So a general running theme in the language I have used lately tends towards category, categories, categorization, and so on, and so forth. Why? Why am I so preoccupied with this concept?
Well there are several reasons. First of all I study literature. In studying literature I have to deal with something that for most people is a non-issue idea. Genres. Genres are categories and they are slippery, ill defined, and in some instances damaging to the overall texts that they claim to represent.
Why?
Well let's break down the various portions of what the genre provides from the macro to the micro. What is the most basic beginning way of defining genre? A reasonable place to start is prose versus verse. Are we talking your standard writing, much like this right here, or poetry? Depending on which way we direct ourselves increased parallel questions that complicate the waters begin. If a work is prose then expectations apply, what form is the prose written in? Is it fiction or non-fiction? Within either of those two categories what sub-riding genre do they fall into? When it comes to verse there are still problematic features to consider. What is the form being used? What is the meter? The rhyme scheme? When is it from? What is the context surrounding the text?
As you can imagine the complication on a literary scale only grows from here. Fiction has an anticipated set of considerations separate from non-fiction. Fantasy and science fiction are not on a level of equality, each present different and uniquely important perspectives. But on what? Now let's start getting increasingly tricky. What happens when the identifiable features of several genres appear in one text? What if you have an academic-sci-fi-romance-fantasy-dystopian-erotic piece of historic fiction? Are the genre categories we have appropriate to try to contain that?
Naturally this spills outwards, and what is outward also spills inward. A continual expanding and collapsing in the same mutual moment. This is the problem of categories and their relation of literature to social to cultural and back again. It's less of a cycle and more as if the big bang and the universe containing black hole existed at the same time.
Perhaps that's too abstract, but this is abstract thought.
So we take this complication created by categorization and begin to look outwards. We see the evidence all around us. Economic struggles, racial struggles, sexual, gender, biological, non-biological. From the large profile issues to the smaller and less considered.
Other is a term that gets tossed around sometimes in academics and, surprisingly to me, outside of it as well. Most understand the basic concept of the Other. The Other is not me. The Other may not be you but also very well could be. So that which is not a reflection of myself, or that which is not a reflection of what I am a reflection of, is naturally Other. Different cultures separate from that which you have grown up in are Other. They are inherently mysterious to you until you come to learn more, and in earnestly learning more the difference that they present is slowly eroded away. It is never eliminated though, it cannot be eliminated because you can never be them. Thus to you they must always be Other to some extent, and you will likewise be Other to them.
Otherness as a whole is based in the concept of categorization. We categorize people for various reasons, if you ask Foucault this will go back to introducing various concepts to the medical community (i.e. homosexuality being demonized when it was labeled as 'homosexuality' by the medical community, go read History of Sexuality for more). A hot button way of clarifying that I like to turn to is race, though this can be applied to most groups of people who are placed under the heading "minority."
So race is a category. Technically, race is insubstantial. Are their certain, basic, biological differences? Naturally, if genetic differences didn't exist we would all look alike. Given that we don't there has to be variation buried away in various places, skin, eyes, hair just to name several. But are these distinctions actual distinctions? Categorically we're tempted to say yes. There is an undeniable difference (take note of the term "difference" because it is of great importance to creating the Other. The Other must always exhibit difference). But what does this difference dictate in very real terms? Is there a distinct difference in mental capacity? Physical capacity? Outside of the base racist responses of "yes" the answer is no. The mental acuity, perhaps the most important piece of consideration, of a black man, a Korean woman, a Chinese man, an Anglo woman, and Latino man are all at an equal level provided they have access to equal education and opportunities. Why do these categories exist then?
To perpetuate a specific power structure. The game is rigged, ladies and gents. If you're white the game swings dramatically in your favor. If you're a man this imbalance is more on your side. If you're heterosexual then even more so. And if you possess all three of those attributes you have won the social power paradigm. I know there are going to be people who argue with this. White men and women who are heterosexual will spill out of the wood work saying they've never had X opportunity or Y benefit. And yes, there is inequality within one category, because there's additional categories at play in most social systems. But those who knee-jerk against this concept likewise have options that they do not appreciate or realize.
So why would we want to perpetuate this power system in any current social structure? Good question, and the answer is muddled, complex, and not exactly an answer given the ever shifting target. The fastest and easiest response that can be mustered up is: Old, rich, white men are scared of losing power. This is why social progress is stamped "socialism," and why "socialism," is considered the equal of fascism, communism, dictatorship, and tyrannical central monarchy. This is why racial issues become labeled "race wars," or economic inequality is instantly claimed "class warfare." The power system will not easily relinquish its power. And the system maintains its power with ease by utilizing the very same concept that keeps the Humanities consistently employed in a never ending rhetorical dispute. Otherness. Difference. Categories. By compartmentalizing people away from people we are turned into increasingly smaller subsets that can be freely divide further at will.
Don't support categorization. Support people.
On a closing note, I will continue to stress this to my dying breath, do not place difference on a pedestal. We must recognize, accept, and appreciate difference, yes. We should always see people as they present themselves, because they are people. A fat person is not a fat person, they are a person. Period. Is their weight one potential factor about them? Yes. A black person is not simply black, they are a person. Their race is one aspect of their identity. But in this it is important to recognize and appreciate how this difference, that on one hand must be diminished to always see the person, does create one piece of who that person is. It is not in my right to say I don't see weight and don't see you as heavy (I use this given I'm a plump person myself). Your weight is part of how you construct your identity and that is important. I will never tell you I don't see color. Yes, I see color, yes I see race, yes I see gender and sex differences, no I generally don't see sexuality differences unless I'm at a Pride event where the division of sexualities is a bit more distinguishable (at which point fuck right I do see sexuality differences). I see all of these differences, all of these categories, because they do, in a way that is disturbing yet unavoidable, create who the individual person is. But beyond that I must disregard. I must erode away expectations that categories create. And if we work at this, all of us, day in and day out, then the world will continue to improve.
And isn't that what this life is about? Trying to find a way to leave the place just a little better than when you arrived? I'd like to believe that.