Navigating Taxonomy
Rethinking the role categorization plays in shaping our perception of the world
I live within walking distance of a police barracks. As a child, I have memories of the giant wall barricading the buildings as more monumental than they are today.
At the entry gates were ominous security personnels. They had such husky voices and piercing looks, despite never seeming to care what everyone was up to. Still, as we waltzed into those sacred grounds to play football, not even the unruliest among us kids dare hold their deadly gaze for long.
It was quite an experience playing with barracks kids. I was usually less concerned about the stern guards than I was about what might happen at the end of each game. Unlike us civvies, it isn't unusual for the youngest kid from the barracks team to be burlier than our oldest. And depending on their mood, if we dare win, they'd beat the shit out of us. I remember us losing and still being chased out with yells and screams; Dothraki giants at our tails.
Taxonomy (n) | tak·son·uh·mee
the process of naming and classifying things into groups within a larger system, according to their similarities and differences.
There is little wrong with incessantly viewing the world as a cluster of taxonomic entities. Along with improved cognitive efficiency, it doesn't take a genius to see the myriad of benefits a system of categorization offers social creatures like us. Yet, I wonder how different of a world we'd live in if how we classified things was any different.
One's nationality, for instance, greatly influences how their life plays out: from life expectancy, access to quality healthcare, to whether or not their basic human rights are protected and respected. It would be interesting to explore what implications might arise if, say, nations were not defined by borders, but by other factors such as culture or languages spoken.
Imagine how countries like Nigeria and India — avowed for their multilingual and multicultural nature — would be disintegrated into even tinier splinters. What would taxation policies look like for each "nation"? Would people renounce their citizenship to join more or less populous "countries" just to enjoy certain benefits? What would such benefits entail? Would such moves be stigmatized?
Looking back, it is only with hindsight that we can see how inevitable it was that nations were defined by borders. It is no coincidence that most settlements evolved to have a dominant language, too. This, however, and many other hypothetical scenarios to follow, are merely thought experiments.
What if we didn't differentiate between anger and sadness, to pose another question? Can you fathom how frustrated it must be to have no word for "frustration" because it was absorbed by "anger"?
Even today, the richness of different languages translates into varying efforts as to how one copes with their unique existence. Certain cultures place more emphasis on social harmony through suppressing even their most positive emotions, while others value catharsis. It is still weird for me to hug relatives at my family reunions. Would narrowing down or scaling up current types of emotions offer rare access to cross-cultural understanding or simply limit the potential of what it means to be human?
Through the established lens, an especially intriguing concept is time. Unless you've been exposed to outstanding works of art like the movies "Arrival" or "Tenet," it can be difficult to picture time as anything but a linear progression. Had it been anything else, however — one interconnected with the rhythm of our home planet asides the usual rotation and revolution — we likely would have classified our epochs differently. What would a typical work "week" look like in that scenario? Would teenage and adulthood start at different ages? What would people measure their birthdays by? Would people be considered "old" or "young" not based on how long they've lived but on something else?
Consider a world where grades and rankings weren't used and students were evaluated according to their individual paths. How would the western education system look? Would it have prioritized other things that promote rivalry? Hell, what if there were no such thing as gender or labels, everyone was simply seen as an individual? If we didn't have specific genres of music, and every song was categorized by anything other than its sound or style, could this influence how we consume, market, and produce music?
Taxonomy, as we know it, is a human invention. While not many people wake up in the morning and begin to actively notice the categories everything around them belongs to, it is worth keeping in mind that it was devised by us humans (necessarily or otherwise) to help navigate this enthralling game of life.
Every time those bullies at the barracks invited us to join another league, promising things would be different, we reluctantly accepted. It felt good to perform well enough to warrant reprisal from the opponent. Alternatively, we may have been bored outta our minds and sought thrills at the expense of everything going south. Then again, we could have been dumb to know better.
Growing up never surrounded by cops and paramilitaries means seeing the world differently from my friends in the barracks. Those Dothraki wailings might not have been necessary if our teams hadn't been formed based on where a kid lived. In the end, as we categorize things — putting abstract notions and physical objects into made-up taxonomies — we might be weaving the very fabric with which we thread the world; the impact of which can be more insidious than bullying concerns in children's games.