The Mikado
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« on: October 15, 2014, 02:53:17 PM » |
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I've seen this with race for years now, and a few days ago a post about sin also used the phrase and it got me wondering on the subject.
People seem to use "it's a social construction" as a way of saying 'it isn't real.' To my eyes, though, a social construction is necessarily something that was, well, look at the term. Constructed by society. To me that implies that it's not necessarily natural, but no less real nonetheless. Maybe it exists via societal fiat, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Therefore, what is the point of attempting to dismiss something by calling it a social construction? It doesn't mean that the thing is non-existent, and saying that a position is only held by societal fiat doesn't mean that the position is wrong anymore than your father's pacemaker is harmful due to its status as an "artificial" and "man-made" foreign object inside of his body.
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