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I grew up in Rhode Island, a New England state largely populated by Italian-Americans and French-Canadians that is known chiefly for its small stature. When I was a kid in our neighborhood, the first thing you would ask on encountering a newcomer was "what's your name?" The second was "what are you?" ''What are you" was an invitation to recite your ethnic composition in a kind of singsong voice: 90 percent of the kids would say ''Italian with a little bit of French," or "half-Portuguese, one-quarter Italian and one-quarter Armenian." When I would chime in with "half-Jewish, one-quarter Scottish and one-quarter English," the range of responses went from very puzzled looks to "does that mean you're not Catholic?" Wherein, I guess, began my fascination with classification, and especially with the problem of residual categories, or, the "other," or not elsewhere classified. |
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issues of shared custody or of retrospective DNA testing. A rose is a rose, not a rose sometimes and a daisy other times. |
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3. The system is complete. With respect to the items, actions, or areas under its consideration, the ideal classification system provides total coverage of the world it describes. So, for example, a botanical classifier would not simply ignore a newly discovered plant, but would always strive to name it. A physician using a diagnostic classification must enter something in the patient's record where a category is called for; where unknown, the possibility exists of a medical discovery, to be absorbed into the complete system of classifying. |
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No real-world working classification system that we have looked at meets these "simple" requirements and we doubt that any ever could. In the case of unique classificatory systems, people disagree about their nature; they ignore or misunderstand them; or they routinely mix together different and contradictory principles. A library, for example, may have a consistent Library of Congress system in place, but supplement it in an ad hoc way. Best sellers to be rented out to patrons may be placed on a separate shelf; very rare, pornographic, or expensive books may be locked away from general viewing at the discretion of the local librarian. Thus, the books are moved, without being formally reclassified, yet carry an additional functional system in their physical placement. |
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