[marginalia_nu]

There is a tension between the utility of categories, which is very much real; and their limitations, which are also real and inevitable.

We absolutely need to categorize the world to make sense of it, even if the categories themselves are never going to be 100% complete or accurate. I think the takeaway should be awareness of the inherent limitations of categorization, not its attempted abolition.

There may be a point in revisiting categories though, as they tend to ossify and become less useful with time; you can't step in the same river twice, and that map your grandfather drew may not quite be accurate anymore.