I’ve posted a few thoughts lately about categories. My broad point has been that categories often do more harm than good. I think my examples have done well to make this point clear to you, skeptical reader.
But what is really so bad about putting things into categories? If the category is wrong, you just change it, right? A category is a convenient shortcut – with categories, we know a movie is a comedy without having to watch it, for example, or we know that a restaurant will serve pizzas without having to read the menu. Without categories, we all would waste a lot more time figuring out what we already know. Maybe people like me who waste time writing about the dangers of categories should be lumped into one of the most helpful categories of all – the ‘spam email’ section (1)!
Still, I can’t help but harp on about it. The problem I have with categories has been on my mind quite a bit lately. I think categorization is OK if it doesn’t directly involve people. But the benefits of categorizing objects do not apply to the process of categorizing other people. When people are categorized, it always seems unnecessary to me. Surely, there is more to another than their outfit, their background, or their job? And as it always is the case when a process involves violence, the end is never really justified because of the means.
This position grows out of my personal experience. Whenever I am being categorized, I always feel like I am under attack. Being categorized almost always feels violent – it’s like I’m being forced into a space I was never interested in occupying. I bet if I was hooked up to the right medical equipment while being categorized, a doctor would quickly make note of alarming vital signs – a quickened heartbeat, for sure, and maybe a change in breathing as well, surefire signs that my body was responding once more to the familiar pressure of being forced into a box that will never be the right size for me.
These experiences of feeling under attack while being categorized have come up in all kinds of ways over the years. In some cases, the categorization I used to enjoy in my innocent youth has given way to an experienced understanding of how a positive stereotype is the mirror image of the unstated caricature. The margins between someone who thinks I look like a math whiz and someone who sees a slant-eyed sneak are very slim. As I warily noted when I read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, being noted as a ‘good’ representative of any group merely confirms the underlying prejudice always present against the group. After all, how can anyone within a group be ‘good’ unless the group is otherwise comprised of ‘bad’?
In other experiences, the categorization I’ve been subjected has never been a source of pleasure. It’s bad enough to be described as a Japanese-American by strangers who are merely trying their best – what’s astonishing is how often I hear this from those who know my full background. I’ve always thought the hyphen being a minus sign was symbolically appropriate – it certainly doesn't add anything to my experience and I don’t see it as an improvement on being fully accepted as an American or a Japanese. All the hyphen has done for me is erase basic facts about my ancestry and citizenship; all I expect the hyphen to do for me in the future is point me toward groups where nobody really belongs.
At its harmless everyday worst, categorization buries a person’s uniqueness under a frenzied layer of loose associations and reduces the complexity of personal history until it fits easily into a category everyone is accustomed to. In other words, categorization denies individuality and alters history. These run counter to the rights and freedoms so many have died to earn and protect and yet here we are, every single day, undermining our own liberty and democracy because we so casually accept categorization as a normal way of being for a free thinking and open-minded society.
The longer we all go on categorizing each other, the longer we’ll remain divided by our self-righteous suspicions. The longer we all accept categorization as a way to understand those different from us, the longer we’ll all go on categorizing instead of understanding. Recognizing categorization as an inherently violent process is a step forward into a different future where misplaced assumptions have given way to understanding and the false barriers that once separated misplaced groups remain only as historical relics of a time when we all failed to get the very best out of each other.
Footnotes / Google might also be appropriate here
1. TOA, is it really spam? I think it is...
Honestly, if this isn’t already going straight to your spam folder each morning, I recommend contacting your internet service provider and reporting the issue.
