Social constructs are real and they matter

[BvBPL]

I honestly can't believe what I'm reading...

What about that I am walking on air? Believe or not? Try it. You'll never have thought you could feel so free.

 

[Domen]

To answer collectively to various posts from page 2:

Race is a biological concept as well, but it is quite vague and arbitrarily defined (and social perceptions of race only partially overlap scientific realities, being largely contrary to them). For example I've recently found an article which proposes a classification into 11 major races and 115 minor races, based on genetic distances. Two of the 11 major races reside on the tiny archipelago of the Andaman Islands (reflecting its long history of isolation and endogamy):

Legend:

* = significant (relatively) genetic distance from most other groups
** = major (relatively) genetic distance from most other groups
*** = very high (relatively) genetic distance from most other groups

And here are the 11 major races according to mentioned article:

Onge Andaman Islands Major Race***
Greater Andaman Islands Major Race***
Australian Major Race***
Papuan Major Race***
General Caucasian Major Race***
Kalash Major Race***
African Major Race***
Northeast Asian Major Race*
Southeast Asian Major Race*
Amerindian Major Race*
Oceanian Major Race*

Author further divides these major races into - in total - 115 minor ones.

This number of 115 includes - which is perhaps quite surprising - only 6 races in Europe: 1) European-Iranian Race (encompassing nearly all Europeans and many Western Asians - including both Jews and Palestinians); 2) Basque Race; 3) and 4) two Saami Races - one encompassing the Saami of Norway-Sweden*** and one the Saami of Finland**; 5) Sardinian Race*; 6) West Himalayan Race (in Europe represented by the Romani people, also known as Gypsies).

Among Australian Aborigines author distinguishes also a surprisingly small number of races, only 3, but each with a very high genetic distance (***) from each other: 1) General Australian Aborigine Major Race***; 2) Queensland Aborigine Race***; 3) Western Territory Pama-Nguyan Aborigine Race***.

In fact you could perhaps distinguish as many races as you want - depending only on how detailed you want to be - up to the most extreme classification, which would be a number of races equal to the number of people on the planet (with each individual person being classified as a distinct race).

The genetic variability in Africa is much larger than in the rest of the world.

True. However, majority of ancestors of present-day African-Americans came from several specific and relatively small regions of Africa.

Which is why "a typical African-American look" is similar to a typical look only in some regions of Africa - notably in West-Central Africa.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Yeah, please don't misconstrue my original point. I wasn't pointing to any kind scientific basis/validity to stereotypes, but rather that dismissing something as a "social construct" doesn't change that it's a real-world thing with real-world effects that impact actual people on a daily basis. Just because the fact that whether we distinguish on the basis of someone's skin being dark enough, or someone having freckles or which side of the Pyrenees someone happens to live on are arbitrarily defined distinctions doesn't make them any less real to the people experiencing them. Saying something like "it's a social construct" belittles people affected by the Thing because it puts the realness of the Thing into question. It's not natural, it's man-made, arbitrary. It can be changed at any time. The impact is thereby marginalized in the mind of the declarer.

While I think this is accurate I think it says a lot about said mind. Anyone who applies a little thought will recognize that it is far more likely to take a serious baby seal style clubbing over the head from a social construct than from any "natural fact".

Social constructs are not only just as real, they are far more worthy of fear.

 

[Zack]

For example I've recently found an article [about race]

 

[Manfred Belheim]

What about that I am walking on air? Believe or not? Try it. You'll never have thought you could feel so free.

.....

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Barack Obama's mother is as white as can be, yet I doubt you blink an eye when someone refers to him as an African-American.

Well you can doubt all you like, but given that I find the term "African-American" to be utterly ridiculous for a whole heap of reasons, you'd be wrong. And even if you were right about what I might personally say in a certain situation, you'd be missing the point anyway.

 

[Zack]

Well you can doubt all you like, but given that I find the term "African-American" to be utterly ridiculous for a whole heap of reasons, you'd be wrong. And even if you were right about what I might personally say in a certain situation, you'd be missing the point anyway.

Well I imagine you'd find it odd if someone called him white. My point still stands, that we view race in a social context.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

This exactly the nonsense that makes race a social construct. The genetic variability in Africa is much larger than in the rest of the world. Putting them all in the "black race" and making sweeping statements like this reflects racist legacy that needs to die.

Any sensible subdivisions of humans (and I am not sure there is such a thing) would have to create more subdivisions than just "black".

I think this post neatly sums up what I said earlier about the attitudes of people saying "X is a social construct". It is usually they who are the ones who want to shut down any discussion or disagreement.

Apologies for multiple posting btw, but then I never really understood why that seems to bother people so much anyway...

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Well I imagine you'd find it odd if someone called him white. My point still stands, that we view race in a social context.

I would probably find it odd if someone called him white. However, I remember hearing an anecdote about some leaders in some African country laughing when he was described as America's first black president, because they considered him white, and that didn't strike me as odd at all. It makes perfect sense in that context, just as considering him black in a largely white society/population makes sense too. None of this has any bearing on the underlying genetic differences that are objectively there though.

I'm not going to argue that racial attitudes or prejudices aren't social constructs, but then that's pretty much a given since attitudes and prejudices in general are. But I think it's silly to say race itself is just entirely made up, when it blatantly isn't.

 

[Zack]

I would probably find it odd if someone called him white. However, I remember hearing an anecdote about some leaders in some African country laughing when he was described as America's first black president, because they considered him white, and that didn't strike me as odd at all. It makes perfect sense in that context, just as considering him black in a largely white society/population makes sense too.

Umm... yeah. Exactly. It's a social construct.

None of this has any bearing on the underlying genetic differences that are objectively there though.

I'm not going to argue that racial attitudes or prejudices aren't social constructs, but then that's pretty much a given since attitudes and prejudices in general are. But I think it's silly to say race itself is just entirely made up, when it blatantly isn't.

Do you have an official Manfred Belheim list of these races, and how people fit into them, particularly ambiguous cases such as the US President?

 

[warpus]

Holy crap, it's possible to see Obama as being white. I see it now.. that smile.. on my god

Spoiler :

This is really weird.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

We are a social species - our entire civilization is sort of built around social constructs.

Yep. Take almost any group of people, even if they're a totally random group just thrown together, and the first thing they do is try to get organized in some way.

^Heck, for that matter, "sun" is just a social contract. And I don't mean just the word, though I mean that too. The idea that we should split that bright shiny thing off from the blue background against which we see it and regard it as a thing, but not regard any sub-portion of it as a separate thing, this idea, too, is not given by nature, but is just an conceptualization found agreeable most people's minds. Nothing, in the extreme version of the view, has existence independently of social contracting.

Cameras and telescopes know nothing of "social contracts" or "social constructions." Are you seriously suggesting that the only reason the Sun exists is because we have all agreed that it does?

The earth also orbits the sun in a wavy pattern. Does that make it revolve around the moon?

Earth and the Moon revolve around a common center of gravity that happens to be located inside the Earth itself.

 

[Perfection]

Social constructs can be interacted with in different ways then non-social constructs.

While it is important not to underestimate the power of social constructs or declare them to be unreal, it's useful to know what is a social construct and what isn't.

 

[Farm Boy]

What about that I am walking on air? Believe or not? Try it. You'll never have thought you could feel so free.

There is no way this doesn't pre date you. Is there?

Ok, wth, I just got the avatar. I'm slow and I was 2 or 3 when that went off the air.

 

[Flying Pig]

Cameras and telescopes know nothing of "social contracts" or "social constructions." Are you seriously suggesting that the only reason the Sun exists is because we have all agreed that it does?

No, they don't, but the people looking at them do. It's only convention though that says that 'the sun', being the whole ball of plasma in the sky, is what we're looking at - as opposed to, say, a cloud of particles, each of which is treated as a separate entity. That's not to say it's not a useful social construct. Put another way, each individual bird certainly exists, but it's only convention that we categorise sparrows and thrushes as one thing distinct from cats and dogs.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Are you seriously suggesting that the only reason the Sun exists is because we have all agreed that it does?

Yes. Well, I'm suggesting that the radical version of the "social construct" theory says this. Flying Pig conveys why using birds and cats, but I have reasons for suspecting you're going to think of birds and cats as really existing as distinct things, so I might use a different illustration. I think "jowls" might illustrate it well. Have you seen people whom you would describe as having jowls? It's a pretty distinct thing, a jowl. It even gives us an expression for people being packed together closely: cheek by jowl. But what is a jowl? Just a saggy cheek. Did we really need a word for that? For everyone we would describe as having jowls, those jowls are just that person's cheeks. But in English we do have a special word for saggy cheek, so for English speakers, saggy cheeks are a distinct perceivable, thinkable thing. Language carves up the world of phenomenal reality into thinkable things, but there's nothing in the phenomenal world that says where those carvings need to go. One can imagine a language that doesn't have a specific word for jowl, and the people who speak that language never experience that thing; that thing doesn't exist. One could similarly imagine a language whose speakers don't have a word for "sun"; they only have a word for daytime-sky (blue with a gold disk in it) and night-time sky (black with white sprinkles in it). Since what we call the sun never appears independently of the blue sky, they've seen no reason to give it a special name. It's all one thing, day-time sky. Why would you needlessly break this single thing, daytime-sky, into parts? Their world has no sun. Just as our world has no left-side-of-the-sun. We've never thought that needed a special name distinct from sun, so it doesn't exist for us as a distinct thing. But there's no reason it couldn't be regarded as a distinct thing: the part of the sun that wasn't blocked out by the most recent eclipse. Some culture has a pressing need to discuss that, so they make a word for it, and, voila, their world has a thing that ours doesn't. So, yes, the sun exists because we've agreed (through our language, which is a social construct or contract or agreement) that it does.

 

[Borachio]

Holy crap, it's possible to see Obama as being white. I see it now.. that smile.. on my god

Spoiler :

This is really weird.

I don't agree. I think it's quite normal. Or it does happen a lot.

I remember Daly Thompson, a successful black UK athlete, being cheered on by all sorts of racists, nazis, and otherwise unsavory people. Simply because they no longer saw him as "black".

Same thing with Frank Bruno.

I used to have heated "discussions" with racists, and often brought up these two as examples of people who didn't fit their stereotype of "black" people. And inevitably they claimed they weren't really "black".

Once you stop seeing people stereotypically and start seeing them as individuals, all this race nonsense just vanishes. Poof!

Which I take as proof positive that race is a social construct.

 

[Gori the Grey]

All through Obama's presidency, I've actually thought it was odd that more hasn't been made of his bi-racial status. It's one kind of triumph for Americans to have elected a black president, but it actually could be regarded as a different kind of triumph to have elected a bi-racial president, and nothing actually gets said about this. It's a weird legacy of the one-drop rule that even people who think that notion reprehensible still effectively apply it to Obama. It's a function, I think, of how crude our social construction of race is. Our only language for racial mixing is language that is at least as objectionable as our worst racial epithets: mulatto, quadroon. I think the deepest hope invested in him might be a function of his mixed race status and that is that he would represent post-racial America (the mixing that will ultimately render all of the old categories moot). But that is not happening in any explicit way. That is to say, we may be implicitly taking him as a symbol of post-racial America, but we certainly aren't using his case as a way of explicitly reflecting on multi-raciality. We couldn't have it both ways, I guess. But I sometimes think it's a shame that we miss some opportunities for certain kinds of racial consideration in celebrating him as "our first black president."

 

[Traitorfish]

We are a social species - our entire civilization is sort of built around social constructs.

That's a good point. It may be true to say that any given social construct is not natural, but the fact of social constructs in general, and even of specific kinds of social constructs (I'm thinking specifically of kinship), is as natural as any other human instinct.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

No, they don't, but the people looking at them do. It's only convention though that says that 'the sun', being the whole ball of plasma in the sky, is what we're looking at - as opposed to, say, a cloud of particles, each of which is treated as a separate entity. That's not to say it's not a useful social construct. Put another way, each individual bird certainly exists, but it's only convention that we categorise sparrows and thrushes as one thing distinct from cats and dogs.

Sparrows and thrushes are birds. Cats and dogs are mammals. Most birds fly. Most mammals don't. I guess you could say that what they all have in common is that they breathe oxygen and they are animals.

Yes. Well, I'm suggesting that the radical version of the "social construct" theory says this. Flying Pig conveys why using birds and cats, but I have reasons for suspecting you're going to think of birds and cats as really existing as distinct things, so I might use a different illustration. I think "jowls" might illustrate it well. Have you seen people whom you would describe as having jowls? It's a pretty distinct thing, a jowl. It even gives us an expression for people being packed together closely: cheek by jowl. But what is a jowl? Just a saggy cheek. Did we really need a word for that? For everyone we would describe as having jowls, those jowls are just that person's cheeks. But in English we do have a special word for saggy cheek, so for English speakers, saggy cheeks are a distinct perceivable, thinkable thing. Language carves up the world of phenomenal reality into thinkable things, but there's nothing in the phenomenal world that says where those carvings need to go. One can imagine a language that doesn't have a specific word for jowl, and the people who speak that language never experience that thing; that thing doesn't exist. One could similarly imagine a language whose speakers don't have a word for "sun"; they only have a word for daytime-sky (blue with a gold disk in it) and night-time sky (black with white sprinkles in it). Since what we call the sun never appears independently of the blue sky, they've seen no reason to give it a special name. It's all one thing, day-time sky. Why would you needlessly break this single thing, daytime-sky, into parts? Their world has no sun. Just as our world has no left-side-of-the-sun. We've never thought that needed a special name distinct from sun, so it doesn't exist for us as a distinct thing. But there's no reason it couldn't be regarded as a distinct thing: the part of the sun that wasn't blocked out by the most recent eclipse. Some culture has a pressing need to discuss that, so they make a word for it, and, voila, their world has a thing that ours doesn't. So, yes, the sun exists because we've agreed (through our language, which is a social construct or contract or agreement) that it does.

The daytime sky is not always blue with the Sun visible. The sky can be grey with a bit of Sun visible, or lots of white clouds and the Sun is visible. Or the Sun might not be visible at all. Same thing at night; the Moon is not visible during its new phase. It's also not visible if there are a lot of clouds, or lots of snow in the air (ie. last night it would have been impossible to see the Moon here, and right now there is no Sun, even though it's past 8:30 am. The sky is completely grey.

English does have distinct words for different parts of the Sun. Granted, they're used mostly by astronomers, but the words still exist.