106 Miles to Chicago

Pirates-Ninjas-Elves-Dwarves

Tom Coates has put together a new way of categorizing his friends.

The wonderful thing about both of these classifications systems is how unladen they are with value-judgements. It is possible to consider an elven person to be intellectual and high-concept, or pretentious and useless. It's possible to view a pirate as boorish and crass or as vivacious and life-loving. It is not better to be ninja or pirate - the world needs both. And the creativity generated by the collision of elf and dwarf is far greater than could be achieved by elf or dwarven kind alone. Not only are there no categories that come prejudged inferior or superior, but also people have no problem self-categorising themselves - there's no shame to be felt in any of their self-classifications.