Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels

> This is part of a deeper instinct in modern life, I think, to explain everything.

To explain everything shallowly by looking for direct cause and effect and not a multitudes of causes and effects. That complexity is too much to think through comfortably whilst living within it and having an unreliable experience of the self, especially in the younger years. Labeling causes with an easy broad moniker provides temporary comfort, relieving the individual of the burden of deeper reflection.

They're trying to explain everything but what they're actually doing is labelling everything with dubious labels and then putting social pressure on people to act like their labels. Under the guise of acceptance they're alienating everybody from each other by trying to put everybody into a bucket. It's best to notice this kind of thing but not put too much energy into refuting it because it's just not where conversations or attention should be, this kind of thought should wither in obscurity instead of seeking some kind of victory over it.

Haven't we been doing exactly what you say since like forever? Aren't "asshole" or "creep" or "nice" just labels coined a long time ago that already distort someones actual behavior or some situation between 2 people? Or used for being mocked or commended? I say at least in current times the new generations are expanding that vocabulary in trying to be more precise but the people that are more of a following type keep defaulting to exclusionary behavior.

Yes, but this time it's with the veneer of scientific legitimacy.

"asshole" isn't an identity or a diagnosis

It's certainly not uncommon for specialists in any scientific field to roll their eyes when someone outside their discipline discusses their work.