Taxonomy as Politics: The Harm of False Classification

Categories often exert a tyranny over our perceptions and judgments. An old joke— perhaps it even happened—from the bad old days of McCarthyism tells of a leftist rally in Philadelphia, viciously broken up by the police. A passerby gets caught in the melee and, as the cops are beating him, he pleads: “Stop, stop, I’m an anticommunist.” “I don’t care what kind of communist you are,” says the cop, as he continues his pummeling.
We seem to think by dichotomies and separations. Protagoras asserted, according to Diogenes, “that there were two sides to every question, exactly opposite to each other.” We set up our categories, often by arbitrary division based on tiny differences; then, mistaking names for moral principles, and using banners and slogans as substitutes for reason, we vow to live or die for one or the other side of a false dichotomy. The situation is lamentable enough when the boundaries are profound and natural; if c...