He Fa on Lévi-Strauss

At the center of the dark gray suit, little geometric motifs are finely arrayed across the tie. A white shirt separates this strip of pattern from the broad expanse of gray, while He Fa's round face remains ordinary above it all. Stepping into Lévi-Strauss's outfit, I first want to use the tie for a small exercise in classification, then see at what point the exercise can no longer contain a person.

From a distance, the motifs are almost all the same dot; move closer, and shapes, intervals and directions emerge. Both views have their uses: the first quickly grasps the whole, the second avoids confusion. The trouble begins not with grouping, but when someone takes a resemblance caused by standing too far away as proof that the objects themselves had no differences to begin with.

The outfit reminds me that even repeated motifs never occupy the same position. One near the knot is squeezed; another farther down has a wider stretch of fabric. Cut them out and sort them only by shape, and the effects of position disappear. Cutting people in everyday life apart in this way lets attributes convenient for counting obscure their particular relationships of care and conflict.

But refusing all classification also has a cost. Borrowing books requires a catalogue, and distributing supplies requires knowing quantities; lengthy individual conversations alone may not get the task at hand done in time. One workable approach is to keep categories open to revision and record what has been temporarily overlooked in making them. Those being classified should be able to point out where they do not fit, rather than merely choose the least inaccurate position among existing boxes.

I leave the small geometric motifs on the tie, without asking them to account for the whole world. The gray suit helps them be seen, while broad cheeks and a small moustache draw attention to a face no single pattern can explain. Classification needs to pause here, clarify the next practical task, then decide where further distinctions are needed.