Another name for essentialism is categorism. It means, to put it in the simplest terms, reducing people to the pigeonholes we put them in. My mentor, Edward Gannon, S.J., the person who had more influence over me than anyone else in my life, gave a lecture on this once, pointing out that to look at a person in terms of the category we place them in is, in effect, to objectify them, which is to say, dehumanize them. I can remember that lecture as if I had heard it this morning. Too bad more people didn't attend.
That's a lecture I would make mandatory for sooooo many people to attend. Wish I'd been there.
ReplyDeleteOne of the examples he gave shows how pervasive the tendency is. He pointed out that if you get on a bus, say, and silently hand the driver your fare and just as silently take the transfer he hands you and go find a seat, you have made the driver merely functional. By looking at him and saying thank you, however, this simply exchange becomes a human encounter.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good example. I do my best to treat everyone I meet with respect, for their humanity if not always for their individual self. Some folks are harder to love than others. But it's still possible to find some basic compassion for their human condition.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's my Midwestern upbringing, but I do try to say thanks whenever possible. I used to do that out of habit, but now I try to be more conscious about it. I think your mentor was absolutely right about making it a human encounter.
Frederick Franck, one of my de facto mentors, often said very similar things in his writings. One of his late books, a kind of summation, was "To Be Human Against All Odds." Excellent reading.