We should all know what it is to fall victim to a metaphor. This is like that, and it is in some ways, but then when you press it, you discover that it is not like that in lots of other ways.
Consider the summary evaluation of left wing/right wing. This is saying that the hurly burly political activity of millions of people can be compared to a line on a blackboard, drawn from left to right. Republicans are over here, and Democrats are over there. But consider what a slender metaphor it is — one horizontal line to represent how many variables?
I have been rolling this over in my mind trying to come up with a three-dimensional graph, one with up and down and front and back, and even that would be enormously inadequate.
But another problem is that I wouldn’t want recognition of this limitation to play into a favorite trick of dishonest thinkers who decry “labels.” The problem is that we need more labels, better labels, not no labels. The culturally dishonest want to keep everything in the dark, because their deeds are evil. Many years ago, my future son-in-law was sitting through some dumb dorm-leaders sensitivity exercise, which required everybody to ask a line-up of folks any questions they wanted to, and the point of the exercise was to show how homosexuals are just like everybody else — you can’t tell who they are by means of ordinary questions. So Ben asked “what’s your favorite band?” and everybody got really angry because it turns out you can tell.
Labels define, labels help. When a question doesn’t get at the problem fully, if it doesn’t get us very far, the need is for a follow-up question. Suppose someone were to walk up to me on the street and ask if I were “a conservative.” I would say yes, or more probably “yes, but.” Now that word nowhere near explains my thinking and life, but the person now knows more than he did. His greater knowledge is only a problem if he thinks that one question captures everything. The deficiencies revealed by the one question can only be solved by more questions, not fewer.