Optional: Tyranny of Categories
The Tyranny of Categories
During their reporting on Hurricane Ike in 2008, the Weather Channel's on-air presenters and remote reporters faced a peculiar linguistic dilemma.
They, and their viewing audience, have been trained to communicate about the power of a hurricane based on a system of five categories. The sole, and arbitrary, basis of the five categories is sustained wind velocity.
Watch what happens when Ike's sustained winds persist at the 110 miles/hour (177 km/hour) reading, which happens to be the arbitrary dividing line between Category 2 and Category 3.
- Does it really matter to the audience whether or not the storm is Category 2 or 3?
- Does it matter to the hurricane?
- Can you see how these human-created categories (or labels, genres, classes, etc.) can sometimes take on a life of their own in terms of how humans react to them?
You may want to turn your volume down for this one, it's pretty loud.
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lang-categories.mp4 Download lang-categories.mp4