labeled world” to a “co-designed world” — The Choice of Environmental Co-creation in Systems

❶ [Question]

Do systems open up your potential? Or are they forcing you into a “mold”?

Systems are mechanisms that provide 'support' and 'security,' but they are also frameworks that fix 'correctness' and 'standards' in place.

Are those systems truly aligned with the activities of “living human beings”? How can we redesign systems?

❷ [Experience Example]

In Nordic countries, one elementary school abolished the 'special needs class' category and implemented an educational model where all children learn in the same space.

Learning support is not determined by 'diagnosis,' but is flexibly designed based on daily observation, dialogue, and the voices of those involved.

Support is activated not within a “category,” but within a “relationship.”

There, the practice was not about 'what name is attached,' but about thinking together about 'what is needed now.'

This stands in contrast to the current situation in Japan, where despite the promotion of 'reasonable accommodation' and 'individual support plans,' a reliance on labels persists.

❸ [Theoretical Development]

● Blind Spots of the System:Confusing 'Support' with 'Differentiation'

• Many systems require a "label" to clarify "who receives support."

• But at that moment, the boundary between "people with labels" and "people without" is reinforced by the system.

• If the conditions for starting support rely too heavily on static information like "diagnoses" or "attributes," essential needs are left behind.

● Inclusive System Design: A Shift Seen in the Nordic Model

• In Finland and Sweden, "support design that does not require special labels" is progressing.

• Teachers have "flexible adjustment authority that does not depend on diagnostic names."

• Adjustments arise from "relationships and practices" rather than the "profile" of each individual student.

• A shift from "system = a place to be supported" to "system = a place where relationships grow."

● Proposal: A Shift Toward Environment-Co-Creation Systems in Japan

Institutional redesign is proposed based on the following three pillars:

1. Visualized Dialogue Design

– Not only the attributes of the target person, but also the perspectives, conflicts, and goals of the system operators are articulated and shared.

– Through a transparent feedback structure, the system itself can visualize and self-correct its "use of labels."

2. Support Design Based on Relationships

– Standardizing "relationship-structure-based support" that responds to individual voices, relationships with others, and changes in the field.

– Instead of searching for the "correct answer" to support, incorporating a "relationship of continuous questioning" into the system.

3. Designing 'Margins' in the System

– Without prescribing everything, maintaining an "unspecified window" that can respond institutionally to "beings that cannot be named."

– Example: "Fluid support frameworks" that allow for temporary support regardless of labels.

❹ [Turning Point]

The system is not a "cold machine."

The form of the system is actually a reflection of the "way of relating" of each of us involved in it.

"Support after classifying" is not the goal; the perspective of "supporting each other while living together" transforms the system from a place of "selection" into a place of "co-creation."

❺ [Reader Action]

• Observe what kind of "label assumptions" are lurking in the systems or mechanisms you are involved in.

• Example: In entrance exams, workplace evaluations, welfare systems, counseling, etc., "what is considered a '"qualification'?'"

• Try viewing the system as a "place of relationship."

• By redefining who is relating to whom, for what purpose, and how, you can redesign the "support structure" of the system.

• Try proposing "margins" in the system.

• Ask "who is falling through the cracks of the system?" and have ideas to incorporate flexible "
responsiveness" into system design.

Part 6 | Language and Poetry: Deconstructing the Labeling Apparatus

After deeply understanding the essential labeling nature of language, we explore how to shake it, release fixed meanings, and open up possibilities for building resonant relationships.

6.1 The Problematic Nature of Language Structure: Labeling as Segmentation

――The structure where every word pauses the fluidity of reality

❶ [Question]

Why is it that the moment we put something into words, it ceases to be 'true'?

Why are we most deeply moved when we feel 'things that cannot be put into words'?

❷ [Experience Example]

Once, I said 'thank you' to someone dear to me, but I felt I couldn't express even one-hundredth of the emotion I wanted to convey.

There were times I wanted to cry, but I couldn't explain the reason for my tears.

The moment I expressed my anger as 'I am angry,' it withered away.

Such experiences intuitively show that a 'world cut out by words' impairs the richness and continuity of the original experience.

❸ [Theoretical Development]

• Language is a 'device for labeling reality,' and every word is a symbol for 'fixing meaning.'

• According to Ferdinand de Saussure, language is built upon a 'system of differences.' In other words, a word only has meaning through its difference from other words.

• However, real experiences and emotions are indivisible, have ambiguous boundaries, and are continuous.

• Labeling is the act of giving 'contours' to that fluid reality, and in that moment, a 'pause' occurs.

• This pause is the true nature of understanding where we 'feel like we get it,' and at the same time, it is the starting point of 'misreading.'

Words are the entrance to understanding, and simultaneously, they are devices for misunderstanding.

❹ Turning Point

The essence of 'segmentation' in language is not classification, but “severance”.

In exchange for the 'clarity' that words create, we have let go of 'ambiguity,' 'continuity,' and 'fluctuation.'

• We think we understand the world through language, but instead, we have become unable to see 'things that are not segmented.'

• Emotions, atmosphere, body, tone of voice, scent... how much of this 'pre-linguistic reality' have we lost sight of?

❺ Reader Action |

Let's dare to leave 'things that cannot be put into words' exactly as they are.

• Instead of immediately verbalizing what you feel, gaze for a while at the 'presence before it becomes words.'

• Consciously spend time engaging with non-linguistic expressions such as poetry, music, and painting.

• When talking to someone, instead of labeling it with 'So that means X, right?', try asking, 'What does that feel like?'

6.2 The Possibility of Poetic Language: Toward the Resonance of Meaning

――Poetry is 'a movement of language that shakes the very institution of naming'

❶ Opening Question |

Why is it that only poetry can sometimes scoop up 'feelings that cannot be put into words'?

Why do we feel we 'understand deeply' through a vague metaphor rather than an accurate explanation?

❷ Experience Example |

・'A rustling in the chest'—a moment when this phrase feels more fitting than any other explanation.

・When I heard a line from a song and thought, 'This is it,' but couldn't quite say what 'it' was.

・The expansion and depth of meaning when someone says, 'Your silence is the most eloquent.'

Words that 'reach' even though they are neither accurate nor clear. That is the power of poetic language.

❸ Theoretical Development

• Normal language is a tool for 'conveying meaning' and is logical, explanatory, and explicit.

• In contrast, poetic language is a language that does not convey meaning but 'resonates meaning.'

• Poetry attempts to open a path to 'things that cannot be put into words' by daring to shake, shift, and unravel named meanings.

• Metaphor, contradiction, silence, grammatical breakdown, repetition, deviation in word order—these 'shifts in meaning' create new sensations and resonance within the reader.

• Philosophically speaking,poetry performs 'fluctuation = re-creation' rather than 'naming = definition' performs.

Poetry is a movement that recalls “what was not defined” in language.

❹ Turning Point

Perhaps 'understanding' is not about grasping correctly, but about resonating and swaying.

• We have become too accustomed to 'accurate explanations' and have become less able to trust 'unclear empathy' or 'margins of meaning.'

• However, poetic language helps us regain that trust—a way of being that says, 'Even if you don't try to understand, you can still touch it.'

❺ Reader Action

Let's practice not conveying meaning, but “shaking” meaning.

• Try expressing a favorite emotion (e.g., the loneliness of twilight) using a 'metaphor' instead of an explanation.

Example: 'This loneliness is like an unfolded blanket.'

• Dare to use ambiguous words as they are. Don't be afraid of conversations that start with, 'I can't explain it well, but...'

• Before asking someone else, 'What do you mean by that?', take time to “feel” it within yourself first.

6.3 Silence, Body, Resonance: Language Beyond Language

――'Not naming' can sometimes be the deepest dialogue

❶ Opening Question

'I didn't say anything, but everything was conveyed.'
──Have you ever experienced such a moment?

Why can silence sometimes be more eloquent than words?

❷ Experience Example

・At a funeral, when I couldn't say anything and just stood next to them, I was told, 'Thank you.'

・The moment I couldn't say anything in front of a child's tears and just held them.

・When someone I like asked, 'Are you okay?', for some reason I nodded without saying a word.

Silence, body, resonance. They might be 'languages that exist before words.'

❸ Theoretical Development

◆ Philosophy of Silence:

• Silence is not the 'absence of words,' but the 'place before words arrive.'

• The 'face' in Levinas becomes an opportunity to ethically touch the existence of the other before speaking.

• Silence is an intelligence that reserves 'what has not yet been named.'

→ Silence protects the space that can open up relationships by 'not immediately assigning meaning.'

◆ Pre-existence of the Body:

• According to Merleau-Ponty, the body is the 'place of contact with the world' and has meaning before language.
• Facial expressions, posture, breathing, ways of touching... these are all 'languages that refuse labeling.'

→ Before words, the body is speaking.

◆ Understanding as Resonance:

• 'Understanding' is not the agreement of concepts, but 'changing.'

• Resonance is the process where, by touching you, I 'gradually change into the other.'

• Such resonance occurs more in silence, the body, and the 'space between' than in words.

Resonance is the phenomenon where 'it was not your words, but your “change” that reached me.'

❹ Turning Point |

The trust that we can understand each other without putting everything into words.

There are relationships that can only be born by not naming.

• By moving away from the idea that 'understanding = something immediately verbalized,' it becomes possible to 'be with what has not yet been named.'
• It is the quiet power of languages that cannot be labeled—whether through poetry, silence, or the body.

❺ Reader Action |

Today, let's try to create a moment where you dare to 'swallow your words.'

• When you are about to explain something immediately, practice choosing 'not to say it.'

• Try not to avoid moments of silence with others, but be conscious of just being there.

• Pay attention to your own body that is reacting before language—breathing, heartbeat, facial expressions.

Part 7 | Diversity of Existence and Recovery: The Incompleteness of Being Human

Diversity is not simply accepting “the other who is here now” accept.

It is also about having respect for the possibilities of a 'future that has not yet happened' or a 'self that has not yet taken shape.'

We will delve into the fundamental diversity residing in the depths of human existence from your unique perspective, and explore the path of recovery and transformation that transcends labeling.

7.1 | The Expanded Body: Technology and the Diversity of the 'Future Body'

■ Opening Question

“humanity” to what extent is it permitted, and where does it become a deviation?”

Is an athlete competing with a prosthetic limb “fair”? Is a person who operates devices with brain waves no longer “human”?

──The question this poses is: “What are we seeking in the “body”?”

■ Examples of Experience

・When a runner with a prosthetic limb aimed to compete in the Olympics, some people voiced that it was “doping”.

・Some viewers felt “scared” when watching footage of a person unable to speak typing via a BMI (Brain–Machine Interface).

・When news of gene-edited babies broke, voices asking “Are they human?” flew about before any ethical concerns were raised.

Faced with an “augmented body,” we feel both awe and discomfort simultaneously.

■ Theoretical Background

・Social Definition of the Body:The conventional norm of the “able-bodied” exists firmly as a yardstick for “normal”.

・Biotechnology and Interface Theory:The body is no longer a “fixed vessel” but a variable device of input and output.

・Relationship Between Identity and Embodiment:The extent to which bodily transformation affects one's “sense of self” varies by culture.

■ Turning Point

It is not that “technology has changed the body”.

It is that “the concept of the body is being “re-questioned” by technology”.

Prosthetic limbs and BMIs do not just “compensate” for lost functions; they create “new concepts of movement” and “different expressive systems”.

This is not merely an “extension” but a “redefinition”.

■ Reader Action

• Let's list the “bodily conditions” around us (e.g., appearance, movement, expression).

• Are there any among them that you would consider “cheating” if changed by technology?”

• Why did you feel that way? What kind of “view of humanity” or “view of normalcy” lies at the premise of that feeling?

7.2 | Diversity of Suffering and Acceptance: Differences in How We Are Hurt and How We Recover

■ Opening Question

"Why do people have different ways of 'overcoming' the same event?" Loss, betrayal, failure—no one can avoid the suffering that visits life. However, how one 'responds' to it differs from person to person. Are you measuring those differences by superiority or inferiority?overcoming



respond Examples of Experience



• A and B were laid off at the same workplace. A lamented, 'My life is over,' while B said, 'I'll use this as an opportunity to find a new path.' • A parent who lost a child. Some lose their words, while others become supporters by speaking out. • One person's 'recovery' may appear 'insensitive' to others, while silence may be seen as 'weakness.' 'Recovery' is not uniform; rather, it has its own 'individual terrain'.individual terrain

■ Theoretical Background •



Trauma Theory and Narrative Restructuring:

Even for the same event, the process of remembering and narrating differs from person to person (Brunner, van der Kolk). • Dialogical Self:

Whether multiple inner voices prioritize a certain voice ('the self that overcame') is structural (Hermans). •

Developmental Psychology and Culture: Actions considered 'recovery' (e.g., talking, praying, laughing) differ depending on the cultural sphere. ■ Turning Point To 'accept' is not to forget, nor is it to affirm. It is to allow the option of 'living on while remaining clumsy.' 'Recovery' is not a high-level repair technique, but rather an act of reconstructing the sense that 'relationships are possible even in imperfection'.

recovery ■ Reader Action • Let's recall one experience of 'wounding' in your own life. • Try dividing it into a 'voice that can be spoken' to someone and a 'voice that cannot be spoken.' • If the 'voice that cannot be spoken' also has value, what kind of environment could protect it? • Reflect on whether you are putting pressure on yourself or others to 'get over it'.voice that can be spoken

7.3 | Diversity Regarding Death and Time: Structural Differences in Views on Life, Death, and Time

■ Opening Question

"Is 'death' an end, a beginning, or a passing point?" And one more thing— "In which 'time' do people live?" Those who look to the future, those who relive the past, those who sink into the present. The 'way of feeling time' and the 'way of perceiving death' determine how humans live.death



time way of feeling time



way of perceiving death ■ Examples of Experience • An elderly person said, 'I'm afraid of dying. I'm afraid of disappearing.' • On the other hand, another patient at the same hospital smiled and said, 'Dying is a departure; I've lived enough.' • A young person bound by past regrets who cannot envision a future, and an elderly person who laughs, saying, 'Tomorrow is another day.' • Someone who stopped in their tracks immediately after losing a parent, and someone who started writing a book as a result of the loss. The meaning of the same 'death' and 'time' differs completely from person to person. ■ Theoretical Background • Cultural structure of views on life and death: The Western framework that views death as a 'rupture' and the Eastern framework that views it as 'circulation' or 'dependent origination.' •



Chronos and Kairos:



The intersection of quantitative time (Chronos) and qualitative time (Kairos) (philosophical/theological theory of time) •



Grief Work:

Death and loss are not about 'letting go of the object,' but a process of 're-weaving memories' (Freud → Bowlby → Narrative Psychology) • Personal Orientation of Time:



Future-oriented, present-oriented, past-oriented (Time Perspective Theory: Philip Zimbardo) ■ Turning Point Thinking about death is also 'questioning how to live.' Also, loss can be an 'opportunity to reorganize the current self' rather than 'something lost.' Perhaps people are not kept alive by 'time,' but are creating themselves by how they weave their own 'time'.

time

time ■ Reader Action

• What kind of concept is 'death' to you? 'Fear,' 'a break,' 'a return'—which word is it closest to? • 'Way of feeling time'—where is your center of gravity: past, present, or future? • Let's recall a recent experience of loss. Has its 'meaning' changed over time? • What has 'changed' in you through someone's death or parting? Can you talk about it?meaning

7.4 | Diversity of Play and Purposelessness: The Value of Spaces That 'Go Beyond Meaning'

■ Opening Question

When asked, "What is the point of this?" how would you explain play?

How much time do you have to do things that are “meaningless”?

Aimless actions are often socially regarded as a “waste.”

But what if that is exactly where human creativity and resilience lie—?

■ Examples of Experience

・A child drawing mindlessly. Time spent just layering colors without showing it to anyone.

・A working adult, tired from their job, playing games late at night and saying they “laughed without thinking about anything.”

・Someone who says that spending time doing nothing on a park bench is when they “felt most like themselves again.”

・Moments where unexpected ideas or self-understanding reside within seemingly “trivial” small talk.

These were all acts that existed “outside of meaning.”

■ Theoretical Background

・Huizinga's 'Homo Ludens':A structural perspective that defines humans as “playing beings” and seeks the origins of culture in play.

・Purposive Rationality vs. Communicative Action (Habermas):The distinction between goal-oriented behavior and meaning-resonant behavior.

・Playfulness:Aimlessness as a “posture” that contributes to psychological flexibility, creativity, and self-recovery.

・Narrative Practice and the Theory of Margins:To reconstruct one's self-narrative, “margins” that allow one to step away from overly structured meanings are essential (White & Epston).

■ Turning Point

Play is not a “cessation of meaning” but a preparatory space for the “reorganization of meaning.”

Aimless time is an opportunity to step away from existing narratives and “loosen up” back into a different self.

We become stifled within meaning and rediscover ourselves within meaninglessness—

When we think of it this way, aimlessness changes from a “luxury” to an “essential condition.”

■ Reader Action

• For you, what kind of situations are “meaningless time”? What was there?

• Is there an act that is “useless but you don't want to stop”? Why do you continue it?

• Have you been chased by “meaning” lately? Try setting aside the question of “What for?” for a moment.

• If unintended laughter or digressions are where your “margins” lie—how would you like to treat them?

7.5 | The Diversity of Forgiveness and Repair: There Are Also Patterns in the “Recovery” of Relationships

■ Opening Question

“Why can't you forgive?”

“Why were you able to forgive?”

With what words would you answer these questions?

An apology does not necessarily mean repair.

Forgetting and forgiving are different.

What if the recovery of a relationship involves not “correctness,” but “time” and “depth”—?

■ Examples of Experience

・One day, a person was suddenly able to forgive a parent who hadn't apologized for years. The trigger was an old photograph.

・A young person who couldn't forgive a friend who betrayed them and kept blaming themselves for “not being able to forgive.”

・A woman who said she forgave her husband's infidelity. When asked “Why?”, she only replied, “I didn't want to end my life in hatred.”

・A former colleague who said nothing. One day, the relationship naturally returned through a casual remark.

Forgiveness is not logic or duty, but happens as an event where the relationship changes.

■ Theoretical Background

・Paul Ricoeur's 'Memory, History, Forgetting':Forgiveness is not the erasure of the past, but an act of integration into a new context.

・Hannah Arendt's 'The Human Condition':Forgiveness is defined as a human capacity to respond to the “irreversibility of action.”

・Levinas's Theory of the Other:“Forgiveness” is an ethical practice of “freeing the other from labeling.”

・Memory Politics:What is forgiven and what remains unspoken—the structure of social memory and oppression.

■ Turning Point

Forgiveness is not a “proof of correctness” but a “new definition of relationship.”

Even without words of apology, the “strata of emotions” that change over the flow of time can make it possible.

Conversely, being unable to forgive is also a form of sincerity—perhaps holding that conflict itself is a human strength.

■ Reader Action

• For you, how does your “experience of being unable to forgive” exist now?

• If you have an experience of forgiving someone, what was the “moment when something changed”?

• If “something is needed to forgive,” what is it? Time? The other person's actions? Your own preparation?

• Instead of denying yourself for not being able to forgive, try considering the option of living with that “inability to forgive.”

• And, forgiveness is a new creation of “redefining the relationship”—is that possible?

Part 8 | Practices Beyond Labeling: Coexistence, Generation, and Transformation

8.1 | Conditions for Non-Labeling Relationships: Human Relationships That Maintain “Openness” Rather Than “Fixation”

■ Opening Question

Does the relationship stop the moment you think, 'This person is this kind of person'?

Is understanding others about fixing them in place, or is it about being together in the space of constant change?

■ Experience Examples

• Someone I felt was 'cold' upon first meeting became my best advisor half a year later.

• The bewilderment and hope felt when facing an 'unexpected side' of a close family member, causing previous labels to crumble.

• I had believed for years that I was 'introverted,' but on a trip, I found myself initiating conversations—the fluctuation of self-labeling.

→ Such experiences quietly teach us the fact that 'humans are not fixed entities.'

■ Theoretical Background

• The Other as a Question (Bakhtinian Dialogism)

The other appears not as 'something spoken,' but as a 'continuously spoken question.'

• Processual Self (G.H. Mead / Phenomenological Psychology)

The self is not a collection of past labels, but a process that continues to generate within relationships.

• Ethics of Incompleteness (Paulo Freire)

'Being incomplete' is actually the prerequisite that makes education, relationships, and coexistence possible.

• Relationship Generation Model (from your prior models)

A relationship is a third term established 'between A and B,' and it is an event that is constantly updated.

■ Turning Point

Perhaps the most important thing in human relationships is the courage not to conclude, 'This person is this kind of person.'

Using labels makes understanding faster, but in that moment, the other person can no longer change.

Non-labeling relationships are a technique of relating that keeps room for change in the other person.

■ Reader Action

• Try looking at someone you think of as 'that kind of person' as a “question” once more.

• An experiment to temporarily set aside one label you believe defines you.

• Try interacting with people under the premise that 'they might change.'

• Develop the habit of having a dual perspective: after deciding something, add, 'But perhaps...'

• Conversations that maintain “openness” rather than fixation—ending with a question like, 'What do you think about this?'

8.2 | Resonant Dialogue and Poetic Naming: How to Weave Relationships Through Resonance, Not Names

■ Opening Question

Is an answer necessary to the question, 'Who are you?'

Is language for explaining, or is it for touching?

■ Experience Examples

• The indescribable feeling when someone says, 'I like your voice,' instead of calling your name.

• When someone says, 'You are such a [blank] person,' it can feel both happy and suffocating.

• A scene where a child calls their parent 'that person' instead of 'Mom,' yet they are deeply connected.

→ Whether or not there is naming does not determine the quality of the relationship. The “resonance” behind the way of calling is the key to the relationship.

■ Theoretical Background

• Dialogue = Event of Mutual Transformation (Martin Buber)

True dialogue is an 'I-Thou' relationship; it is a space of self-transformation, not information transfer.

• Technique of Poetic Naming (Paul Ricoeur / Poetic Epistemology)

The function where language transcends existing meanings and generates new meanings that draw close to existence.

'Resonance of meaning' occurs through metaphors and symbols.

• Language's Label-Interrupting Function (Deconstruction of Structuralist Linguistics)

Poetic language presents not 'defined meaning,' but 'margins not yet defined.'

• I live again through what you have named (Poetics of Immanent Labeling)

'Poetic naming' from others can sometimes be the catalyst for a person to live their life anew.

■ Turning Point

A name is both an entrance to a relationship and a closed label.

What we need is not the 'correct name,' but a space where relationships are born through resonance.

When language becomes a tool to nurture relationships as resonant sounds rather than defining others,
an understanding that transcends explanation is born there.

■ Reader Action

• Write down one 'adjective or poetic expression that touches that person' instead of words that define them.
Example: 'A person like quiet light,' 'A way of speaking like the afternoon breeze'

• Experiment with stopping 'information exchange' in conversation and just “feeling and responding”

• Try using words that value impressions and sounds over facts in SNS or letters.

• Try giving someone a poetic nickname (e.g., 'Walking Library,' 'Person Who Calls the Rain')

• Try “poetic naming” for yourself: weave a sentence like, 'I am now a being who...' (e.g., 'One who walks between contradictions and dreams')

8.3 | In the Fields of Care, Education, and Coexistence: Exploring Techniques for Being Together Without Naming

■ Opening Question

When you feel like you 'have to say something,' is it really 'words' that are truly necessary? Is care, or education, not about 'being together' rather than 'what to give'?

■

Examples of Experience • At a deathbed, a caregiver says, 'I can't find the words...' and silently holds the patient's hand. In that silence, tears spill from the patient's eyes. • When a student says 'I don't understand' in the classroom, a teacher simply replies, 'That's okay.' That one phrase changes the child's posture. • A childcare worker who does not evaluate a child with a disability based on 'what they can do,' but simply continues to sit beside them.

→ More than '



doing

' something, the very attitude of 'being together' becomes a non-labeling form of support.■ Theoretical Background

• 'Co-silence'

(Silent Presence) → Insights discussed in clinical settings such as psychiatry, where 'the act of being silent itself becomes care.' • The Margin of Inquiry in Education

(Nobuo Uchida / Paulo Freire) → Education is not 'giving answers,' but 'sharing a space where one can exist with questions.' •

Levinas's Ethics: Face = Alterity before being called → The Other is an existence already there before naming. Rushing to name becomes a violence of relationship. •

'Coexistence with Incompleteness':

The philosophical horizon of education and care → An ethics that treats the Other's 'inability

' or '

weakness' as an object of sharing rather than overcoming. → An attitude of coexistence that respects the very state of 'not being complete.' ■ Turning Point Care and education are not about 'what to teach / how to support,' but about creating a space where one can feel that 'it is okay to exist while remaining '

undefined'.' Even without words like 'you are a person who is X,' there are relationships supported simply by being next to someone, being silent, and breathing in sync. Without naming, without instructing, allowing each other to be incomplete together. There, a deep ethics that transcends labels breathes. ■ Reader Action • [Practice of Co-silence] In situations where you cannot bear the silence, try to have a time of being together without intentionally placing words. • [Sharing Incompleteness] Try telling someone about your own 'things I cannot do yet.' Do not ask for advice, but 'share' them. • [Redefining Education] Try interacting with children or subordinates not by 'what to teach' but by 'what questions to think about together.' • [Memory of Coexistence] Recall the existence of 'someone who didn't do anything for me at that time, but was there by my side,' and try writing them a letter. • [Margin of Inquiry Notebook] Try listing only questions that have no answers, 10 per page, in a bulleted list. (Example: 'What is forgiveness?', 'With whom am I free?')

8.4 | Self-Renaming: Recovery and Poetics through Self-Renaming

■ Opening Question

When we ask, 'Who am I?', are we truly searching for a fixed name? Or is it a journey to rename the '

me that has yet to find words' within our relationships?■

Examples of Experience • As a child, I was constantly told I was 'restless' and felt I was a 'useless person.' However, as an adult, I was told I had 'creative and hyperactive thinking,' which repainted my self-image. • At work, I was called a 'clumsy fool,' but a friend's remark, 'You are a genius at softening the



atmosphere

,' renamed the meaning of my 'weakness' and became a step toward self-affirmation. • By writing in my diary that I was an 'unfinished traveler,' I was able to affirm myself as someone who is not yet defined. By describing myself through metaphors rather than names, 'I' was expanded. ■ Theoretical Background
• Internalization of Labeling (Metacognition and Internalized Stigma) → The structure of internalizing applied labels as self-definition. → 'Ego absorption of diagnostic names' is also a serious issue in psychiatry and education. • Deconstruction and Renaming (Identity as Negotiation) → The process of once '



unraveling

' the naming from others and renaming oneself within relationships. → Renegotiation of labels = an ethics of dynamically generating the 'event called me.' • Techniques of Poetic Naming (Metaphor, Narrative, Fragmentary Description) → 'Speaking of myself' in metaphorical and fluid language rather than fixed names = a poetics of self-generation. → By writing 'I am like...' instead of 'I am...', a space is created. ■ Turning Point We are hurt by being 'named' by others, but by poetically renaming ourselves, we can stand up again as beings capable of change



. What is important is not a 'correct self-image.' It is what kind of voice we emit as a '



self capable of being responded to

' within this relationship right now. By casting off names and rewriting narratives, we may give a different answer to the question 'Who am I?' every day. ■ Reader Actions

• [Self-Poetic Naming Workshop] → Try naming yourself with a metaphor: 'I am a person like...' (e.g., a drifting jellyfish, a weed blooming on the porch) • [



Label Deconstruction Journal



] → Write down 'I was called X' and 'Why did I accept it?', then write 'If I were to call myself by a different name, what would it be?' • [


Relationship Redefinition List] → A workshop where you have others freely write 'What was I to you?' → By touching upon the 'me' from multiple perspectives, allow for multiple selves. • [Turning Diaries into Narratives



] → Describe today as if it were a story where the character 'I' is the protagonist (e.g., 'Today began with a small defeat and ended with a little forgiveness') • [Trying to Forget Your Name] → On social media or in signatures, try representing yourself not with your real name but with a '


temporary name

' or a ' symbolic word



' → Observe the possibility that if the name changes, behavior and speech may also change.

[Final Chapter] Ethics Without Definition: Techniques of Coexistence Starting from Not-Knowing

■ Opening Question

Does 'understanding others' truly mean seeking the comfort of
actually“having understood”? Or is it the choice of

“remaining by their side without knowing”?■

Examples of Experience • In a certain dialogue, I could not understand the reason for the other person's emotions no matter what.

　However, when I simply said, 'I don't understand, but I am here,' the other person cried.

• A close friend suddenly started keeping their distance.

　I didn't know the reason, but I kept a space open for them, thinking, 'so you can come back anytime.'

　Years later, when they returned, we didn't ask each other for reasons, but our relationship began again.

• A child with a disability did not have verbal communication.

　However, by matching the rhythm of their daily body movements and breathing, a deep exchange of comfort became possible.

■

Theoretical Background◉

Stability = The Pleasure and Violence of Labeling • 'Giving a name' brings cognitive stability, but at the same time, it 'robs' the other of their fluidity.

• When the desire for stability runs wild in the form of definition, diagnosis, norms, and identification, it creates a structure that stifles the 'margin for change' in others.

◉

Ethics of Unknowability (Levinasian/Derridean Ethics) • The other always contains 'that which cannot be spoken' and is never fully defined.

• True ethics is the 'attitude of enduring the unknown and continuing to respond,' which is itself a condition of ethics.

◉ attitude of enduring the unknown and continuing to respond”であり、それ自体が倫理の条件である。

◉ Poetic Coexistence (Silence, Resonance, Co-presence)

• The choice to 'not speak' is not an escape, but the 'courage to reserve naming.' • In realms where words do not reach, poetic techniques such as breathing, distance, gaze, and pauses become 'tools for coexistence.'◉courage to reserve naming



”である。 • 言葉の届かない領域では、呼吸・距離・視線・間といった詩的技法が「共存の道具」となる。◉

The Dangers and Redefinition of the 'Diversity' Concept • Even the word 'diversity' can become 'the next label' that allows for easy categorization. • Diversity should not be 'listable differences,' but a 'technique for leaving the other within undefinability.'

next label”になりうる。 • 多様性とは“listable differences”ではなく、“

technique for leaving the other within undefinability”であるべき。■


Turning Point



The 'mutual understanding' and 'correctness' we were seeking may have been the pleasure of fixing others, categorizing them, and trapping them in a cage of understanding.

But true ethics does not end there.

Breathing the same time with an undefinable other and sharing the silence before words are born.That is where the core of coexistence lies.‘Courage to not name

’‘Attitude of not rushing to assign meaning

’‘Intelligence to maintain relationships rather than answers



’That is the starting point of an ethics that transcends the age of labeling.■

Reader Action • 【“unknowability



”を抱えたまま関係を保った経験を書き出す】　→ What was a relationship you couldn't understand but held dear? Why were you able to maintain it? • 【“Not naming



”日記】

　→ Without naming the emotions you felt, try describing them through movements, scenery, and bodily sensations.　→ Training to grasp 'raw experience' with the labels removed, before words. • 【“Not forcing understanding

”対話の実践】　→ Challenge yourself to keep listening without “judging



” the other's words, while remaining in a state of not knowing.　→ Try to see if you can 'just listen' before answering. • 【“co-silence



”の時間を持つ】
　→ Be with someone and dare to be silent.　→ Talk about what the silence nurtured after it ends.

■ Conclusion (Proposal)

The courage not to apply labels is the highest form of intelligence.

While enduring things that cannot be categorized, continuing to exist together is the technique of true coexistence.

Ethics begins with unknowability.

And perhaps supporting that without speaking of it is the most poetic way for a relationship to exist.

🔁 Supplementary Chapter 1 | The Circular Labeling: The Structure of Self-Identification, Consideration, and Appropriation

◉ Question

'The act of self-identifying with a label' — is it an exercise of freedom, or is it 'subordination to another structure'?

◉ 1. The Desire to Identify

We often wish to 'choose our own labels.'

'Speaking as a person with a developmental disability,' 'talking as myself, who is gay,' 'taking pride as an Indian.'

At first glance, this might look like an escape from labeling.

But at the same time, we may be trapping ourselves in a structure where we can only speak by relying on that label.

🔹 Example: 'I'm giving up being human' — the danger of being “categorized” conversely by naming oneself.

◉ 2. The Violence of Consideration: Protection and Exclusion of Other Labels

Movements to 'stop' using labels—for example, the campaign to replace 'dwarfism' with 'short stature' or 'LPA'—begin with consideration.

However, at the same time, this also results in 'stripping away the right of the parties involved to identify themselves'.

🔹 The act of stopping someone who takes pride in being called a 'dwarf' by saying, 'That is a discriminatory term,' is actually“the stripping away of labels through good intentions”.

This creates a twisted structure of three parties:“the party identifying themselves” ⇄ “the outsider showing consideration” ⇄ “the system imposing regulations”.

The phenomenon where consideration becomes violence occurs when the connection of this twist is solidified.

◉ 3. Self-identification as Seizure: The Ethics of Reversal and Its Risks

Modern identity politics is spoken through the 're-appropriation of labels'.

Just as Black people redefine 'nigger' and queers redefine 'queer,' the strategy of 'reclaiming derogatory terms' has been used frequently.

However, this creates lines regarding 'the right to speak' or 'permission to identify,' and conversely induces the exclusion of 'others who cannot identify' (e.g., 'You have no right to call yourself queer').
At this point, while self-identification is an exercise of freedom, it also becomes a weapon to shut others out.

◉ 4. Circular Structure: Self-identification → Protection → Regulation → Inability to Identify

Labels begin with self-identification, are considered, are incorporated into systems, and then become impossible to use again.

This circle is not merely a cycle. It continues to trap us as a 'recursively reinforcing structure of labels'.

For example:

• I want to reject the label of 'disabled person,' but under the system, I must identify as such to receive support.

• I want to create an identity that goes beyond 'LGBTQ+,' but categorization is a prerequisite for support.

◉ 5. Proposal: The Choice to Identify as Undefined

Finally, I leave you with a poetic proposal.

'I am not yet defined.'

Identifying with these words might be the act of stepping one step outside the circle.

🔹 'Do not name me. I have no name yet.'

🔹 'Do not identify me. My changes cannot keep up.'

◉ Related Chapters

• Part 1 | 1.2 The Function and Pleasure of Labeling

• Part 4 | 4.4 Unlabelable Existence

• Part 8 | 8.4 Self-Renaming

🔁 Supplementary Chapter 2 | The 'You Should Become XX Too' Syntax and the Violence of Good Intentions

── Labeling as an 'invitation to assimilation,' and the moment good intentions turn into violence

◉ Question

Is the invitation to 'join the right side' truly good?

While it is 'for your sake,' is it not actually for 'my peace of mind'?

◉ 1. What is the 'You Should Become XX Too' Syntax?

This syntax is an expressive structure that takes a certain correctness or value as self-evident and invites others into it.

• 'You should become a vegan too.'

• 'You should wake up too.'

• 'You should advocate against discrimination too.'

• 'You should stop being human too' (by DIO).

• 'You should become a demon too' (by Akaza).

At first glance, it looks like empathetic language wanting to share one's values, but there is a strong'pressure to assimilate'lurking within it.

It makes a forced invitation to a 'collection of correctness' without asking about the other person's background, context, readiness, or wishes.It makes a forced invitation to a 'collection of correctness' without asking about the other person's background, context, readiness, or wishes.

◉ 2. The Structure Where Good Intentions Become Violence

The danger of this syntax lies in the fact that it wears the 'face of good intentions'.

For example: The feeling of 'I was saved, so I want to recommend it to you too' is surely not a lie.

But it includes the assumption that 'one can only be saved through the same structure'.

And the attitude toward 'those who do not accept it' branches out:

• [A] Feeling disappointed (pity)

• [B] Feeling angry (betrayal)

• [C] Attacking (hostility)

In all cases, the focus is on one's own value axis, not the other person's context.

◉ 3. The Violence of 'Correctness' and the Twist of Ethics

Good intentions can become something that resembles ethics but is not.

For example, let's imagine a situation like this.

You believe that 'people with empathy are correct'.

One day, you meet someone who lacks empathy.

You say to that person, 'You should become someone who can empathize too.'

At this moment, the 'empathy' you believe in“empathy”has already turned into a tool to suppress the other person's incompleteness.

In other words, the 'ethics of empathy' has become an 'ethics of exclusion'.

Here, an 'Ethical twist' occurs.

◉ 4. Example: Imposing a Recovery Model

• 'You should use your trauma as fuel to become stronger too.'

• 'I recovered, so you should be able to as well.'

This syntax looks like encouragement at first glance, but it standardizes the individual's regeneration process and carries the danger of denying the 'suffering' or 'lingering' of those who do not fit it.
'Recovery' is not one thing, and 'remaining unrecovered' is also a choice.

◉ 5. Proposal: Shifting to an 'Open Call'

“You should become XX too”Stop saying this, and ask“What kind of relationship can exist between me, who is XX, and you?”In other words, move from 'invitation' to 'standing side-by-side'.
• 'I felt this way. How do you feel?'

• 'If you need it, here is another path.'

• 'You as you are now, and you who doesn't change, are both welcome here.'

This is a stance that expects 'transformation' while reserving the other person's context.



◉ Related Chapters • Part 4 | 4.5 The Violence of Correctness: When Labeling Becomes Ethics

• Part 7 | 7.2 Diversity of Suffering and Acceptance

• Part 8 | 8.1 Conditions for Non-Labeling Relationships

🌀 Supplementary Chapter 3 | Persona = Labels You Construct Yourself

── When 'how you want to be seen' creates the self: Structure, function, and their roles

3.1 | Question: Is a persona a 'lie'?

Question:

Are the 'self that performs' and the 'true self' different?

Then, “true”—who defines that?

Experience example:

At work, I act as a 'cheerful and reliable person,' but at home, I become someone who just stays silent. There are moments when I don't know which is the “true”self.

Theory:

Jung's 'Persona' concept:

It is a “mask”worn in response to social expectations; it is different from the core of the individual, but it is a structure necessary for social survival.

Turning point:

It is not a lie because you are performing; the act of performing itself is reality. Whether it is 'true' or not is structurally impossible to determine.



Reader action: Please list three of your personas. Instead of thinking about 'what remains if you take off that mask,' try thinking about 'why that mask was necessary.'

3.2 | Defense or creation: Why do we perform?

Question:

Is a persona 'adaptation to society' or 'creation of self'?

Experience example:

I am tired of being seen as 'someone who never complains.'

But if that image brings peace of mind to others, it is also scary to break it.

Theory:

• Goffman's 'The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life': People have a 'front stage' and a 'back stage' for every situation. • Acting = adaptation, but at the same time, there is a process where the self is created through acting.



Turning point: Acting protects the self, but it also shapes the self. 'As I act, it becomes



“me”.' Reader action:

Let's explore 'which of the roles you play feels most

“like yourself”.'

3.3 | Internalization of the persona: That mask, for whom?

Question:

By continuing to perform, do you ever forget who you were?

Experience example:

As a result of continuing to be the 'expected honor student,' I can no longer remember 'what I really want to do.'

Theory:

• The internalized gaze of others = 'imaginary audience' • In Foucault's terms, 'self-discipline of the subject who has internalized the gaze of others' • The self is a network of the gazes of others



Turning point:

A persona is

“a defense against others” and at the same time, “the result of others themselves being internalized”. It is a 'structure for living.' Reader action:


Try giving a name to the voices inside you that represent 'someone's expectations' or 'how things should be.'

3.4 | Freedom or prison: The self-binding nature of labels

Question:

Are the 'labels you chose for yourself' binding you before you even realized it?

Example of experience:

As a result of publicly declaring 'I am a positive person,' I began to believe that I 'must not say otherwise' even when I am struggling.

Theory:

• 'Self-curse of labels' = The process by which a selected persona becomes an <essence> once again

• Unless there is a 'redefinition of self,' this cycle leads to the hardening of identity

Turning point:

The masks we choose need to be periodically removed and reconstructed.

Updating a persona requires destructive thinking and a safe space for practice.

Reader action:

Identify one 'self-image that feels restrictive to you now,' and try to“rename it”by creating a new word for it yourself.

3.5 | Poetic Renaming: The Recovery of Renaming Yourself

Question:

Can you answer the question 'Who am I?' over and over again?

Example of experience:

One day, by calling myself a“traveler of boundaries”instead of a“freelancer,”I suddenly felt as if I had been forgiven.

Theory:

• Poetic renaming:A technique to give yourself a gentle name by using the margins of word meanings

• This is renaming = self-recreation, and also liberation from self-cursing

Turning point:

When you identify yourself with poetic words rather than labels, a 'me' that is open to relationships emerges.

Instead of saying 'I am XX,' try saying 'I am the me who is with XX.'

Reader action:

Try creating one“poetic name”that you want to give yourself now.

It is not a job title, but a name that includes your“way of being.”

Supplementary Chapter 4 | 'Unforgivability' as a Structure — The Depths of Ethical Rupture

4.1 | Unforgivability is a 'Structure,' Not an Emotion

Question: Why can't I forgive that person? — Is it not because 'unforgivability' is already structured, rather than it being about 'anger' or 'desire for revenge'?

Development:

• The emotion of 'cannot forgive' is often considered ethically wrong. However, the root of unforgivability lies not in individual emotions, but in the structural rupture of relationships.

• Example: If the perpetrator is socially praised, the victim 'forgiving' them becomes an act equivalent to self-denial.

Turning point: Unforgivability occurs not because 'I am angry,' but because 'I will break if I forgive.'

Therefore, unforgivability is the very 'structure of self-preservation.'

🔸A. Connection regarding the deep structure of emotion and ethics

• 2.2 | Structure of injury and recovery models

→ 'Recovery' from the experience of victimization is not uniform, and unforgivability is one form of it.

• 7.2 | Diversity of suffering and acceptance

→ The state of being unable to forgive should also be respected as a diversity that is 'part of recovery.'

• 7.5 | Diversity of forgiveness and repair

→ Forgiveness requires 'depth of time,' and the difference in that structure creates a rupture.

• Final Chapter | Ethics without definition

→ The possibility of an ethics that accepts unforgivability as 'unknowability.'

4.2 | Stigma and Heroization: Double Violence

Question: Why does anger double when the target you cannot forgive is 'socially evaluated'?

Development:

• Stigma (social negation) forces labeling onto the 'one who cannot be forgiven,' but at the same time, there is a composition where the perpetrator is

“heroized” (e.g., a talented domestic abuser, a celebrity without remorse). • This asymmetrical structure brings about a feeling as if the 'harm I received' is being erased from history.

Turning point: Being unable to forgive is a response to 'having one's pain denied.'

Before forgiveness, the restoration of historical balance is required.

🔸B. Connection regarding the structure of violence and asymmetry

• 4.1 | Violence of labeling

→ The structure of forced stigma and the imposition of moral superiority through good intentions.

• 4.4 | Unlabelable existence

→ The distance to heroization and the 'unspeakable other' creates unforgivability.

• 5.2 | Invisibility of institutional labels

→ Institutional evaluation structures reinforce the asymmetry of the 'forgiving side / forgiven side.'

4.3 | Irreversible Asymmetry: The Core of Ethical Rupture

Question: Even if I am apologized to, it doesn't mean 'it never happened.' Why?

Development:

• The perpetrator can 'settle' it with a single word, but the victim lives with that memory for a long time afterward.

→ This is 'irreversible asymmetry.'

• This structure acts as a linguistically, institutionally, and memorially irreparable rupture.

• Can also be connected to 'asymmetrical memory' in feminist theory.
Turning point: Unforgivability functions as a 'visualization of ethical asymmetry.'

Not forgiving can be an act of accusing ethics.

🔸C. Connection regarding relationships with others

• 4.5 | Essence of otherness (Levinas/Bakhtin)

→ Connection to the premise that 'forgiving' is not always ethical.

• 8.1 | Conditions for non-labeling relationships

→ A technique to keep relationships as an open question without assuming forgiveness.

4.4 | Comparative Structure: When Forgiveness Becomes the Privilege of the Strong

Question: Why does the discourse that 'the person who forgave is great' hurt those who cannot forgive even more?
Development:

• The trend that 'the self that cannot forgive is immature' — here lies the trap of re-stigmatization.

• Defining forgiveness as 'good' leads to the 'deprivation of the ethical standing' of those who cannot forgive.

• Comparison includes the violence of making the

“person who forgave”a model case.Turning point: Forgiveness is not 'kindness,' but something that only arises when 'structural conditions' are met.

Blaming unforgivability is equivalent to blaming the victim without blaming the structure.

🔸D. Connection regarding language, memory, and naming

• 6.3 | Silence, body, resonance

→ The impossibility of verbalizing forgiveness and the possibility of continuing relationships through silence.

• 8.4 | Self-renaming

→ Retelling victimization or unforgivability poetically = a technique of self-reorganization.

4.5 | The Choice to Live While Unable to Forgive: Toward Another Horizon of Ethics

Question: Is there ethics in a life without forgiveness?
Development:

• Remaining unable to forgive is also a form of ethics that continues to respond.

• If we paraphrase Levinas's 'infinite responsibility to the other,' it is 'continuing to respond to the other' that is ethics, not 'forgiving.'

• Not forgiving = not forgetting the rupture = the work of truly rethinking the relationship.

Turning point: Perceiving being unable to forgive not as a 'sin,' but as 'sincerity toward structure and relationship.'

On that basis, establish a



third stance that goes beyond forgiving or not forgiving (a relationship of questioning together).🔸E. Connection with supplementary chapters • Supplementary Chapter 1 | Circular labeling→ The three-layer structure of naming, consideration, and seizure also lurks in the forgiving/forgiven relationship.

• Supplementary Chapter 2 | 'You become XX too' syntax and the violence of good intentions

→ The pressure to 'forgive' itself can become a labeling violence.

📝 Reader action:

• To those who have 'something they cannot forgive': Please try to think that it might have been a relationship that was 'structurally unforgivable,' rather than it being your fault.

• To those who have 'experience of forgiving': Please carefully verbalize the 'conditions under which that was possible,' and keep in mind not to impose it on anyone else.

📘 Appendix | Glossary (Keyword collection for structural understanding)

Labeling

The act of assigning names, classifications, or evaluations to others or oneself.

While it has the cognitive advantage of speeding up understanding, it also contains structures that trigger fixation, discrimination, and oppression.

👉 A core concept that runs throughout this book.

Cognitive economy

A shortcut function

used by the brain to reduce the amount of information processing.

This includes labeling, schemas, and heuristics.

👉 A theoretical framework explaining the 'habit of labeling' that works unconsciously.Semantic compression

A cognitive tendency to try to understand diverse backgrounds, contexts, and possibilities by condensing them into a single word

.

The danger of terms like 'person with a disability,' 'young person,' or 'standard score of 50' stems from this.

👉 The source of the 'verbal violence' created by labeling.Schema



A 'cognitive framework' formed by experience and culture.

It helps us understand new information by applying it to past knowledge, but it also becomes a hotbed for preconceptions and prejudices.

👉 The structural foundation of social labeling.Heuristic



Rules for intuitive judgment. They are energy-efficient but often lead to misperception and discrimination.
Example: 'Judging by that appearance, they must be a dangerous person,' etc.

👉 Directly linked to prejudice and stereotypes.Self-stabilization

A phenomenon where humans, based on the desire to believe 'I am this kind of person,'

internalize the evaluations and labels of others and reconstruct reality consistently.

👉 The reverse vector of self-renaming.Comparative framing



A cognitive habit of perceiving everything in terms of 'above/below' or 'win/lose'.

Labeling functions as a premise for classifying and ranking individuals.

👉 Involved in the hierarchical stratification of value based on educational background, economic disparity, and occupation.Fixing the other



A structure where, once you define another person as 'this kind of person,' you continue to hold that image without updating it.

👉 The root cause of the impossibility of dialogue and the rigidity of relationships.Labeling violence



Violence that seals off the variability, growth potential, and complexity of others by applying a label.

👉 Analyzed in detail in Part 4 of this book.Asymmetry



The cognitive and power-based difference that exists between the one who names and the one who is named.

👉 The core of the ethical problem of the act of labeling.Confirmation bias



The tendency to collect only information that matches one's own labels and ignore information that does not.

👉 A hotbed for 'I knew that person was XX.'Stigma



The negative social meaning attached to a certain label.

Example: 'Disabled' = lacks ability, 'Non-regular' = lack of effort, etc.

👉 The mechanism by which labels justify discrimination.Levinas's 'Face'

The 'face'

of another is an ethical call that transcends labels.

An ontological otherness where the responsibility to respond arises before 'seeing/being seen'.

👉 A core concept of the ethical structure in 4.5 and the final chapter.Bakhtin's 'Dialogism'



Language is 'something that is always generated in relationship with others'.A theory of 'monoglossia' that counters the 'polyphony'

of labeling language.

👉 The foundation for the development of poetic and resonant language in Part 6.

Arendt's 'Appearance'

By 'appearing' before others, a person possesses uniqueness and dignity.

Not an existence grasped by a name, but a 'human as an event'.

👉 The philosophical foundation for practices that transcend labels (Part 8).Persona

A 'mask'

as a social role.Labels function as a form of this 'mask,'



but there is a danger that it will be mistaken for 'oneself'.👉 Important for the relationship between labeling and identity.

Shared silence



An attitude of remaining in the 'pre-meaning' state with others by refraining from linguistic labels.👉 A central technique of the ethics of care and coexistence in Part 8.

Self-renaming



The practice of deconstructing naming by others and poetically renaming oneself.Re-grasping 'Who am I?' not as a definition from the outside, but as a generative process.👉 A poetics of self-recovery through writing and speaking.

Article Introduction

Please take a look at the following article as well.

📘 [25 Questions] -- A Dialogue for Self-Understanding and Understanding Others

◉ 1 | Self and Labels

1. What labels do you currently apply to yourself?

2. Did you choose those labels yourself? Or were they applied to you by someone else?

3. Are the words you have convinced yourself are 'who you are' still functioning?

4. Which label do you want to let go of the most? Why?

5. Can you endure the 'absence' of labels? What do you feel in a state of being 'no one'?

◉ 2 | Gaze Toward Others

6. Do you remember a moment recently when you decided someone was 'that kind of person'?

7. Where, and what kind of label, appears for someone you feel 'somehow dislike'?

8. Have you ever had the experience of settling for a label when dealing with someone you felt you 'could not understand'?

9. Have you ever been unable to forgive someone's 'change'?

10. Have you ever had the experience of keeping someone as a 'question'?

◉ 3 | Institutions and Labeling

11. Have you ever had a moment where you felt you believed in 'institutional labels' such as educational background, occupation, disability, or gender?

12. When did you doubt what 'normal' is?

13. Have you ever had your 'opportunities' limited by being labeled?

14. In what situations did you realize you were 'unconsciously conforming to the system'?

15. Is the reason you 'could not speak up' related to the weight of labels?

◉ 4 | Time, Transformation, and Incompleteness

16. Are you able to accept the 'incomplete parts' within yourself?

17. What meaning do you give to your wounded past?

18. Have you ever felt anxious watching someone else change?

19. Have you ever had the experience of choosing 'forgiveness' over 'correctness'?

20. Have you ever chosen to 'be together while not knowing'?

◉ 5 | Words, Silence, and Coexistence

21. How do you accept someone's 'silence'? Is it a rejection, or is it a space?

22. How do you handle emotions that cannot be put into words?

23. What events are tied to the 'naming' you can never forget?

24. Have you ever experienced a relationship that cannot be put into words?

25. For you, what does 'being together' mean? Is it a relationship with a name? Or a relationship that transcends names?

🌀 [Suggestions for Use]

• As a checklist: Mark with Yes/No to visualize your biases and blind spots.

• As an entry point for dialogue: Exchange chosen questions with a partner or group.

• For self-renaming: Try giving yourself a new name or words based on the questions that shook you the most.


2 | Perspective Checklist: Which ones did you feel were 'someone else's problem'?

This book touches on the following themes, but the 'perspectives that strike home' and 'perspectives that are let go' will differ depending on the reader.

Which perspectives were 'not yet your own'?

• Institutional labels related to 'educational background,' 'disability,' 'occupation,' 'family,' 'gender,' etc.

• Ethics related to 'weakness' such as 'incompleteness,' 'clumsiness,' 'forgiveness,' and 'time'.

• Techniques for reorganizing relationships such as 'poetic naming,' 'shared silence,' and 'self-redefinition'.

• Proposals for philosophical attitudes such as 'not knowing,' 'not defining,' and 'coexistence'.

By checking them off, you might see the direction in which the 'gravity of the question' is pulling you.

3 | For those who want to know more: Related papers, books, and other works by the author

For readers who wish to proceed to further exploration based on this book, the following readings, treatises, and works are relevant:

📘 [Related Treatises by the Author]

'Labeling Theory: The Intersection of Language, Institutions, and Ethics'

'59 Perspectives on Diversity: A Philosophy of Unclassified Relationships'

'The Poetics of Meaning Generation: Naming / Not Naming'

📚 [External References & Seeds for Dialogue]

• Emmanuel Levinas, 'Totality and Infinity': Ethical Encounters with the Other

• Hannah Arendt, 'The Human Condition': The Ethics of Appearing and Plurality

• Mikhail Bakhtin, 'Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics': The Philosophy of Dialogism and Polyphony

• Naokola Yamazaki, 'Don't Laugh at Other People's Sex': The Practice of Uncategorizable Relationships

• Hayao Kawai, 'Prescriptions for the Heart': Clinical Wisdom Emphasizing 'Accompanying' Over Naming

4 | How to Read: Tips for 'Structurally Rereading' This Book

This book can also be reread using the following structure:

🔄 [Thematic Reading]

• Read focusing on violence (centered on Parts 4 and 5)

• Read focusing on poetic coexistence (Parts 6 and 8)

• Read focusing on institutional critique and real-world cases (Part 5 and the Supplementary Chapter)

• Read for self-understanding (Parts 2, 7, and 8)

🔗 [Following the Interconnected Structure]

• Part 1 → Part 5 → Part 6: Generation of Labels → Institutionalization → Deconstruction

• Part 2 → Part 3 → Part 7: Diversity of the Inner Self → Diversity of Relationships → Diversity of Existence

• Part 4 → Part 8 → Final Chapter: Violence → Practical Transcendence → Ethical Turn