To Label; Good or Bad?

Bourgeois, jock, nerd, geek, gay, bi...
These are only a few of the labels imposed on different groups of people by today's' society.

I just recently began thinking about labels after reading an article that happened to mention labels and it got me thinking; are labels any good?

We belong to a society in which they wish to label everything so that they might understand everything a little better. Maybe it isn't it even that, maybe people have the need to everything in a certain place so that they will know if they belong above that item/person or below it.
I suppose some people label others because its easier to remember who you are talking about specifically if you have something to associate them with.

There is a search for identity among the human race, a longing to belong.
Labels sometimes play a part in this, they can at times provide a place of belonging for the soul searching for their place.

People argue that labels are used to put people down and some truly are for that purpose. But that is another discussion entirely.

Perhaps we should find the difference between "label" and "class."

According to dictionary.com these are the definitions;
Class; a number of persons or things regarded as forming a group by reason of common attributes, characteristics, qualities, or traits; kind; sort: a class of objects used in daily living.

Label; a short word or phrase descriptive of a person, group, intellectual movement, etc.

So is it or is it not the same thing?
Class seems to imply that the group forms and is then labeled by the individuals within that class.
whereas label seems to imply that the group is not formed, it is named by others who are outside of the group which shares certain similarities.
But by sharing certain similarities they have already formed a group, whether knowingly or unknowing it is a group.

Perhaps some labels are valid and others aren't, everywhere you look there are labels for everything, rude, not so rude, everywhere you look there are labels.

I wonder, is this a good thing?
Perhaps if we had no labels for certain things then they might change.

Labels can get confusing sometimes, heck even what I've written seems so confusing that I don't know what to do with it. All my thoughts on this subject have been so muddled that I have a hard time separating one from another.

I think that is what it is like with the words "label" and "class." Those words have been thrown around so much that people have difficulty seeing the difference.
I really think that this topic requires so much more thought and dissection that I have no idea how to even go about breaking down this topic further.

Some people hate to label things because they feel that having a definitive name for something will only serve to suppress what it could grow to be. In a nutshell they feel that it stunts any further growth.

Others perhaps feel that if they take on a label for who they are or class themselves with a group it will force them change fully to be the very incarnation of the stereotype for that group of people which will in turn impose on their freedom to be.

Perhaps if there were no labels or distinctions between groups of people then the wars between the classes to impose their values on a another group of society would be quiescent.

But if there were no distinctions then there would be no diversity which provides the interesting elements of the human race which I love; but I digress.

I suppose that whether or not a label or class is a good or bad thing must be determined by the individual.
Whether or not they wish to identify with a certain group of people and in so doing take on a label, must be decided by the individual themselves; not by society