Progress vs. Categories

As humans we like to put things into categories. It makes communicating and thinking easier. Scratch that. It makes communicating and thinking possible. Categories go hand in hand with words as providing us with crucial compression of reality.

The bigger and more important the categories, the more vicious the fights to protect the status quo at all cost. And that is at the heart of the gender and sex wars we are now finding ourselves in.

People and institutions who derive their power from controlling one of the existing categories will fight progress that might undo the importance of the category.

Not surprisingly then, categories are everywhere.

The admonition to “think out of the box” when it comes to innovation is apt. Such thinking is both a source of progress and necessitated by progress.

If you are trying to invent the new (or fund it), it helps to let go of existing boxes, instead of trying to jam innovative ideas into them. One of the reasons really disruptive startups often have a hard time raising money is because they often don’t fit an existing category.