well, i might argue that everything is a social construct, because everything that we apprehend is filtered through our senses, and everything people as a group percieve to be true is filtered through people's individual senses and the ways we have to communicate wtih each other.
but, again, i don't take "social construct" to mean necessarily malleable or deniable or subject to my whims...
like, "fire is hot" is a social construct, because we a) experience a certain sensation when interacting with a certain thing that we know as fire and b) have the words "fire" "is" and "hot" to describe that whole interaction.
but that doesn't mean that i can then say, 'oh, it's a social construct; i'll just say that fire isn't not!' and put my hand into a fire and not get burned.
or "1+1=2" is a statement that represents certain logical relationships, but i can also validly say that "1+1=10" and "1+1=0" in fairly common mathematical systems. to say that 1+1=5, i'd need to redefine 1, +, =, and/or 5... and then it would point to a different logical system, or it would be using different words to say exactly the same thing...
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Date: 2002-10-03 10:21 pm (UTC)but, again, i don't take "social construct" to mean necessarily malleable or deniable or subject to my whims...
like, "fire is hot" is a social construct, because we a) experience a certain sensation when interacting with a certain thing that we know as fire and b) have the words "fire" "is" and "hot" to describe that whole interaction.
but that doesn't mean that i can then say, 'oh, it's a social construct; i'll just say that fire isn't not!' and put my hand into a fire and not get burned.
or "1+1=2" is a statement that represents certain logical relationships, but i can also validly say that "1+1=10" and "1+1=0" in fairly common mathematical systems. to say that 1+1=5, i'd need to redefine 1, +, =, and/or 5... and then it would point to a different logical system, or it would be using different words to say exactly the same thing...
;)