Categories? (was Re: The Left, The Public, was Re: Ideology....)

[j.f. noonan]

On Thu, 31 May 2001, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> I was thinking of the old saying "comparing apples and
> oranges."  Categories like "SUV drivers" (to which Carrol
> objected) and categories like "women" & "gay men & lesbians"
> are not of equal status politically, in that the latter have
> a history of oppression that has created the categories &
> made them socially painfully meaningful, out of which civil
> rights & liberation movements have grown, whereas the former
> don't.

Really?  I drive 100 miles round trip each workday and I have at
least as many reasons to group SUV drivers together as most
people do "gay men & lesbians" (which I notice you chose not to
bother defining although my 20 word request of you asked little
else).

I find SUV drivers to be, in general, more careless, arrogant,
thoughtless, and dangerous drivers and I have data gathered from
driving 33,000 miles/year.  I also note, with some interest,
that these oversized, gas-guzzling, dangerous to other people
vehicles are driven mostly solo.  I do not think these
characteristics are random or meaningless.


> In other words, the former are empirically precise and yet
> politically vacuous categories, while the latter are
> empirically imprecise and yet politically necessary
> categories (i.e., necessary until oppressions that gave
> birth to them disappear).

Really?  Well you have most artfully (and hey -- I don't really
blame you!) avoided explaining what "gay men & lesbians" are,
even though you claim they are 'necessary' categories.  Further,
you have not explained why I should give them one more ounce of
attention than I do the SUV drivers.

--

Joseph Noonan
Houston, TX
jfn1 at msc.com