Main Page
Categorism is "prejudice, bigotry and discrimination, based on a categorization of human beings". Note that categorization itself is not categorism. Categorization is necessary, and usually benign. It becomes categorism only when it stops being a tool for understanding, instead turning into a mental prison, a social prison or a dirty weapon.
Categorism has three aspects. These are the facets (how the categorism is done), the foci (what categorization the particular case of categorism focuses on) and the abstractions (how categorization itself becomes a case of categorism). Thus, beside being a concept in its own right, categorism is also a conceptual framework that contain these three kinds of other concepts.
This wiki explores...
- Various facets of categorism, ranging from the three archtype facets of prejudice, bigotry and discrimination to more specific facets such as marginalization, stigmatization and monolithization.
- Various foci of categorism, ranging from widely know ones such as racism, sexism and homophobia to more obscure ones like gingerism and witchparanoia.
- Various abstractions of categorism, such as "no true scotsman fallacy" and "guilt by association".
The wiki is primarily based on "Categorization of Human Beings versus the Universality of Human Rights" by Xzenu Cronström Beskow. It was his Master Thesis in Human Rights Studies program, and will soon be available for download from the university's server.
Categorism is closely related to, and intertwined with, dichotomism and narrativism. Dichotomism can be summed up as black and white thinking, getting stuck in dichotomies. Narrativism can be summed up as getting stuck in storytelling, viewing people as if they were mrely narative tools rather than people in their own right.
