Mirror Sites:
CSUDH - Habermas - UWP

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Soka University Japan - Transcend Art and Peace
Created:July 30, 2002
Latest Update: July 30, 2002
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Categorical Thinking

Teaching Essay Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individaul Authors, July 2002.
"Fair use" encouraged.

Categorical thinking is thinking by assigning people or things to categories and then using the categories as though they represented something in the real world. For example, we think of people as either male or female, and force them to fit into one of the categories, even when it doesn't seem to fit at all well.. In the process of doing that we are assuming that our "model" of reality, as divided into two categories, male and female, is valid. That is, we assume that people really are either male or female. That assumption ignores the fact that male and female are the extremes of a whole continuum of states of maleness and femaleness. Weforget that we just made the categories up. Then we treat them as though nature created them with such specificity. Nature didn't.

Rosemary Radford Ruether, a feminist theologian, insists that "there is no valid biological basis for labeling certain psychic capacities, such as reason, "masculine" and others, such as intuition, "feminine." (Reuther, a feminist theologian, deals with feminism as it affects theology: Sexism and God-Talk Link added July 30, 2002.

Beyond Categorical Thinking. Unitarian Universalist Association Equal Opportunity Policy. This policy statement for a Resource Guide for Ministerial Search Committees, brings to conscious awareness the extent to which we " have practiced the very evils we sought to reform. We are not immune from prejudice and bigotry. Self-interest, fear, and ignorance may lead us to shun the "other" who is different or seems threatening. Sometimes it is hardest to act on our principles when our own congregations, not "society," will be affected." Here, I wish to call your attention to the categorical thinking patter "us" and "other," just like male and female. But "us" and "other" are often not that different. By the stigma of our categorization of people on such simplistic models, far less complex than the real world, we are discriminating, harming the "other."

---

---