Thompson_NCL wrote:What does any of this have to do with what Frollein wrote?
Yes, when I used the every day use of money as an example of another social construct to demonstrate what a social construct was, she returned with accusing the left of inventing a completely different idea of what a social concept was so that we could be unicorns. Naturally, I should have followed her emotional and completely illogical post that in no way even tried to define a social construct as something other than an emotional outburst.
Thompson_NCL wrote:Anyway, as to the topic at hand: neither race nor gender are social constructs. Trannies are mentally ill. People who think they are of a different race are mentally ill.
Suntzu wrote:Race, subspecies, breed, call it what you want. There are no breeds of dogs. Breed is just a social construct. The differences between a Great Dane and a Chihuahua are very superficial. Same goes for a Kenyan and a Irishman or a Honduran and a Japanese.
But, again, I'm expecting too much by thinking that a rightwinger might react in some way other than emotionally. Let's break this down.
Race is a social construct in the sense that there is no river you cross where everybody is suddenlly black or white or Asian or whatever. If one were to walk from France to Japan, one would see a gradual progression of characteristics within people. There is no distinct category that isn't related to another, and the human genome project confirms this rather obvious fact. In this way, unlike dog breeds, when we created the idea of distinct races, it wasn't so much because there was a scientific distinction as much as one we all agreed upon as a society.
Because this rather basic and boring concept seems to be out of the reach of edgy and emotional rightwingers, the same concept applies to queer theory in a way that isn't particularly flattering to liberals slightly more to the left.
As an example, one can legitimately say that homosexuality is a social construct as well. Throughout the modern era it was very common for boys that went to upper class prep schools to have gay sex and gay relationships. For instance, Robert Graves writes very frankly about pining away with the love he had for a boy and the jealousy he had when another boy and the first boy had that relationship. But none of these people were gay or even bisexual.
When getting out of the prep school, they married women and, even if they continued to have sex with male prostitutes or whatever on the side, did not regard themselves as gay nor having gay sex, nor bisexual in any way. This was simply how a gentleman of a certain class was expected to behave.
Having lots of gay sex and falling in love with people of your same gender was not at all gay because there was no gay identity to which people were to identify. There was, in effect, no socially constructed gay identity for the actions being taken.
By means of comparison, Parnell went down in an infamous sex scandal because a woman had not seen her husband in years was attracted to him and that husband patititioned for divorce. Men who we know damn well were having lots of illicit affairs with married men, women, and prostituts were shocked.
Parnell had crossed a social line in transgressing the institution of the marriage, even if what he had done was nothing in our modern eyes compared to the actual actions of most members of parliament.
But the social construction around the imaginary lines of marriage that we all agree are there was more important than if he had been caught getting a train of transsexual hookers.
In such a society, homosexuality virtually doesn't exist, as there is no socially constructed box to place it in. This is why the mocked Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can say that in Iran there are no homosexuals, even if there is gay sex and gay love. There is no constructed identity for it.
So there, why race is a social construct (something for Republicans and Tories to rage tear over) and homosexuality is a social construct (something for Democrats and Labour to rage tear over).
As the dictionary said, and as I pointed out with money before the predictable rightwing temper-tantrum started, a social construct is simply something we agree upon.
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