a) belonging to the Emperor
b) embalmed
c) tame
d) sucking pigs
For those of you who’ve studied Foucault (Yes, I see you back there, in the sadder-but-wiser section of the bleachers), you’ll recognize this as the first four of fourteen entries for a Chinese encyclopedia presenting the taxonomy of living things. Well, maybe just the taxonomy of animals.
e) sirens
f) fabulous
g) stray dogs
h) included in the present classification
Me, I have not studied (or even read) Foucault, but I’ve seen this list referenced a few times over the years.
i) frenzied
j) innumerable
k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush
l) et cetera
There is, however, “no such encyclopedia” as Foucault acknowledged. The list comes from a short story by Borges: that’s Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo to his intimates, of whom I am not one. Borges is one of the entire set of Spanish-language writers from South America whom I avoid even in translation. If I were to develop a taxonomy of fiction writers, those folks would be in the weirdly-creative-and-yet-completely-unsatisfying category, also known in some refined circles as the life-is-too-damned-short category.
m) having just broken the water pitcher
n) that from a long way off look like flies
Anyway. If the list was “just” an invention–albeit a weirdly creative one–why does it have any traction? Why is it referred to as if it were real? Because it’s funny in a cool way? Maybe.
But Dr. Pollock has a different idea. It might even be right.
Nevertheless the idea has entered our culture,
and is often presented as fact rather than fantasy –
being adduced as evidence
that no classification system,
and no viewpoint on the world,
is special and any more correct than any other.
Although I love this list, I don’t love this idea. On its face, it seems tolerant, you know? Who am I to judge? Whatever floats your boat. You do you. All of which is good with respect to personal preferences.
I prefer tea, you love coffee. Sure.
I eat mildly spicy food, you scarf down four-pepper Thai. No problem.
I love chocolate, you prefer fig newtons. Well, there are limits to the behaviour that can be considered normal in a civilized society.
But at its core, this idea that “no classification system… is special and any more correct than any other” is Not True. Classification systems are Clearly Different.
Most grocery stores put the coffee pods with . . . wait for it, I know you’ll be shocked . . . the coffee; this store puts it with the coffee makers that use it. OK, it took me a while to find it, but I can at least see that rationale. In their defence (which the cashier gave me immediately when I commented gently on this anomaly, indicating that I was not the first customer to so comment), the store is small and they fit stuff in where they can, not where they know in their hearts that it should go.
Most yarn stores organize yarn by weight (for non-knitters, this is roughly a measure of its thickness in use); this store sorts by brand. What’s with that? The first filter when buying yarn for a project is always weight. Always. Brand preference comes next.
And this no-classification-system-is-superior kind of thinking leads to this sort of thing in an online marketplace, under the all-encompassing category of Furniture.
I’m mostly a reasonable person. On my good days, I can be an accommodating person. But this must stop here.
What if you have an item of Accent Furniture for a baby’s room? Where should you post it? Heck, what do you do with a crib? Is it not, at once, both Baby Furniture and Bedroom Furniture? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
But the pièce de résistance? Slipcovers.
I mean, who is even shopping for slipcovers? Besides that, slipcovers are not furniture. Even if we agreed (perhaps through plebiscite or binding arbitration) to let that go this one time for purposes strictly limited to this site, how the hell do they rate their own category on the same level as Dining Room Furniture? And what are slipcovers for vehicles doing in this furniture sub-category?
Stop it. Just stop it.
I find it a constant online challenge to guess where a store might possibly categorize a particular item. I’ve done a LOT of online buying in the past 5 years, and I find if a store is too obscure in their categorizing I just don’t buy from them. But, is it them? Or is it me? Perhaps I just buy from “like minded” stores?
Alison – 🙂 Exactly! A decent “search” function helps a lot (if you can guess how an item is entered, or if it’s tagged in more than one way). But in anything where convenience matters, it’s good to hang out with like-minded folks.
This post reminded me about a clip I saw on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJYoqCDKoT4) – hope that works for you – in which Jorge Luis Borges extols the superiority of the English language.
Marion – I think it works after deleting the “feature=shared” bit. Someone can holler if it doesn’t and I’ll try again. It’s a great clip. I got far enough in Spanish to run into some difficulties with expressing what I saw as impel things, like “the ball rolled into the cave.” I think they had to say “the ball entered the cave, rolling.”
Ha ha, that reminds me of Shakespearean stage directions, such as, “Romeo enters, laughing”…
Marion – 🙂 Yes. I think the thing in Spanish has to do with prepositions not being used with verbs of motion. But I never did get it clear.
Isabel – and I thought it was just me who has difficulty finding out-of-the-ordinary things when I go shopping for out-of-the-ordinary things. Fortunately, I don’t have to do that very often.
John – 🙂 For sure you’re not the only one. And I track your point – the older I get, the more basic gets my shopping list.
Isabel- who would have guessed that a simple topic like lists and store shelving would generate so much comment?
John – Not I! But it’s fun when it happens.
My wool store is absolutely determined that the buyer will find what they want. Yarn sorted by ‘weight’, ‘brand’, and ‘collection’ (generally, purpose or wool-craft type). Seems to work. I always spend money….
Mary – Ah. Exactly as it should be. I’ve been in stores where it took them 5 minutes to show me all the places where fingering weight (non-knitters, look away) in cotton would be. I mean, get a grip.
Isabel, an excellent piece on many levels. The “no better than any other” element is concerning. It does, however, capture our times. As we evolve from Boomers through Gen Y, the Millennials, Gen Z, and now Gen Alpha, the classifications reveal, Boomers excluded, that the categories are meaningless and Foucault has it right. Successive power structures are no different than those that came before but as the categories I’ve set out illustrate, they can be worse.
So says me.
Greg – Many thanks. In general, I’m a fan of less power being vested in that there structure, but there are downsides to everything.
That there are so many categories for material objects says volumes about wealth, and choice. So often (for me) the variety of goods offered in a store is overwhelming. Dozens of meat thermometers? how does one choose? and why aren’t human temperature thermometers in the same section? (also for meat… tee hee)
Barbara – It would be interesting to know more about how grocery stores decide to group things. Think of the Asian and Mexican sections, which combine some of the relevant sauces, pickles, spices, tinned foods, and packaged foods. But only some of them.
Don’t get me started about online ordering. Or trying to undo an online order that Amazon insists was a legitimate charge, delivered to my home in Florida. Clearly, not me.
Your piece made me think about my favourite stores, which are usually old-fashioned hardware stores, with the 3/8 galvanized bolts stored on a shelf next to the flyswatters, which are both in the knife-and-fork department, because that’s where someone put them decades ago, and who are we to go against tradition.
Jim T – I also like to wander in old-fashioned hardware or general stores, where things have been in their assigned places for a long time. Not all of life needs to be subject to rigid mathematical logic!
The academic deification of the strongly right-brained Michel Foucault, who owed his life to the protection he received in a mental hospital but who insisted such designations and institutions for insanity were wrong and intolerable, has done much to assault rational, left-brained systems of reasoning and analysis. I’ve lost track of the number of books in the social sciences that I have edited that were tainted or permeated by his twisted reasoning. I am refreshed by your comedic take on anarchy in the knitting and crafts store. Elsewhere, the damage is no laughing matter.
Laurna – Ah, I knew we had someone who would know Foucault. I think I’m glad I gave him a miss!
Marketing. Retail bricks and mortar or online, clicks and tricks, there seems to me to be an intentional distribution of likeminded items throughout any vendor. One doesn’t know if the plastic, yes I said the dreaded P word, knives and forks will be with food storage, or the picnic supplies area. Or shelf distribution, eye level, ankle level or ‘the only I can reach items’ positioned on the top shelf, inaccessible to the little people that I am frequently called on or volunteer to assist.
Costco does a neat little trick of purposely moving items from one area to another to ensure that you traverse every aisle. Perhaps boycotting the stores that practice this idea the best answer. But then how would we eat?
Ken – I do think that grocery-store-layout artistes put some effort into helping us (almost forcing us to) traverse every aisle. It’s not marketing at its best, but (as in politics) I guess we get what we put up with?
Isabel
You mentioned you avoid reading books written by Jorge Luis Borges.
I remember in a Philosophy of Literature course in University we had to read one of Borges’ books in which two stories were interwoven, with every other line being of one or the other story. I was so glad to be done with that book…and I’m loathe now to look up the name of it.
For some reason, the prof thought it was brilliant.
Tom
Tom – I find that most Spanish-language writers generate what is, for me, dense and convoluted prose on unhappy themes. Other than that, I’m good to go. 🙂 I’m glad you survived your encounter.