It is so easy to be entrapped in generalizations.

For example, the average IQ of a sample I am part of says nothing about my specific IQ. This is a less malevolent type of generalization, a statistical one. Conversely, we find another example: my IQ being taken to represent a sample’s IQ or a more frequent example, “We won the Olympics!” while a specific person or team won.

Generalizations mislead. But do they always? No.

Generalizations are not …

First, one should not misplace generalizations for Aristotelian universals or even from Platonic ideas; we should not confuse generalizations with universals or forms. Though quite distinct, the latter two come from abstractions, while the former, generalization, comes from simple confusion. Universals and ideas are predecessors of memes. They co-form memetic fields that organize themselves around fundamental cognitive abilities that are simultaneously foundations of evolution. It is namely a precondition for any living entity to develop such a response to the environment that prevents clogging. If the environment were taken as hierarchically unstructured stuff, our perception and conception would be clogged because of the unmanageable quantity of impulses.

Universals and ideas play a decisive discursive role. Without them, in the form of a hierarchy of universals, we would be unable to make sense of our world. We would be like customers in a supermarket, assessing the individual traits of all the available products before deciding which product to buy. With universals in the form of brands, we buy Coca-Cola or Pepsi Cola, knowing nothing about the chemistry of the respective brands’ products.

Similar universals appear also on the lower level of cognition. A zebra knows nothing of a specific danger (a lion, for example) when she jumps and runs away from the direction of a sound that a lion might cause. The zebra “generalizes” in such a moment as much as we do while purchasing a soft drink. Three basic activities of any living creature, food, avoidance of danger, and reproduction, rest on evolutionarily in-built forms of universals and/or ideas.

As stated at the beginning of this article, universals should not be confused with generalizations; the latter rest on confusion, and the former on a strict hierarchy.

Misleading generalizations

Saying that each human has a brain cannot be generalized as: “A Man (a generalization of a human) has a brain.” A community of humans (generalization) has no brain. They might share memes, but as a generalization, it has no brain.

I use the term ‘Man’ and not the synonym, ‘Mankind,’ with a purpose. It is much easier to make a flawed generalization using ‘Man’ than ‘mankind’ because the difference between ‘man’ and ‘Man’ is obscured by faking similarity. In contrast, ‘mankind’ is already intuitively distinguished from ‘man.’ When uttering “Man,” we refer to a generalization of men that, in most cases, does not exist.

If we say that the average IQ of all men is 100, this does not mean that a specific man who has, by chance, an IQ of 100 is an externalization of a Man. If we say that 2% of men are politicians, this does not mean I am a 2% politician. If we say that rational numbers are equal (each is a part of a group that can take place in mathematical equations like any other), we cannot say that number 2 equals number 3. An exceptional quality is unique to “all numbers,” but this quality cannot be attributed to any specific number. In the same sense, saying that all men are equal (sharing some universal) does not mean that John or Mary can replace Peter with Oscar.

WOKE type of generalizations

What we increasingly encounter in public discourses, even in the so-called liberal Western world, produces more flawed generalizations of men that could and should not be generalized.

Man (generalization) and men certainly are interested in food, drink, and shelter. Still, on the other hand, we cannot attribute democracy (for example) to Man but only to a specific group of men. And even to that group of men, the meme “democracy” represents a generalization that each member will and must understand according to his or her specific interests. A politician will understand democracy differently than an owner of a small bakery or a pregnant woman searching for a kindergarten.

We can attribute to Man only those interests that we share with the rest of the living world (food, shelter, …), but all interests specific to humans can only be attributed to individuals, to man, and not to Man.

As much as there is nothing like a familiar environment, there is nothing like common interest. To rephrase a well-known situation, if we two walk together and encounter a lion, I need not be faster than a lion, but only faster than you. Something that appears to be a common interest (walking together) disappears with the slightest environmental change. Up to that moment, the environment in which you were my friend changed abruptly into an environment you are a hostile part of.

Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that even Aristotelian universals are either particular or nonexistent. Other articles explain that “particular” in this context means intersubjective: “Particular” is always hierarchical.

Generalizations lead to communism

In contrast to Aristotelian universals, generalizations cannot enact themselves as particulars. After we have won, the real winner disappears. After we all win, standing out as the real winner becomes unnecessary and dangerous to “harmonious” equality. To win (as an individual) means to stand out; by standing out, such an individual spoils the generalization.

Such considerations clearly show that generalizations lead to totalitarianism (and communism as the most evolved one), on the one hand, and that, on the other, they have nothing to do with populism. The concept of “we” should be banned concerning interests, for it only masks collective generalization. As a consequence, populism does not correspond directly to totalitarianism. Populism in the form of appreciation of the voice of individuals within the populace is anti-totalitarian. On the other hand, the infliction of one voice on the populace is totalitarian.

This does not mean that larger entities like family, company, club, city, State, United Nations… do not have their interests. Of course, they do. They must be understood as living creatures with all the corresponding properties, including interest. However, no single interest exists that any community of men can share with any specific man. If the highest value of humanity is man, thus homonism, then the highest possible crime is committed when a state, local community, religious entity, or any other group of men steals and uses this individual interest as a common interest.

A hierarchy of interests, meaning that different types of interest correspond to different entities, is a prerequisite for a homonistic society.