November 7, 2007 - 1:01am
By Noah Hy Brozinsky
Continuing from two weeks ago, good people stay up to date on pertinent political issues. A good person doesn’t mind throwing in the missing $2 that will settle a disputed restaurant bill. A good person — to a point — isn’t a grammar snob. Good people love Aaron Sorkin. Good people are always willing to meet someone new, and, crucially, good people don’t reduce their friends to single, sweeping adjectives.
What is a “sweeping adjective?” A sweeping adjective is the judgmental broom-work we use to shuffle people into unfair, incomplete categories. It is a poor hypothesis meant to place someone beneath a title we can only guess they would apply to themselves. These titles (Jew, Christian, Muslim, white, black, etc.) are horribly non-specific, usually irrelevant, and often disagreeable to the person being labeled. These titles are bad, frankly, because they are reductionist and encourage stereotyping. I will explain.
