Identity labels trigger prior beliefs and reinforce dualistic thinking

Evidence

In her landmark 1984 book, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, hooks cautioned readers to “avoid using the phrase ‘I am a feminist’” and opt instead for “I advocate feminism,” explaining that unlike the “I am” label, which triggers the listener’s prior beliefs about what and who is a feminist, the latter is far more likely to begin a conversation about what concrete changes feminism is trying to achieve and “does not engage us in the either/or dualistic thinking that is the central ideological component of all systems of domination in Western society.” — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 220

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gives the conceptual core of Klein’s diagonalism: rejecting fixed identity labels in favor of active verbs — directly relevant to how the Mirror World brands itself with fixed identities (anti-vaxxer, sovereign citizen).
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how identity politics and dualistic thinking operate; hooks’s verb-based framing echoes the ‘Small acts’ theme and the earlier soundscape material on figure/ground categories. — connects to: Choosing identity labels produces a common cause between them — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 285; Tribal political beliefs function as identity markers validated by repetition, not evidence — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 126