Difference between revisions of "Monolithization"

Revision as of 12:10, 10 January 2015

To see people as if they were not individual persons, but rather specimens of a monolithic category. For example, understanding statistical differences between groups as if they were categorical differences. As if a certain trait being somewhat more common in one group (compared to some other group) would mean that “the people in that group has that trait”. (In Swedish: monolitisering)

When applied to a category of human beings, this is a facet of categorism.

Interactions

This facet of categorism is an expression of: prejudice, bigotry and discrimination.

It is likely to intersect with facets such as:

• Enforcing Cateity: Everyone in the category has to be the same.
• Collective Guilt: Treating a category as if it was a monolith makes it easier to justify collective guilt.
• Category Agency: For a category of people to actually do anything, the category sort of has to be one single monolithic block rather than a collection of individuals with their own goals, needs and desires.
• Othering: People rarely see themselves as a monolith, and thus not any category they happen to belong to. It is instead "those other people" who are all the same.

As well as with abstractions such as:

• Dichotomism: Either you are a part of the monolith, or you are not. Thus, you can't really be an individual human being while at the same time belonging to a category.
• Zero-Category: People rarely see themselves as a monolith, and thus not any category they happen to belong to. It is instead "those other people" who are all the same.

Examples of applying this facet to a particular foci of categorism can include:

• Sexism, on an individual or discursive level: Claiming that "Women are all the same" / "Men are all the same".

Recommended Reading

• This XKCD strip, which sums it up quite elegantly: http://xkcd.com/385/