This week, following the concept of definitions and taxonomies discussed in symposium 02,  I had a conversation with my friend about the politics of definitions. These are some of the things we said:

There is always someone, or a group of people, who choose what a definition is.

For everything that gets included in a definition, there is something that is excluded.

Maybe it’s dangerous for us to always categories things to fit perfectly into clear-cut definitions. The fast-paced world we live in is fluid by nature – things are always changing. Definitions can be counter productive and restrict these changes and innovations.

I like taxonomies because they have boundaries and let me know how to think about something.

Adrian mentioned in the lecture that definitions and taxonomies are always problematic. It it not always the case that things can be pigeon-holed in the way that definitions demand. Adrian says that taxonomies are artificial, because the probabilistic world we live in is not a binary world that can be classified into black and white. Even though humans have an inherent need to coral and domesticate things in order to make sense out of them, perhaps definitions are not the most productive way to go about this.

(Image via flickr)