I want to think less frameworky
October 7, 2010 4:41 AM Subscribe
I've become habitually prone to categorizing mankind according to various schema, many of which are informed by social science. The problem is this brings polarized and hierarchical thinking, and I suspect may be the illusion of intelligence. I suppose I am easily seduced by "frameworks". Can you recommend any books that address this issue, or could at least break me out of this tendency?
Wonderful Life addresses what you're talking about back at a very early point in evolution. Gould explores the notion that life is branching out haphazardly, driven by ever changing circumstances. Any rigid model, with humans as the pinnacle of creation, is a straightjacket to further understanding.
posted by bonobothegreat at 5:07 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by bonobothegreat at 5:07 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure I understand exactly where you're coming from, but have you checked out the National Geographic Genographic Project? It's a way of understanding history that has nothing to do with intelligence.
posted by vincele at 5:08 AM on October 7, 2010
posted by vincele at 5:08 AM on October 7, 2010
When you say, "categorizing mankind," do you mean you're prone to pigeonholing other people you meet in various ways -- categorizing, labeling, armchair diagnosing, filing away, dismissing, etc.? It sounds like it might be a defense mechanism of some sort. You alluded to the possibility that this habit helps you reassure yourself of your own intelligence. Is that it, or are there other anxieties in play? Have you ever chatted w/a therapist about this?
posted by jon1270 at 5:36 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by jon1270 at 5:36 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
Well, it all really depends on what you mean by this. There's categorization, which is a useful heuristic to use in lieu of better quality information to ensure that you don't spend your entire life trying to figure out how to do the simplest tasks every time you're face with them (and is cognitively automatic). So, "OK, four legs, a flat surface, this is a table" is extremely useful for freeing up cognitive resources to focus on other things so you don't have to figure out what a table is every time you're faced with one. Similarly, "OK, drunk guy wielding a baseball bat and yelling racist profanity at passersby" is a categorization that is a useful shortcut rather than, "I suppose that chap could be having a really bad day and there's probably some cultural differences and I should ignore the baseball bat and go strike up a conversation about Kierkegaard."
However, categorizations are only as useful as we make them. If you don't update with new information you receive about individuals, then you are relying on heuristics alone, which is how the various -isms rear their heads. Substituting general trends that may or may not be true about a group of people (ranging from something benign such as, say, people from Japan are likely to speak Japanese to less savory assumptions like young African-American men are more likely have a criminal record) for information about specific people is the mistake that is easily made here. Just because item X is true, on average, about group Y does not, in fact, make it necessarily true about person Z. This is a classic mistake that undergraduates make in social science majors. For instance, when a professor of psychology says that "Men are more likely to do A and B than women," what he or she means is that "Human beings who may or may not fit well into a gendered category called 'men' are more likely on average to perform action A or B than human beings who may or may not fit well into a gendered category called 'women' although this gendered dichotomization is problematic for a number of reasons." And then, of course, some undergrad pipes up, "Well, I am a man and I don't do that! Some science!" It's a tough job walking that fine line.
So, accept that categories are just mental shortcuts that the brain uses automatically to save its limited resources for more pressing matters but also try to challenge those shortcuts when possible. I'm not sure what you mean by "the illusion of intelligence" but this strikes me as one of those sweeping generalizations that people make when they're unhappy with a body of research but unclear as to why.
posted by proj at 5:48 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
However, categorizations are only as useful as we make them. If you don't update with new information you receive about individuals, then you are relying on heuristics alone, which is how the various -isms rear their heads. Substituting general trends that may or may not be true about a group of people (ranging from something benign such as, say, people from Japan are likely to speak Japanese to less savory assumptions like young African-American men are more likely have a criminal record) for information about specific people is the mistake that is easily made here. Just because item X is true, on average, about group Y does not, in fact, make it necessarily true about person Z. This is a classic mistake that undergraduates make in social science majors. For instance, when a professor of psychology says that "Men are more likely to do A and B than women," what he or she means is that "Human beings who may or may not fit well into a gendered category called 'men' are more likely on average to perform action A or B than human beings who may or may not fit well into a gendered category called 'women' although this gendered dichotomization is problematic for a number of reasons." And then, of course, some undergrad pipes up, "Well, I am a man and I don't do that! Some science!" It's a tough job walking that fine line.
So, accept that categories are just mental shortcuts that the brain uses automatically to save its limited resources for more pressing matters but also try to challenge those shortcuts when possible. I'm not sure what you mean by "the illusion of intelligence" but this strikes me as one of those sweeping generalizations that people make when they're unhappy with a body of research but unclear as to why.
posted by proj at 5:48 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
The solution you are seeking is an example of the problem you are having. There isn't going to be 'a solution' to the problem of using overly rigid categories or 'a way out'.
Continue to be informed by your frameworks or schema but place more importance on the anomalous information. Eventually, you will realize that your frameworks are just that - a framework - and that actual people build out from there in only a partially predictable way. Start delighting in the surprises - they are what makes use human.
To very loosely paraphrase the schema provided by hamlet and horatio:
People are wondrous strange and as a stranger give it welcome.
posted by srboisvert at 5:49 AM on October 7, 2010 [4 favorites]
Continue to be informed by your frameworks or schema but place more importance on the anomalous information. Eventually, you will realize that your frameworks are just that - a framework - and that actual people build out from there in only a partially predictable way. Start delighting in the surprises - they are what makes use human.
To very loosely paraphrase the schema provided by hamlet and horatio:
People are wondrous strange and as a stranger give it welcome.
posted by srboisvert at 5:49 AM on October 7, 2010 [4 favorites]
It would help if you could give some examples of the kinds of schemata and frameworks you're talking about. You said ... this brings polarized and hierarchical thinking, and I suspect may be the illusion of intelligence. Do you mean categorizing based on ideas about different groups differences in intelligence? In a way that makes you feel smarter, or look smarter? Both?
posted by nangar at 5:53 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by nangar at 5:53 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
Try to write some poems about people you have just met, in which you are not allowed to use an abstract noun or adverb.
posted by aught at 6:05 AM on October 7, 2010
posted by aught at 6:05 AM on October 7, 2010
Tao.
posted by lester's sock puppet at 6:05 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by lester's sock puppet at 6:05 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: As I become older I feel I am getting more stagnant, rigid, self serving, cynical, and self-satisfied in my thinking. This is not necessarily about categorizing individuals, or contemporary political divisions or arguments. I don't want to overdefine the problem, because that tendency itself is part of the problem
posted by blargerz at 6:24 AM on October 7, 2010
posted by blargerz at 6:24 AM on October 7, 2010
I'll take a stab: The kind of 'top down' organizational thinking you describe is very Western and somewhat outdated. An interesting alternative is to look at how systems evolve from the part into the whole ('bottom up') instead. I'd recommend Chaos by James Gleick.
posted by ella wren at 6:30 AM on October 7, 2010
posted by ella wren at 6:30 AM on October 7, 2010
I don't even know what that means. Some systems rae organized top-down (hierarchically) and some are organized bottom-up (spontaneous order, emergence, etc.) To say that it's Western and outdated is to say that the writing on the front side of a sheet of paper is out of date and Western, but that the "modern, Eastern" way is to write on the back. There's no "one form" of organization. Systems evolve in different ways, and that's not really what the OP seems to be talking about. The follow-up post by him/her seems to indicate that he/she is interested in being more open-minded.
posted by proj at 6:41 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by proj at 6:41 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
I don't want to overdefine the problem
Okay, but how about a specific, concrete example?
posted by jon1270 at 6:42 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
Okay, but how about a specific, concrete example?
posted by jon1270 at 6:42 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
I don't want to overdefine the problem, because that tendency itself is part of the problem
I understand this, but I'd just like to point out: what if defining this whole thing as a single problem is itself an instance of the problem?
That said, maybe look at An Intimate History of Humanity by Theodore Zeldin.
posted by John Cohen at 6:47 AM on October 7, 2010
I understand this, but I'd just like to point out: what if defining this whole thing as a single problem is itself an instance of the problem?
That said, maybe look at An Intimate History of Humanity by Theodore Zeldin.
posted by John Cohen at 6:47 AM on October 7, 2010
Maybe study other categorization systems which are orthogonal to the one which you are currently entranced by? That way, when the one part of your brain categorizes someone, aother part will say, "Yeah, but under this other categorization scheme, you would evaluate them totally differently."
Repeat.
posted by goethean at 7:42 AM on October 7, 2010
Repeat.
posted by goethean at 7:42 AM on October 7, 2010
I'd recommend reading some Iris Murdoch. This is one of the main issues she is concerned with. Part of her program is making finer and finer distinctions between people, as opposed to lumping them into groups of one sort or another and confusing the individuals in those groups. A Fairly Honorable Defeat, The Book and Brotherhood, and The Black Prince are all good ones to start.
posted by Balna Watya at 10:51 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by Balna Watya at 10:51 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
Stop reading books about people and start interacting with people.
posted by sunnichka at 12:45 PM on October 7, 2010
posted by sunnichka at 12:45 PM on October 7, 2010
Perhaps you would find benefit in David Berreby's Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind.
This book does a fine job of picking apart the human tendency to categorize others--how and why we do it, its benefits and costs. When you can observe the process as it happens in your own mind, there is at least the hope of taking control of it when you want to.
posted by Corvid at 1:07 PM on October 7, 2010
This book does a fine job of picking apart the human tendency to categorize others--how and why we do it, its benefits and costs. When you can observe the process as it happens in your own mind, there is at least the hope of taking control of it when you want to.
posted by Corvid at 1:07 PM on October 7, 2010
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posted by Kerasia at 5:06 AM on October 7, 2010