In Defense of Arbitrary Classification

Take any classification of people, however arbitrary: MBTI, horoscopes, a one-question test asking whether you prefer apples or blueberries. The claim:

Any arbitrary classification can be useful to some people; therefore it cannot be dismissed.

This is a can-claim, not an is-claim. It does not even need one actual person deriving one actual insight: the mere possibility of one defeats a dismissal.

Two kinds of dismissal

1. As instrument: “This test measures inconsistently and predicts little.” Often fair.
2. As useless: “This has no value at all.” False by construction, because usefulness does not require accuracy.

Most dismissive people make argument 1 but announce conclusion 2.

Why the claim holds

Insight. A young introvert reading that extraverts gain energy from social contact may find this mind-bending. The insight (“humans vary in this dimension”) is real even when the instrument is junk: the truth is in the content, the test is only the delivery vehicle. But delivery vehicles matter.

Thought-direction. Even a random number generator, packaged well, can prompt reflection. The category need not describe you; it only needs to point somewhere and let you do the thinking.

Binary projection

Say “X people tend to be Y,” holding it loosely, and a certain listener hears “all X are Y” and attacks that instead. Call this binary projection: reading a loosely held generalization as a strict commitment, because the listener projects their own binary mode of asserting onto the speaker. The binary thinking they accuse you of happens in their reading, not your writing.