We replaced development with classification.
Labels feel like identity—until growth disappears.
Over the last one and a half generations, we have built something subtle—and deeply consequential.
A society of labels.
Not to understand people better.
But to locate them.
To classify them.
To make them administratively manageable.
We invent terminology and assign meaning to it so individuals can recognize themselves inside predefined categories.
Labels create belonging.
Belonging creates compliance.
At the same time, financial and structural support for the very systems meant to foster development is quietly reduced.
The result is measurable:
cognitive capacity declines.
Developmental processes are removed—while expectations increase.
A recent example illustrates this contradiction clearly.
In parts of Germany, handwriting is being removed from school curricula because it is considered unnecessary.
Handwriting is not about aesthetics.
It is about focus, sequencing, cognitive integration.
We remove foundational developmental processes—
and simultaneously expect individuals at the same age to make profound identity assessments about themselves.
That is not progress.
That is a structural contradiction.
Technologically, the situation is paradoxical.
For the first time in history, it is entirely possible to educate individuals according to their actual learning capacity, pace, and cognitive structure.
Uniform classrooms are no longer a technical necessity.
Yet this will not be implemented.
Why?
Because systems require predictability.
Not understanding.
If you do not learn as prescribed, you are labeled.
Outside norm.
Difficult.
Problematic.
What this reveals is not individual failure—
but systemic rigidity.
Standardized processes promise efficiency under a “one size fits all” logic.
Yet outcomes repeatedly show that these structures are fragile, inconsistent, and incapable of producing reliable results.
Individuals do not grow inside them.
They endure them.
What we are living in are systems that were never fully thought through.
They are maintained through cosmetic adjustments, rebranding, and surface-level reforms—
all in an attempt to preserve control.
Not to cultivate humans.