To classify...is to control.

HOW DOES ONE MEASURE PROGRESS?

Certainly if one thinks about science, usually a standard measure of progress, one usually believes that there is a connection between the number of things we have come to classify and perhaps understand better, generally thought of as a good thing. It's what allows us to figure out new treatments for diseases, make better quality swords (then guns, tanks, planes, etc.), figure out which plants are harmful or edible, and so on.

A serious leap in scientific progress cane with the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution in the 18th century. This was a period of scientific discovery and classification that revolutionized the way people thought about the universe, the world, themselves, and others. It also seriously undermined contemporary religious dogma, especially in Europe. New scientific discoveries threw doubts on old thoughts that were initially the domain of only the Church, such as the place of the Earth in the revolve around us?) and eventually these discoveries cast doubt on a fundamental tenet of religious dogma: creationism. Is it true that perhaps humans evolved from or are related to apes? Modern democracy was also a result of the enlightment of kings the necessary rationale for ruling. People who were bold enough to suggest these ideas were often portrayed as heretics and revolutionaries, a clear threat to the status quo.

After-time these revolutionary ideas began to seep into the common consciousness. Proof and evidence of these new theories began to make them seem plausible. People today who believes that the Earth is flat are looked upon as crazy, and there is still a sizeable fringe of religious zealots who argue against evolution, although it appear as though they are becoming increasingly marginalized.

Animals soon had to fit into certain categories: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. Against the will of some, humans fit into the animal kinqdom. But there were also "outlying cases," such as the duckbill platypus (is it a mammal?) and the bat (is it a bird?). Still, science marched on.

Humans created the periodic table, an evolution of metallurgy and alchemy, whose goal was to turn iron into gold. Now we have every element that we can find in the world (or perhaps the universe?) classified, and by their attributes (the numbers of neutrons, protons, electrons) we can determine how they will interact. We even go so far as to create elements that last only nanoseconds, perhaps just for the sake of saying it's been done (and, of course, getting funding from the university-plus whoever creates it gets to name it). People and things that don't fit easily into these categories cause problems. One of the political changes associated with the Enlightenment is the division of territories into states, with fixed borders, and the ascription of nationality to "citizens" rather than "subjects," as opposed to the porous borders and uncertain sovereignty that existed before.

STATES WERE MORE EFFICIENT THAN OTHER FORMS OF ORGANIZATION, and through Darwinian survival of the fittest states simply won out over other forms (again a slow process). Those areas that did not neatly fit into states were subsumed by the more powerful, usually as colonies. Borders in much of Africa, Asia, and Latin America do not reflect pre-existing loyalties, but rather how the spoils were divided by those who conquered. And people wonder why there is so much conflict in these regions.

And within these states there were still others who did not fit in, and yet we needed to find a space for them. Africans were brought over to work as slaves for centuries, and their status was originally clear--cut. Yet their emancipation (which came relatively late in the United States) brought on a host of new problems of classification. Jim Crow laws ensured that they would maintain their place socially and economically for nearly another century, and then the Civil Rights movement created another upheaval. If African-Americans were to be made into full citizens, there must be some other way to keep them classified and maintain the social stratification, and that was through zoning, the creation and perpetuation of slums and ghettos, "white flight," etc. And people to this day claim that African Americans (and other minorities--if you want good Chinese food, where do you go? Chinatown.) have achieved equality, despite what statistics on poverty, violence, infant mortality, etc., say. The fact is, minoritie s and the impoverished have been classified and relegated to areas where they can be controlled and supervised.

And shifting to another sector of society, but not straying from the point too far, we can examine prisons in America and elsewhere and see how we have classified and labeled a whole other segment of people, and brought about control not only of those who fall into this category, but also those who wish to stay out of it. French philosopher Michel Foucault's ideas on clinics, prisons, mental illness, and other topics often point to broader notions of classification, and classification as a means to control efficiently. Prisons and punishment were originally the enactment of revenge by a sovereign king or ruler on his subject: the criminal who broke the law offended the king, and therefore the king meted out punishment directly on the prisoner's body. This is why torture and executions became public spectacles, so people would know what happens when you disobey the king. Yet as the shift from kings to other kinds of rulers occurred, so did a shift in how discipline and punishment was carried out. British crimi nologist Jeremy Bentham devised a more efficient way to discipline wrongdoers, and perhaps unknowingly devised a method to watch over society as well. If prisons were designed so that inmates thought that they were being watched at all times, or couldn't tell if they were, they would act as though they were being watched, in other words, behave. The increase in the use of surveillance cameras is an illustration of this. There are not enough people to be paid to monitor all of the cameras all of the time, but people act as though since they might be caught some of the time, they will act as though they could be caught all of the time.

Yet this idea has filtered out from prisons and into society at large. Social engineering with the goal of making people internalize the belief that they could be caught for any misdeed at any time took hold, and many people do internalize these ideas subconsciously. This further helps to create a perceived moral boundary between those who stray from the law ("them") and those who do not ("us"). We want to be classified as one of "us," not "them."

WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH SKATEBOARDING?

I thought you'd never ask. Skateboarding is hard to categorize, and therefore hard to control. There have always been people who call it a sport, and although skateboarding is unquestionably athletic, it defies the label of sport in so many ways. Regardless, people still try to sell it as a sport, from the "athletes" who stand a lot to gain (people who do well at contests that, coincidentally or not, portray skateboarding as not just a sport, but an "extreme sport") to the sponsors (fast food, soda companies, television networks, multinational corporations who manufacture athletic gear) and corporate media. And more often than not, it is lapped up by the population at large, who turn skaters into idols and commodities, fodder for conversation on the couch in front of the TV while slapping high fives. What's next? Fantasy skateboarding leagues?

But there are insidious and harder to detect methods that accompany this transformation. One is the public skatepark.

Often made with the best intentions, and once in a while by competent craftspeople, skateparks contribute to the classification and hence control of a population who existed exclusively at the fringes. Once the realm of private, for-profit enterprise, and closed at the fear of litigation, they are now mostly public, and controlled by the state. We must be wary of them.

Skateparks are usually ringed with some kind of fencing, separating the users from others. These enclosures make parks easy to monitor, especially with the aid of video cameras, already installed at some parks. They encourage the use of a regulated, controlled environment in exchange for a tacit agreement that other spots are off limits, formerly the areas that skateboarders learned to thrive in, outside of the easily understood and controlled. Many impose rules such as the use of helmets, or behavioral codes. Many are patrolled by police or parks department officials, arms of the state.

Instead of learning to skate in the streets, in parking lots, or on home-made ramps, kids get a skateboard and head straight to the park. Besides the problems this causes for people who aren't ready to ride what a skatepark might offer and those who have to skate around one more obstacle, it may also lead to the internalization of the idea that this is the essence of skateboarding: a "safe," enclosed environment, with arbitrary rules enforced by those who have never touched a skateboard. Those who skate out of bounds are lumped in with the "thems;" they are written tickets, pay fines, and may go to jail.

This will also stifle the creativity and evolution of skateboarding. Sure, people might be able to get better faster, or ride better stuff, but it will also eliminate the desire to search for your own spots. What's to be done? I am not saying avoid skateparks at all cost. They are infrequently well built, but sometimes convenient. Not all skateparks are the same: some eschew formal rules, some don'' have fences, some are self-monitored (by skaters). But of course there is the other extreme: fenced-in enclosures built shabbily with city money by city-sanctioned contractors, monitored by cops who enforce arbitrary rules made by city councils. The former are fun to skate at, the latter such and are no fun at all.

Skateparks should be ridden only as a matter of convenience or out of laziness, as an alternative to streets, backyard ramps, pools, pipes, ditches, banks, plazas, handrails, etc. If you are reading this and thinking "no shit!" then take it upon yourself to tell others, including newcomers, of the danger of relying solely on skateparks for terrain. Skateboards can and should be the ones shaping the future. Once they have us isolated and classified, we are much easier to control. And if we continue to rely on them for our spots at the exclusion of finding or creating our own, we are allowing them to dictate to us how, what, where, and when we ride. And if the day ever comes when they decide to take them away, we'll be left with nothing.

Progress can be good, but we must always ask: "At what price?"