Hayakawa Chapter 10
• Giving Things Names
o A differentiation set itself up, and, abstracting the common characteristics.
o The question what is it really? Or what is its right name? are nonsense questions.
o Things can only have “right names” only if there is a necessary connection between symbols and things being symbolized.
o What we call things and where we draw the line between one class of things and another depends upon the interests we have and the purpose of the classification.
o Each is useful for its purpose.
o If our culture upbringing was different, the world would look different to us.
o Also, many people can’t distinguish between like things. For example salmon, perch, pickerel, etc. They just call them “fish.”
o When we name something we are classifying.
o The individual object or event we are naming has no name and belongs to no class until we put it in one.
o The extensional meaning of a word determines a prior existence.
o In matters of “race” and “nationality”, in the way in which classifications work is especially apparent.
o The effect that each classification has upon what he may or many not do constitutes their “reality.”
o It would be exactly as justifiable to say that any person with even a small amount of “white blood” is “white”. Because the former system of classification suits the convenience of those making the classification.
o Classification isn’t a matter of identifying “essences” but it is simply a reflection of social convenience or necessity.
o As soon as the process of classification is completed, our attitudes and our conduct are determined.
• The Blocked Mind
o Snap judgments suggests that such errors can be avoided by thinking more slowly; this isn’t the case, for some people think very slowly with no better results.
o What we are concerned with is the way in which we block the development of our own minds by automatic reactions.
o Some people may say, “A Jew is a Jew and there’s no getting around that.”
o They have an extensional Jew with the fictitious “Jew” inside their heads.
o The fictitious “Jew” inside their heads remains unchanged in spite of their experiences.
o Some people ignore the characteristics left out in the process of classification.
• Cow 1 Is Not Cow 2
o Practically all statements in ordinary conversation, debate, and public controversy taking the form “Republicans are Republicans” are not true.
o An example is “business is business.” The 1st business invokes denotes the transaction under discussion and the 2nd invokes the connotations of the word.
o The terms of the classification tell us what the individuals in that class have in common.
First, I will examine Omi and Winant’s approach. They made a clear distinction between ethnicity and race and only discussed how races are formed. They also define race as a constantly being transformed by political struggle and it is a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by
It is really interesting to break down the separate classes and find their similar details and their different details. Obviously the differences are greater in number and some of them fairly extreme. But that is to be expected.
Fromm, Erich. “The Nature of Symbolic Language.” Class Handout: English 101. Cerro Coso Community College, 2010. 121-26. Print.
Firstly, they used immigration to show the impact it has on race & ethnic identification. The changes in immigration laws have helped to move the demographics of more than one category. The influx of educated immigrants and the skillsets that they bring with them has helped to push the typology of categories for the groups that they belong to, it has also helped to move the relative positon of those groups in the social order. As a shift in the economic and educational achievements of immigrants are pushing the framework of each category, it is leading to an increase in the heterogeneity between and within the racial & ethnic groups. Changes in immigration is also leading to a change in the social relations within and between groups, as it is leading to increased interracial interactions in schools, workplaces and households. This is shifting the boundaries of this category as well. Secondly, the authors use multiracialism or hybridity, which is the ability of individuals to fit into multiple categories. It is seen that over time individuals are identifying themselves with multiple racial & ethnic categories, this is due to increased similarities between shared attributed by different groups. Increased interaction between groups has led to the identification of these similarities, and therefore has not only shifted the typology of categories but also the
To put it another way, properties are what make up an object, and substance is what the
In today’s society, it is acknowledgeable to assert that the concepts of race and ethnicity have changed enormously across different countries, cultures, eras, and customs. Even more, they have become less connected and tied with ancestral and familial ties but rather more concerned with superficial physical characteristics. Moreover, a great deal can be discussed the relationship between ethnicity and race. Both race and ethnicity are useful and counterproductive in their ways. To begin, the concept of race is, and its ideas are vital to society because it allows those contemporary nationalist movements which include, racist actions; to become more familiar to members of society. Secondly, it has helped to shape and redefine the meaning of
Why is it impossible to use biological characteristics to sort people into consistent races? Review some of the concepts such as “non-concordance” and “within-group vs. between group variation.”
it is rarely referred to. In both cases this is to make it feel as if
...lieve that races are distinct biological categories created by differences in genes that people inherit from their ancestors. Genes vary, but not in the popular notion of black, white, yellow, red and brown races. Many biologist and anthropologists have concluded that race is a social, cultural and political concept based largely on superficial appearances. (4)
Throughout history race has been a pivotal part in decision making. Since the first interaction of populations from different geographical regions, with physical differences, the assumption has been that these differences were fundamental. These physical differences, based mainly on the color of skin, have been classified as race. Over time physicians have tried to pinpoint certain characteristics that are more prominent in one race than another, in order to prove race and that there are subspecies of humans. One of the first examples of this is Johann Blumenbach work “On the Natural Variety of Mankind”. In his work Blumenbach introduced five categories of race; caucasian. mongolian, malayan ethiopian, and american. These classifications revolved around not only skin color, but also physical morphology. Blumenbach supported this by using a collection of physical evidence, like the structure of the cranium, to support his thesis. This marked a shift in thinking of race in terms of geography to physical appearance. Published in 1775, Blumenbach’s dissertation started the scientific approach to finding
To begin with, “race is a social, political, and economic construct. It is not biological. There is no existence of race in the Western world outside of the practices of colonialism, conquest, and the transatlantic slave trade” (Lecture 1). While the origins of race are centered around distinctions of humans based on presumed physical, ancestral or cultural differences, race is merely a floating signifier and therefore only has meaning, but that we give it (Lecture 1 and 2). This floating signifier has taken on different meanings in the U.S. and Latin America. For example, in the U.S., the one-drop rule is enough to deem someone black. On the other hand, Latin America considers pigmentocracy and uses Mulatto categories based on appearance and color
During the 18 century, people divided humans based on where they live and skin color like Europeans as “white”, Africans as “black”, Indians as “red”, and Asians as “yellow”. For example, in Haiti, color has been the dominant force in social and political life. Skin texture, facial feature, hair color, and socioeconomic class together play a role in placement. The anthropological perspective define race as members of a society have similar biological traits. These members are diverse from other members of society because of these traits. In the end, the race concept is not acceptable to humans but it is used as a cultural classification. ...
...The most profound conclusion on the concept of race is the argument that the term is not a biologically innate fixture. Despite the discredited nature of the concept of ‘race’, the idea stills “exerts a powerful influence in everyday language and ideology”. (Jary & Jary, 2000: pp503-4) This disputes the assumption that racial divisions reflect fundamental genetic differences.
Researchers, among them Michael Banton have argued the need to distinguish between race and ethnicity. In Banton’s view, race refers to the categorization of people while ethnicity has to do with group identification.
THESIS: Scientists and other intellectuals recognize the modern concept of "race" as an artificial category that developed over the past five centuries due to encounters with non-European people. Even though people still attempt to organize humans into categories according to their race, these categories have been shown to have no scientific basis.