Originally Posted by
plotter
Well, basically this guy told me that it is devaluing to X if you think X belong in category Q (that is established by "objective" criteria), when said category is thought less of by "the general public"*.
I on the other hand said that the fact that you suspect X of belonging to category Q could never in itself be devaluing. The devaluing of X must be seperate from the categorization according to me, since the categorization is just an aknowledgement that X fulfills these criterias that we've established makes category Q.
Suppose people can be verbally devalued in some way; then there must exist a statement S which is sufficient to devalue them. Let the group Q consist of people to whom the statement S applies. Logically, therefore, by stating that an individual belongs to Q, you are also asserting that S applies to him, and are implicitly devaluing him. I suspect you intended that certain restrictions be imposed on the set of possible categories; for example, you might restrict this set to not include properties pertaining directly to a person's character.
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