When Categories Replace Curiosity
I want to be known before I’m categorized.
Have you ever been “categorized” by someone? I had this happen with a friend of mine. My example is political, but this extends far beyond.
When Rush Limbaugh died, a friend posted a series of his quotes as a tribute. “The good stuff,” they implied. Each quote described what liberals believe. And its what my friend believed liberals believed.
I am a liberal. Have been for a long time. And as I read, I could not find myself in a single quote. Not one. I didn’t recognize my liberal friends. Or the liberal elected officials I follow. Or the liberal writers I read.
I have never met the people of these quotes—and I’m a bit of a politics junkie—I know a lot of “people.” They may exist somewhere. But they are not “the left” as far as I can tell.
They are a tribe that was built to be argued against.
Constructed at a distance. Made of fear and the deep human need to know exactly where the enemy is standing.
Paul Knitter puts it this way: we make necessary distinctions, and then take them too seriously. Eventually the distinction becomes a dividing line. Before long we’ve built a border where none actually existed. We build tribes out of thin air and then go to war with them.
Labels are containers we reach for when we run out of curiosity.
Those are not us. We are not them. This is not that.
Its like tab-closing on a disorganized internet browser. It’s biologically essential, our brains can’t keep every possibility open forever. So we close tabs. We file people away. We stop asking questions because categories are cognitively cheap.
That moment when someone says something and you think—oh, I know what this is—and you file it under a label you already had waiting. You don’t have to follow them anymore because you already know where they’re going.
Liberal.
Conservative.
Moderate.
Evangelical.
Ex-vangelical.
Progressive.
The category does the work.
I’ve done it. I’ve watched people I love do it to people I love. It is efficient and it is human. And every time, even if in just a small way, it robs someone of being truly known by you .
The one whose mind doesn’t fit the file. The one who, if you stayed curious long enough, would surprise you.
This is what almost kept me from writing any of this.
I fear as much. Though that was there when it really came time to hit “post.”
But the overriding urge preventing me from posting was more like, “what’s the point?”
It wasn’t because I was afraid people would disagree.
I expected that.
What discouraged me was the feeling that many people would decide what I believed before they ever finished reading.
I know the tabs that will get closed. I know the categories already being prepared for whatever I’m about to say. I’ve watched this happen to enough people to know how it goes, and for a long time the knowing made the whole thing feel pointless before I even started.
Even on the most sensitive topics, like faith and doubt, I'd watch people become categories before they remained people. "Church trauma." "Theological misunderstanding." "Deconstruction." "The slippery slope." Once the category was assigned, the conversation often seemed to follow a script rather than the person standing in front of them.
But I kept thinking about the people who wouldn’t do that. Who are still here. Still curious. Still willing to let a person be more complicated than they expected.
I want to be known before I’m categorized. I want my personhood to exist in your mind before the label arrives. Because once the label lands, the person has a harder time getting through.
And I don’t think I’m alone in that.
I think most of us want the same thing.
To be understood before we’re explained away.
To be known before we’re categorized.
And once curiosity leaves, the truth of a person has a much harder time getting through.
“They’re a tribe that was built to be argued against”. BRILLIANT!!