Categories

Online shopping, career choices and whatnot, the world is highly influenced by categories. In this one, I’ll take a shot at deciphering why categorization helps, and does it cause, if any, harms to our comprehension and thinking processes.

It’s not a stereotype if it’s always true.

-Daniel Tosh

Imagine a scenario with the current technology available to us, if one of the e-commerce giants were to bring in an online marketplace that offers every item imaginable. However, the catch would be, there was no possible way to segregate one kind of item from the other. What would be the response we’d give to such an offering? (I need a few satirical answers to this question, care to venture one? 😉 )

Every day, we are subjected to one or the other sort of categorization, based on products, types, colors, choices, fame, yeah well, the list is endless. In this internet-dominant world, we shop, eat, drink and choose based on these categories. As a matter of fact, even these categories have categories within them! Let me explain. When we take a look at professions, we have categories like doctors, engineers, lawyers. Then we have the newer ones, like photographers, bloggers, writers etc. Now, if we pick one of these categories, let me pick engineers (because most of the professional jokes are based on engineering plus I am an engineer myself), there are electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, aeronautical engineers and so on and so forth.

However, do we realize why do we categorize everything that exists under the sun? I mean what’s the point of all the effort that we put in categorizing? It is simple and I’ve already answered it amidst the course of the first paragraph. The answer is, we categorize to minimize the effort we have to put while deciding and choosing the best possible option when presented with everything that’s present under the sun. This is done through generalizing the characteristics of the articles belonging to one category. Therefore, anytime we are set to make decisions, a large amount of our energy is saved by the availability of these categories to us. This ensures that, instead of comparing 500 articles to each other, we just need to compare 10, because the rest of the 490 do not belong to the desired segment for our required choices.

Humans, time and again prove that they are extremely cerebral creatures. They did so again when they categorized everything. I can’t even imagine the amount of effort that goes into this segregation. I mean, I go nearly insane separating the pants and my shirts after a session of laundry (Actually, that’s a lie. I don’t do my laundry myself ). Again, the technological advancements have made lives abundantly easy for our generations, but I can’t help but think about the amount of efforts put in by our forefathers in this facet of life. And, no qualms about it, every modern advancement has been highly influenced by what they did.

One thing, however, that is kind of unsaid is, we’ve started to make these so called categories a little too stiff. The need for the human mind to separate two distinct kinds of articles from one another has caused an issue, we’ve started to over-generalize. And what’s worse is, we’ve started to do so where it’s not even required! Why, just because we don’t want to put in efforts to understand the situation well enough? Just because it’s easier to follow certain rules set in times that were way different than now? Because we are lazy?

There is a possibility (however minuscule we might think of them as) that some of these articles belong to multiple categories. A jock might be good at math, a girl might be good at sports, a recluse might be an incredibly caring person. However, to let our minds stay at ease, we decide to take the initial, apparent parts of the alternatives to be the true ones. There’s this saying, “The first thought is mostly the right one”, which I believe is kind of stupid. The first choice is made based on the least amount of information and hence is highly likely to be wrong and should be subjected to numerous alterations.

I think it’s only logical (Yes, Spock reference) to make just a little effort and understand the real, factual differences between the alternatives, and not just discard one of them because they don’t apparently fit the bill. Maybe, he is not guilty. Maybe she is talented, but lacked the opportunity. Maybe, just maybe because he is a certain “type”, he still has everything needed to get the job done. The important thing to understand here is that the person on the other end of the deal is not the only one at loss due to the “screening” that we do. It’s us as well. We are potentially losing an employee, a friend, a partner, just because we aren’t willing to think and observe enough, because it’s “too much effort”.

I am by no means saying some people are incredibly lousy (myself included) at almost everything. However, the word to be emphasized here is almost. There still a hint of talent, power, potential or desirability in everyone. Our jobs as humans is to try and find that little gleam of hope in everyone who is trying to become a valuable part of the play that is life. We don’t know, where and how this piece fits and completes the beautiful puzzle and helps us reach a point in life where everything just makes sense. Everything is sorted and it’s all good.

Thanks for not screening this one out after reading the first few lines. Cheers!

– Vibhu Vyas