Everyone has an opinion about social constructs these days, but most people have no idea what they're talking about. We see this every day in social media.
Social constructs exist exclusively because they serve a purpose. They are useful to people. If the purpose becomes irrelevant through obsolescence then they change or get discarded. However, what you are saying is that social constructs are objectively real because they are based in a consensus of values between individuals. However this is demonstrably false. Social constructs ARE arbitrary but They aren't arbitrary in that they have a reason behind their existence but they are absolutely arbitrary because they can only exist as long as you have the means to enforce them. This includes games and anything else you listed as an example. This is why wars are fought. Not just wars, this is the origin of all conflicts between individuals. It's the inability to come to a concesus on the rules of any given construct.
I don’t think our positions are very far off from each other. I agree that social constructions generally have a purpose that helps constrain them. That purpose may even have some psychological depth to them. I did not, however, claim that social constructions are ‘objectively real’. Where I don’t think I agree (at least, not entirely) is that social constructions have to be enforced in some way, at least not by use of special power beyond social pressure to conform. The beauty example is a good one here. We don’t have to threaten people with force if they don’t agree that someone is or isn’t beautiful. Some standard of beauty will emerge from group living anyway and it won’t be entirely arbitrary. Some individuals will deviate from that ‘standard’ or even openly reject it, but that doesn’t suddenly make the socially-constructed standard suddenly disappear. Thanks for watching and commenting. I appreciate the thoughtful response.
The problem with the argument 'x is socially constructed' is that your y whatever y is is also socially constructed. If your argument for why y as opposed to x is better is only 'because x is socially constructed' then your argument is faulty.
There are definitely some suspect arguments of this sort in this space. You are right that if someone thinks everything is socially constructed AND uses that as grounds to dismiss another person’s perspective as “merely” social construction, then they are cutting off the branch they are standing on. If someone rejects that all ideas are socially constructed, or rejects the idea that being ‘socially constructed’ means that something is completely arbitrary and is impervious to evidence, then they can avoid this trap. For instance, as I suggested in the video, if the social construction is internally incoherent, that is a fair critique of it - but the problem isn’t being social constructed but being incoherent. A silly example would be something like a card game (with a standard deck) that requires someone to collect 6 of the same number/kind in their hand in order to win. That socially-constructed rule is incoherent with the idea of ‘winning’ a game because it can never happen. Thanks for watching and engaging the material thoughtfully.
The point is you can make up whatever you want and, yes the system breaks down. But why are we policing our behavior for the maintenance of chess (or the financial system that is working me to death)?
I suppose we’d police our behavior for the maintenance of chess if we want to play chess (e.g., because we enjoy it). If we change the rules in the wrong way, it would ruin the game or create a different game. As for the financial system that is working you to death, maybe it needs changed because that isn’t a good system. My point in the video isn’t to say we should simply go along with any and every social construction, rather, to recognize that we can’t simply change (most of) them by simply opting out or deciding (as individuals) to make our own new construction. We have to persuade each other to change a construction, and not all proposed changes will be easy to implement because they may either be incoherent or destructive (like weird rules for chess) or because they run against the way that human psychology tends to go (like trying to get everyone to agree that kale is what we should eat for holiday feasts). Am I understanding your point? Thanks for commenting.
Let's talk about the elephant in the room: trans ideology. A small group of people for political reasons is trying to change a social construction that is deeply rooted our society from thousands of years ago.
While transgender individuals might each have different world views or perceptions of social constructs, generalising or assuming some secret or deliberate plot is not very reasonable. It might also be worth examining the assumptions you might have about "Our society". What is this society, and when did it start? Presumably not Thailand or Laos, where kathoey have been recognised as part of society since the at least the 13th century. Or the hijra in South Asia from around the same time. Or indeed in "Judaeo-Christian culture" (or whatever you wish to call it) with the ay'lonit and saris, and "Adam" themself being representative of both male and female ("Adam" translates better as "humans" or "humanity" in the Hebrew translation of Genesis), they only become distinct sexes after the removal of the rib (see: Genesis 1:26-27). None of these are quite the same as our conceptions of man, woman, trans, non-binary, what have you. They are all culturally unique and different social constructions. But regardless, they indicate the concept of gender as ‘social roles or performance which have some correlation with biological sex’ is in fact not a new concept at all. If you're interested in developing an understanding of "trans ideology" yourself, without taking the word of random talking heads or people on the internet as gospel truth, perhaps you might benefit from reading something like 'Transgender History, second edition: The Roots of Today's Revolution' by Susan Stryker, or 'Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender' by Kit Heyam, or any number of works from Judith Butler. I'm not saying take their words as gospel either, by any means, thinking critically about the media you consume is an essential skill, whether you agree with it or not! But I'd suggest that a good place to start with understanding "trans ideology" is by looking to trans people themselves. You don't have to change your mind, but education on topics like this is a worthy pursuit in itself. Also, if your worldview is so sensitive to the idea of reading the words of someone you *might* disagree with that it makes you angry or panic, maybe your worldview isn't as good or right as you think it is...
Which was imposed by insecure White men. Globally, there's numerous example where the Gender Binary is less rigid, the Xannith in Oman, Sworn Virgins in Albania, many examples in Polynesia (Pacific islands) as well as examples in the adjacent comment.
just because something is "deeply rooted" in one very specific society doesn't mean it should stick around.. And our conception of gender is dramatically different to what it was 100 years ago, let alone thousands of years ago, so your point doesn't even hold water anyway.
Of course this is a timely issue that deserves a careful treatment, as the other responses demonstrate. I don’t see that being deeply rooted in our society is the strongest grounds for not changing a social construction - we can find lots of historical examples of bad behavior we deep social roots that we wouldn’t want to resurrect. But you are touching on an important issue: the ways in which some members of a society can actively work to change long-standing social constructions in comparison to the ways in which social constructions more passively drift or change. And in this particular instance, a key part of the discussion must be the degree to which socially-constructed ideas about gender are not arbitrary because of their psychological and biological moorings. Do you think this is the type of topic I should take up in its own video? Thanks for watching and commenting.
@@spud2576 Thanks for a measured and thoughtful response. I don’t know that @AlefeLucas was suggesting a full-blown plot, but your point is well-taken that to make such an assumption would be hasty. I also appreciate that you (rightly) observe that there is probably a diversity of worldviews and viewpoints among people who are transgender individuals. Indeed, my understanding of the rapidly changing scientific literature around transgender individuals is that there is also considerable diversity in what might be called the etiology or causes behind being transgender. For these reasons, we need to be careful ascribing motives or viewpoints. Of course, none of this means that @AlefeLucas is completely wrong: it may be that there are people (transgender or not) who try to change old social constructions for political reasons instead of for more noble reasons. Again, thanks for the thoughtful engagement.
Everyone has an opinion about social constructs these days, but most people have no idea what they're talking about. We see this every day in social media.
The social construct in my head tells me you have a very nice white shirt :D Great video
Hah! I appreciate it. Thanks for watching and commenting.
The music in this video is distracting.
Not for me.
Social constructs exist exclusively because they serve a purpose. They are useful to people. If the purpose becomes irrelevant through obsolescence then they change or get discarded. However, what you are saying is that social constructs are objectively real because they are based in a consensus of values between individuals. However this is demonstrably false. Social constructs ARE arbitrary but They aren't arbitrary in that they have a reason behind their existence but they are absolutely arbitrary because they can only exist as long as you have the means to enforce them. This includes games and anything else you listed as an example. This is why wars are fought. Not just wars, this is the origin of all conflicts between individuals. It's the inability to come to a concesus on the rules of any given construct.
I don’t think our positions are very far off from each other. I agree that social constructions generally have a purpose that helps constrain them. That purpose may even have some psychological depth to them. I did not, however, claim that social constructions are ‘objectively real’. Where I don’t think I agree (at least, not entirely) is that social constructions have to be enforced in some way, at least not by use of special power beyond social pressure to conform. The beauty example is a good one here. We don’t have to threaten people with force if they don’t agree that someone is or isn’t beautiful. Some standard of beauty will emerge from group living anyway and it won’t be entirely arbitrary. Some individuals will deviate from that ‘standard’ or even openly reject it, but that doesn’t suddenly make the socially-constructed standard suddenly disappear. Thanks for watching and commenting. I appreciate the thoughtful response.
The problem with the argument 'x is socially constructed' is that your y whatever y is is also socially constructed. If your argument for why y as opposed to x is better is only 'because x is socially constructed' then your argument is faulty.
There are definitely some suspect arguments of this sort in this space. You are right that if someone thinks everything is socially constructed AND uses that as grounds to dismiss another person’s perspective as “merely” social construction, then they are cutting off the branch they are standing on. If someone rejects that all ideas are socially constructed, or rejects the idea that being ‘socially constructed’ means that something is completely arbitrary and is impervious to evidence, then they can avoid this trap. For instance, as I suggested in the video, if the social construction is internally incoherent, that is a fair critique of it - but the problem isn’t being social constructed but being incoherent. A silly example would be something like a card game (with a standard deck) that requires someone to collect 6 of the same number/kind in their hand in order to win. That socially-constructed rule is incoherent with the idea of ‘winning’ a game because it can never happen. Thanks for watching and engaging the material thoughtfully.
So you can't change the rules to chess because it would impact the universal physical concept of 'chess'?
The point is you can make up whatever you want and, yes the system breaks down. But why are we policing our behavior for the maintenance of chess (or the financial system that is working me to death)?
I suppose we’d police our behavior for the maintenance of chess if we want to play chess (e.g., because we enjoy it). If we change the rules in the wrong way, it would ruin the game or create a different game. As for the financial system that is working you to death, maybe it needs changed because that isn’t a good system. My point in the video isn’t to say we should simply go along with any and every social construction, rather, to recognize that we can’t simply change (most of) them by simply opting out or deciding (as individuals) to make our own new construction. We have to persuade each other to change a construction, and not all proposed changes will be easy to implement because they may either be incoherent or destructive (like weird rules for chess) or because they run against the way that human psychology tends to go (like trying to get everyone to agree that kale is what we should eat for holiday feasts). Am I understanding your point? Thanks for commenting.
Let's talk about the elephant in the room: trans ideology. A small group of people for political reasons is trying to change a social construction that is deeply rooted our society from thousands of years ago.
While transgender individuals might each have different world views or perceptions of social constructs, generalising or assuming some secret or deliberate plot is not very reasonable.
It might also be worth examining the assumptions you might have about "Our society". What is this society, and when did it start? Presumably not Thailand or Laos, where kathoey have been recognised as part of society since the at least the 13th century. Or the hijra in South Asia from around the same time. Or indeed in "Judaeo-Christian culture" (or whatever you wish to call it) with the ay'lonit and saris, and "Adam" themself being representative of both male and female ("Adam" translates better as "humans" or "humanity" in the Hebrew translation of Genesis), they only become distinct sexes after the removal of the rib (see: Genesis 1:26-27). None of these are quite the same as our conceptions of man, woman, trans, non-binary, what have you. They are all culturally unique and different social constructions. But regardless, they indicate the concept of gender as ‘social roles or performance which have some correlation with biological sex’ is in fact not a new concept at all.
If you're interested in developing an understanding of "trans ideology" yourself, without taking the word of random talking heads or people on the internet as gospel truth, perhaps you might benefit from reading something like 'Transgender History, second edition: The Roots of Today's Revolution' by Susan Stryker, or 'Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender' by Kit Heyam, or any number of works from Judith Butler.
I'm not saying take their words as gospel either, by any means, thinking critically about the media you consume is an essential skill, whether you agree with it or not! But I'd suggest that a good place to start with understanding "trans ideology" is by looking to trans people themselves. You don't have to change your mind, but education on topics like this is a worthy pursuit in itself.
Also, if your worldview is so sensitive to the idea of reading the words of someone you *might* disagree with that it makes you angry or panic, maybe your worldview isn't as good or right as you think it is...
Which was imposed by insecure White men. Globally, there's numerous example where the Gender Binary is less rigid, the Xannith in Oman, Sworn Virgins in Albania, many examples in Polynesia (Pacific islands) as well as examples in the adjacent comment.
just because something is "deeply rooted" in one very specific society doesn't mean it should stick around.. And our conception of gender is dramatically different to what it was 100 years ago, let alone thousands of years ago, so your point doesn't even hold water anyway.
Of course this is a timely issue that deserves a careful treatment, as the other responses demonstrate. I don’t see that being deeply rooted in our society is the strongest grounds for not changing a social construction - we can find lots of historical examples of bad behavior we deep social roots that we wouldn’t want to resurrect. But you are touching on an important issue: the ways in which some members of a society can actively work to change long-standing social constructions in comparison to the ways in which social constructions more passively drift or change. And in this particular instance, a key part of the discussion must be the degree to which socially-constructed ideas about gender are not arbitrary because of their psychological and biological moorings. Do you think this is the type of topic I should take up in its own video? Thanks for watching and commenting.
@@spud2576 Thanks for a measured and thoughtful response. I don’t know that @AlefeLucas was suggesting a full-blown plot, but your point is well-taken that to make such an assumption would be hasty. I also appreciate that you (rightly) observe that there is probably a diversity of worldviews and viewpoints among people who are transgender individuals. Indeed, my understanding of the rapidly changing scientific literature around transgender individuals is that there is also considerable diversity in what might be called the etiology or causes behind being transgender. For these reasons, we need to be careful ascribing motives or viewpoints. Of course, none of this means that @AlefeLucas is completely wrong: it may be that there are people (transgender or not) who try to change old social constructions for political reasons instead of for more noble reasons. Again, thanks for the thoughtful engagement.