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Because of the "threading" feature in this software (which allows y'all to reply to one another) I sometimes miss some of your postings. This was one I'd missed in preparing for class today. What I'm noticing now is how much Katie's last question, "If we insist on labeling ourselves without making allowances for variation, are we inhibiting the natural course of cultural evolution?" echoes a claim Paul made towards the end of the "slightly different" and "more cracked" story he told us this afternoon: that

• Sometimes trimming associated with the Hegelian dialectic (and other forms of rigor) can get in the way of productive expansion

If you're interested in exploring these ideas further, look @ Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People, by the Stanford ecologist Joan (once John) Roughgarden. Lots more on our propensity to "label" and so "limit" or "trim" the "branchiness" of evolution's diversity also @ Playing with Categories: Re-doing the Politics of Sex and Gender.