Grouping Humans

Dear Readers,

This post is going to be rambly, and rough, and sort of maybe kind of disconnected. It lacks a clear thesis statement. Yes, that's what it is- it lacks a clear thesis statement.

My last post partly talked about anti-Semitism, and about punishing or discriminating against people based on their group affiliation. People do this all the time- people judge people based on what group they belong to. I think that’s OK to a certain extent, but we have to be careful.

I see two kinds of groups that people belong to: groups that are chosen, (like the Girl Scouts, the Parent Teacher Organization, the YMCA, political parties in some situations, certain professions, colleges, religions in some situations) and groups that are inherent (race, gender, ethnicity, geographical origin, sometimes class, sometimes religion). In other words, people involuntarily belong to groups that they’re born into, and then as they age, they voluntarily join a lot of different groups. It’s important to think about groups because learning about groups helps us learn about people. If we say a person belongs to the Elk’s Lodge- then we can make some educated guesses about what that person is like. If we say a person works at a department store, for some reason that’s useful information… for some reason that bit of information tells us about a person… even though plenty of different types of people work at department stores…

People’s identities are formed partially by their birth, but everybody has free agency, so they can choose to be whoever they want to be, sort of. America especially I feel has put a lot of emphasis on individualism, on social mobility, and on setting out on your own and being whoever you want to be. Abraham Lincoln exemplified this. He grew up a poor country bumpkin but because of his determination, willpower, and his choices (and also because of forces outside of his control) he became a postmaster, a lawyer, a senator, and the President of the United States of America.

My liberal arts college education has taught me to pay a lot of attention to identities formed from membership in inherent groups- race, class, gender- the groups that people don’t choose to join. For example, I had a Women’s literature class, an African American literature class, and other classes that focused on the literature produced by minorities. Those classes reinforced the notion that women’s lit and African American lit were useful, distinct categories- they emphasized difference between the sexes and difference between the races. It was such a paradox in the women’s lit. class: in women’s lit., part of the theory was that men and women are the same- anything men can do women can do. You know, women can be CEOs, shoot machine guns, be emotionally unavailable, write great novels, etc. So, my question is, if there’s no difference between men and women, and if we should forget that the sexes exist at all, then why do we have a class called “Women’s literature”? Wouldn’t it be more progressive to have a class called, “Human literature”?

Colleges also reinforce the notion that inherent groups possess a distinct set of characteristics by sponsoring clubs based on gender and race. The college I go to, and colleges around the world, sponsor plenty of clubs like African American clubs, Native American clubs, and so on.

But I’m thinking, how useful are those categories? And why do people keep reminding themselves and others, by sponsoring and participating in clubs like that, that we belong to these groups? Why are we constantly reminding ourselves that we belong to a certain race or gender, if race and gender are merely arbitrary social constructs anyway? I think the answer people give to defend clubs like an African American club or classes like a Women’s lit class is: “We’re studying history and sociology. Although the goal is to eventually forget about race and gender, and treat everyone exactly the same, right now everybody is still, at least subconsciously, sexist and racist. We need things like special clubs, scholarships, classes, lobbyists, political action committees, and Affirmative Action to begin the work of balancing the scales and achieving equality for everyone.” Well… I don’t buy that argument.

There is one college though, that refuses to report to the Government the demographics of their student body and faculty. That’s Hillsdale College. In some ways I think Hillsdale is trying to do a lot to forget about race and gender. Maybe their approach toward a society that reflects the belief “all men are created equal” is better than the approach that is being taken by most other universities. To show you what I mean, look a list of clubs at Hillsdale College:

http://www.hillsdale.edu/studentlife/organizations/clubs.asp

Notice that they don’t have one single club based on ethnicity, gender, etc. (They do have several clubs based on religion, though, but again, religions, (arguably) are groups that are chosen- not groups that you’re born being a member of.)

Now look at my college's list of clubs:

http://www4.nau.edu/stulife/clubs.htm

As you can see, NAU has dozens of clubs based on ethnicity. (You would see similar findings if you compared the two college's course catalogs. Hillsdale does not have classes based on race, but NAU does.) At NAU there’s the African Student Association, M.E.Ch.A.... and one really interesting one is the American Indian Science and Engineering Society. What’s up with that? All genders, nationalities, races and etc. have members who are interested in science and engineering- what does being Native American have to do with science and engineering at all? Well, maybe they have more traditional native ways of looking at science that only insiders would understand or appreciate, I don’t know. Still, I think something is rotten in the state of NAU.

Christian Lander, author of the blog and book Stuff White People Like, points out that some upper class white liberal people can be hypocritical. They try to show how blind they are to race by having an Asian friend, a black friend, a Latino friend, etc. But in the process of acquiring a rainbow of friends, they have to do a lot of racial profiling. And so race’s position as a distinct, meaningful category of humanity is actually enhanced when one tries to prove that race isn’t a meaningful category- that we’re all the same. You see what I mean? It’s ironic. That’s what it is. Irony.

I think that emphasizing difference based on membership in inherent groups is a form of taking away people’s agency. Or, more accurately, persuading people that they have no agency. Take this into consideration: “You’re black. You were born that way. That’s the way you are, and you can’t change it. And being black makes you different than white people. Being black usually means being oppressed and exploited in politics, business, school, etc. It’s not your fault. You were born black, and you’re stuck that way for life.” Isn’t that sort of messed up?

I think people should say to each other, “Go do whatever you want to do, because you are human and you are free and you are beautiful.”

One of my favorite entries in Stuff White People Like is # 62: Knowing What’s Best for Poor People. Most of that list is mostly silly and funny, but that item of the list gets really serious. Here’s part of it:

“[White people think that]…the only reason that poor people make the choices they do is because they have not been given the means to make the right choices and care about the right things…But it is ESSENTIAL that you reassert that poor people do not make decisions based on free will.”

I think that liberal college professers who teach African American Literature classes or Women’s Literature classes are sort of doing the same thing as the people who Christian Lander is mocking. They’re taking away people’s free agency.

OK… I wonder if this has been hard to read and make sense out of and blah blah blah. I’m pretty much just saying the same thing over and over, but hopefully a little bit differently each time. Here’s more thoughtful blabber about grouping humans!

A system of classification is useful for lots of things. Biology involves naming all the different life forms on the planet, classifying animals. For example, biologists put a caterpillar into a species category, a genus category, a family category, and so on. Labels are really useful for swift communication. In the beginning, Adam gave names to all the animals.

Names and groups are not only handy and useful, but ultimately necessary for communication. Naming things and labeling things is part of being human- every culture everywhere has used language, and whoa… I think words signify groups really. Nouns signify groups of people, places and things, verbs signify groups of actions, adjectives signify groups of descriptions, and etc. One word is good for a lot of different situations. Imagine how large our dictionaries would have to be- imagine the absurdity that would abound- if each individual thing required it’s own special word. Like, if you bought a box of toothpicks, each toothpick would have to have a different word to represent it. Like, one would be toothpick, another would be tathpcick, another would be tarthpick, another would be tastpick, another would be tabpick, and so on- a different word for each different toothpick in the box. Because how dare we be so stereotypical as to group all those beautiful diverse slivers of wood together under one oversimplified label? They’re each unique and special, and they all have equal worth- we have to get to know each one of them individually- we can’t label them all the same- They each need their own word!

Am I making any sense?

I just read this wonderful article by Ron Paul about racism. Here’s an excerpt:

“Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals. Racists believe that all individuals who share superficial physical characteristics are alike: as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups. By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called ‘diversity’ actually perpetuate racism. Their obsession with racial group identity is inherently racist.”

You can find the whole article here:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul381.html

My opinion of Ron Paul went up when I read that article. Actually, I always thought he was pretty cool, but I voted for Mitt Romney, partially because I knew Mitt had a better chance of winning, but also for a lot of other reasons.

OK, well, readers, here is my wisdom for you today: try not to judge people too much based on the inherent groups they belong to.

Your lucky numbers are 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, and 4.

(They’re all different fours! They’re all unique! Just because they happen to belong to the same socially created artificial system of human enumeration doesn’t meant that you have the right to judge them and think you know all about them just because they all happen to equal the product of 2 times 2 ! Be a little more open-minded! Be a little more accepting and aware of the rainbow of identities, the mosaic of cultures, the tapestry of personalities within each number you encounter, even if upon first glance you mistake a 4 for a 4! Keep looking, without judging... live among 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, and 4, for years, and live like them to understand who they each are as individuals, not merely as members of the 4 category! But also know that no matter how hard you try, you will never really know what it's like to be a 4 anyway, because you're a human, and not a mathematical abstraction! You'll just never truly appreciate what it means to be a 4!)

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa