Many of the various labels
we adopt are connected by economics. The example I am thinking of at the moment
is the holy duality of the taxpayer/homeowner.
I recently, as they say, purchased a home. It’s a funny
thing, to think that before this, all the places I lived were just homes I paid
for the privilege of occupying temporarily, making them not really homes at
all, but waystations on the path to a genuine home, which, by the “homeowner”
definition, necessarily involves owning property. You will regularly hear people
speak about buying a house, but we do not use the word “houseowner.” That would
perhaps be too impersonal for the market, which needs us to believe that only
once we buy a house does it become a home, even if it was just as much a home
for the people we bought it from as we hope it will be for ourselves. This is
echoed in the language of retail business rooted in, as the phrase goes, home
improvement: it is not “House Depot” or “House Hardware,” even though I had
what I thought was a home for years without having to patronize these places
much, but have had to make several trips a week ever since I bought a house.
Taxpayer is a word that we
would seem to earn once we own property, the way an author earns the modifier
“bestselling” or an athlete “all star.” Which is to say, it is usually framed
in terms of having reached a certain level, which allows us to claim certain
rights. Renting, we might look at a thing that will affect our ability to move
from place to place in a city, like public transit or the construction of
roads, and shrug; what right do we have to weigh in on these things? Our lives
are uncertain, lacking permanence in the public record. But once we own houses
and find ourselves paying annual lump sums to the municipal government, we jump
at the chance to proclaim, “I’m a taxpayer! My opinion counts!” Politicians
know this, and use it to their advantage whenever they can. It's no coincidence
that Rob Ford became the mayor of Toronto by proclaiming his respect for
taxpayers; if his slogan had been “Respect for People Who Pay Tax,” which, by
the rules of common understanding, would likely include everyone who pays
provincial sales tax on their morning coffee rather than using the word
“Taxpayer” to single out those who own property in the city and therefore pay
property tax, chances are it wouldn’t have been so effective.
(I have no clear answer for
why so many low-income residents who rent appear to have voted for Rob Ford.)
There are other examples of
this, some of which are also connected. Around elections, we tend to become
Voters. In news
stories about traffic, people who drive to work are called Commuters. In an
amusing and revealing link, both the lingo of drugs and computing refer to
us as Users.
Labels in themselves are
useful; categorization is one of the tools science uses to effectively help
explain the world, and many of us have had fun with genre tags applied to
music, film, literature and so on. But I like to be careful when choosing when
and how to adopt certain popular definitions. I own a house, and that’s nice;
I’m lucky enough to be able to afford it. But Wikipedia says that a home “is a
place of residence
or refuge.” (In
keeping with the standards of consumer society, it then goes on to specify
that, “When it refers to a building, it is usually a place in which an
individual or a family can rest and store personal
property.”)
I like to think that if
disaster struck and I had to sell my house – or even if I lost my ability to
afford permanent shelter – I’d still have a home, be it a certain
neighbourhood, the city in which I live, or the country I was born in: what
Wikipedia calls “the geographical area (whether it be a suburb, town, city or country) in which
a person grew up or feels they belong,” or, even better, “a mental or emotional
state of refuge or comfort.” In equating house with home, we further
marginalize those who have trouble finding places to sleep, but are still
members of our community, however hard their lot may be.
Besides, I know that,
regardless of whether I own a house or sleep in a shelter, I’m still required
to pay taxes on my morning coffee.
One of my favourite songs
about what we mean when we talk about home:
