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INTRODUCTION: TO CLASSIFY IS HUMAN |
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In an episode of The X-Files, a television show devoted to FBI investigations of the paranormal, federal agents Mulder and Scully investigated a spate of murders of psychics of all stamps: palm readers, astrologers, and so forth. The plot unfolded thusly: The murderer would get his fortune read or astrological chart done, and then brutaly slay the fortune-teller. It emerged during the show that the reason for these visits was that he wanted to understand what he was doing and why he was doing it, and he thought psychics could help him understand his urges to kill people. Only one psychic, an insurance salesman with the ability to scry the future, was able to prdict his murderous attacks and recognize the criminal. When finally the murderer met this psychic, he burst into his impassioned plea for an explanation of what he was doing. "Why am I compelled to kill all these people," the salesman responded in a world-weary tone such as one might take with a slow child: "Don't you get it, son? You're a homicidal maniac." The maniac was delighted with this insight. He then proceeds to try to kill again. The salesman's answer is both penetrating and banalwhat it says about classification systems is the topic of this book. Why is it so funny? |
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Our lives are henged round with systems of classification, limned by standard formats, prescriptions, and objects. Enter a modern home and you are surrounded by standards and categories spanning the color of paint on the walls and in the fabric of the furniture, the types of wires strung to appliances, the codes in the building permits allowing the kitchen sink to be properly plumbed and the walls to be adequately fireproofed. Ignore these forms at your perilas a building owner, be sued by irate tenants; as an inspector, risk malpractice suits denying your proper application of the ideal to the case at hand; as a parent, risk toxic paint threatening your children. |
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To classify is human. Not all classifications take formal shape or are standardized in commercial and bureaucratic products. We all spend large parts of our days doing classification work, often tacitly, and we |
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