Book review iv: 'Categories we live by'
The introduction to part ii 'Case Studies' is quite prescient: 'Categories have consequences'. p.75.
Certainly timely in the UK as Prof. Murphy returns to gender and birth sex his first example at the book's start.
Coincidental or not, categories do change. As we try to understand them it is vital we don't mess them up. Consequences follow for people who are subjected to the categorisation. People use them for stability, predictability, so change can be fraught for all. Personal and group identities can all be affected, and (recently) provisions in how 'spaces' are allocated and regulated - controlled.
At infant - junior school I remember the lack of awareness, understanding and empathy for peers affected by epilepsy, stigma was a thing then that wandered the classroom and playground. Through my career I've heard many clients recount experiences pointing to stigma and exclusion.
Of the case studies Murphy writes:
'Each chapter is a more-or-less self-contained case study (including other similar examples), except that chapter 7 is a more general meditation on how determining categories is used in the exercise of power. Some of the case studies get into the weeds, and if you find yourself not that interested in how species are defined, for example, you can skip ahead to the next chapter without losing much. Following part II will be a conclusion, which attempts to summarize some of the lessons learned from all these examples.' p.77.
Murphy's style is accessible, and the case studies are informative. The author is also accessible and responsive I must add. I prefer and need a physical copy of books to reduce screen time, but e-books have their uses. I'm sure I read a short sentence in the case studies that essentially contrasted the individual and collective in sociology. Can I find that word? No luck thus far. I may be mistaken but appreciate Prof. Murphy's reply and thoughts.
There's another 'news' coincidence on p.80 (Chapter 5 'Legal Categories'): are Santa Claus costumes 'clothing' and so subject to tariffs (also referenced)? Every person worldwide, has no doubt pondered on their marked grade in a test or exam - and 'where' this places them?
'In her review of a book about rules, Rivka Galchen (2022) admits to feeling a bit of despair in the end: "Rules that leave a ruler, Or a judge, in charge of interpreting them feel at once humanized and corruptible. Rules that allow no exception seem free of human frailty but alien, and unable to admit properly of complexity." It is very easy to point at what went wrong with an overly strict rule or with a judge who seems biased, but less easy to devise a system of categories that avoids every problem.' p.83.
I often frame the conjunction of the mechanistic axis and the group in Hodges' model in terms of what do need, or get when you have large groups of people? The political domain, including law and disorder is critical of course. Is 'utopia' the perfect system by definition? I like the way even prior to reference to Galchen, Murphy states how 'the precise borders between categories can be essentially arbitrary, and there is no way to avoid that arbitrariness if you insist on dividing things into categories.'. p.83.
If this book was a BASIC computer program, the first command for Chapter 6 Psychodiagnostic Categories. might well be a 'GOTO' statement: Chapter 7 Categories and Power.
More to follow and nearly there - sadly.
Murphy, Gregory L. Categories we live by: how we classify everyone and everything. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2024.
Many thanks to MIT Press for the review copy - and the dose of serendipity:
orcid.org/0000-0002-0192-8965
