|
|
|
The Social construct By a Finn I wrote this text originally as a short comment on Social construction, and its structure reflects that. I was asked that this text would be lifted to main-log form. My acceptance and the text’s present position does not in itself refer to agreement or disagreement with any of the opinions or texts on this site. This text is about a specific part of Social construction theory, that which is most relevant to pro-Europeans. I develop the theme from part to part. My intention in this post is not to claim that all Social constructionists use their theory to it’s limits (although many have done so). My intention is to define Sc’s abilities and moral “boundaries”. The information refers to those leftist intellectuals who understand their ideology, not to the useful idiots or emotional hang arounds. ¤ Social construction theory (Sc), although it is often dressed in universal altruism, is in reality one of the most efficient method of acquiring selfish political power to those intellectuals who are skillful in it. ¤ In power games truth, scientific knowledge etc. are often unimportant. For example, an emotional, scientifically false theory about “political time” might be more efficient in a power game than scientific truth about “time”. In it’s starting point, Sc gives equal value (partly overlapping) to objective, subjective, natural, artificial, socially-constructed (i.e formed in people’s interactions/thoughts), physical, real, unreal, and imagined information, among others. Any of these could be in some situation useful in gaining power. In reality though, Sc is heavily weighted away from natural, objective, common sense, scientific knowledge. This is because such knowledge is generally fairly static and immutable, and is the knowledge of normal, non-Sc people, and therefore the base of their power. Political power is obtained most efficiently when there is great latitude in the information used, which gives larger possibilities in the political game. It creates dialectical or multi-dimensional contradictions and distances between the existing information of the rulers and it’s Sc opponents. These contradictions and distances can be utilized in countless of ways in obtaining power - whatever is propitious in a given situation. Sc chips away at the rulers’ power constantly in small or bigger ways, and channels that power to itself. If Sc would agree with the information of the rulers, it’s political possibilities would be severely limited. ¤ Sc creates contradictions mainly in the following categories: space (free, limited, taxed, large, small, publicly produced, privately produced, coded entrance, constricted, wide, polluted, clean, living space [e.g. apartment houses], commercial space, crowded, empty, natural, artificial, etc.), language (words, sentences, texts, political, meaningless, scientific, subjective, objective, economy related, language upholding the power structures, powerless, desperate, poverty related, sexual, heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, dialects, languages of different ethnicities, advertisement and marketing, cultural, movie language, language in everyday situations, etc.) who is the actor (humans, machines, systems, natural laws, economic laws, market place, rulers, subjects, slave owners, slaves, scientists, lay people, producers, service producers, farmers, skilled workers, officials, man, woman, masculine, feminine, majority, minority, intelligent, wise, stupid, ignorant, progressive, reactionary, native, immigrant, virtuous, evil, moral, immoral, new, old, young, elderly, etc.), time. I give a list:
All these and their constituent parts can be analyzed and combined in dialectical or multipart wholes (parts can oppose, strenghten, harmonise, contradict, coordinate, synchronize, interrupt, prevent, accelerate etc. each other) in ways that produce the most efficient political results. ¤ Because according to Sc almost everything is socially constructed this gives it’s proponents a power that supersedes the power of “gods” and high priests. Two examples: a) The function of the heart is, according to Sc, socially constructed no matter what medicine, evolutionary biology or other sciences say about it. This means that the function of the heart, in addition to pumping blood, could equally be determined to be giving rythm to drums, or to die (John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality). b) Science proves that there are differences between races and ethnicities, but socially constructed political correctness (in everyday language, science, media etc.), affirmative action, redistribution of wealth, socialism, soft totalitarianism, free speech monitoring and suppression, etc. win out over science and reality. Thus is constructed the reality that Sc intellectuals want, and which gives them large political power. ¤ Sc also gives other advantages ... or “advantages”. It is complex and counterintuitive, and this serves to strengthen the Sc intellectuals’ in-group definition, its boundaries and exclusivity, reducing the possibility of free-riding and outside infiltration (e.g. since conservatives regard Sc as non-scientific, not sensible, in fact stupid, this reduces the possibility of infiltratration by them. On the other hand Sc intellectuals infiltrate conservative groups and institutions eagerly and without compunction). When Sc compels it’s political subjects to declare as “true” things they know to be false, stupid and detrimental to them and their group, this emasculates them psychologically, strenghtens the smothering power of Sc intellectuals and makes their subjects psychological slaves. Studying and applying Sc includes elements of simpler repeats, so giving it rituals. These move it towards psychologically permanence, exact certain costs and thus reduce free-riding, help to memorise essential “slogans” (thereby giving practical operating instructions), define the in-group/out-group further, etc. Constant repeating of the “racism” trope in different contexts, ways and intensity is one example. The r-word is a political invective, not a definition of something. If somebody foolishly accepts it is as a defining word for himself, he will be forced to explain it away: “I am a racist, but ...” Real definitions don’t require that. Sc gives a license, moral or practical, to do anything, i.e. to construct almost any reality; lie, cheat, murder, infiltrate, extort, to be immoral, make revolutions, rob, etc. And not only that, it gives the possibility to mass murder and genocide, and regard it as an act of loving kindness towards all humanity. For example, Finnish stalinists (taistolaiset) and many other cultural marxists, beginning in the sixties and seventies, regarded Stalin’s actions as morally good and loving towards all humanity, enlightened, progressive, etc. They said that the Soviet Union’s weapons are “Weapons of peace and progress” (this was also the official policy of their peace movement). They said that communists’ wars (i.e. brutal and selfish wholesale murder, torture, rape and pillage to gain political power) are “Altruistic acts towards the betterment of humanity” and “Romantic and exciting, like a love affair”. On the other hand they said that “Western weapons and wars are brutal reactionary acts of aggression and suppression” and “Selfish capitalists’ wars of exploitation”. The Sc gives licence to use any need, aspiration, stupidity, knowledge, emotion, group, system, dependence, etc. of the people as a vehicle to power. In short, the Sc is a secular selfish power religion. It is necessary to pro-Europeans to study and learn from it and use it, but not, of course, the anti-human elements of it. Comments:2
Posted by James Bowery on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:11 | # Well have any of the Sc messiahs been so kind as to describe the minimum criteria for something to be not Sc? I guess what I’m really asking is whether Sc is actually a concept or not. 4
Posted by silver on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:28 | #
Well, that’s their point: everything is, in one way or another, socially constructed, even the empiricism that scientists like yourself hold so dear to your hearts. 5
Posted by James Bowery on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:11 | # So what they’re really saying is they have no concept of what Sc is because they have no concept of what Sc isn’t. 6
Posted by Guessedworker on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:24 | # James, The minimum criteria for knowing objective reality, which is what you are asking about, is to be God. Or, anyway, to live in the Real. Certainly, there is a concept in Social Construction, but it is a self-proving and disproving one. In short, Constructionism says we can only express or represent a reality through some form of language (not simply a spoken language, of course). Unmediated reality is inaccessible to us. All we have is representation. We can never get to what the representations represent. However, we cannot even make this point according to the Constructionist doctrine, since the language in which we make it is also a representation. So, as a category of objective truth, we cannot get at Social Construction ... cannot know its objective truth. Good news for dummies like me who cannot “get” it anyway! 7
Posted by James Bowery on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:01 | # Why would anyone serious about getting on in the world bother to talk to a Social Constructionist about Sc? It seems merely the flip-side of sophomoric solipsism. 8
Posted by Guessedworker on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:13 | # Finn, A question. Even as a non-academic, and being very far from a true intellectual, I am usually unfazed when I encounter Constructionist dogma such as “Race is a social construct” because nine times out of ten it will be someone who is no brighter than I am! But then I occasionally stub my toe on a different proposition, who plainly spends his tenured days beavering away in some Humanities Department. I have developed some coping mechanisms based around the problem of autonomy, the quality of waking consciousness, the function of prejudice, and so on. But I would like to know your own response to both circumstances - the dogmatic and the professorial. 9
Posted by Guessedworker on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:31 | # James: Why would anyone serious about getting on in the world bother to talk to a Social Constructionist about Sc? Because it is important in an ideologically Marxist sense. Our social and political actions are prescribed by the existing categories, models, language and mythology that we inherit from essentially Marxist political actors. If we do not agree with where those are leading us, and wish to be free from them, we have to challenge these actors. This is a call to more than detached philosophising. Finn linked the other day to a de Benoist article on the French New Right which I had not read for some time, and was struck anew by this passage:-
This is not enough. Sitting back in our studies, reflecting upon the intellectual drama of metapolitics grows more louche and abdicatory every day as the West slips into history. We have to totally “discredit other possible attitudes or agendas”. That’s a large part of what I am in this game for. 10
Posted by James Bowery on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:13 | # Well, while you guys argue with the Social Constructionist messiahs I’ll attempt to get along with the Structural Realists despite our imperfect knowledge. Some early work I’ve done is on the concept of equality which is far more of a concept—and far more useful—than anything I’ve heard from anyone regarding Social Construction. 11
Posted by silver on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:59 | #
I suppose they would answer that Sc is reality itself, only that reality, far from being objectively knowable, is inescapably socially constrcuted; we cannot know reality other than through the way we socially construct it; that the acquisition of new knowledge is an act of social construction. That would be the “strong” version, anyway. As is usuall the case with these things, the “weak” version has more going for it: there are some underlying “structures,” they might say, or “brute facts” upon which socially constructed reality rests. Ironically, despite their esoteric detachment from the empirical, they are in perfect unison about the existence of objective suffering, which the socially constructed “facts” of oppressive elites (whites, males, Christians) invariably lead to. It’s all intertwined with po-mo, deconstructionism, marxism etc, ie just a way for nihilistic intellectuals to escape the despair of purposeless existences which but a glance at objective, emperically ascertained facts apparently mires them in.
I don’t know whether you can ever totally discredit them. I think sufficiently discrediting them, and supplanting them, should be enough. And you can do that quite well even as you accept their premises: okay, there are reasonable doubts about what can be known, but pragmatically, our views are superior—just compare the consequences. Pragmatism is much maligned but as a principle for arbitrating social truth where the issues are just clouded enough to permit the marxians to obfuscate it can’t be beaten. Again, compare the consequences. Okay, ethnicity is “rigged,” and some suffer as a result, but look at the consequences of dismantling it wholesale. Bang, right there is a gaping hole you can quickly begin to fill in with truckloads of empiricism. If that’s too rustic for your tastes, before you scoff consider how much the marxians have accomplished with little more than naked emotional appeal, that little more being the easy pickings of organized religion. 12
Posted by snax on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:13 | #
And society is a racial construct. They tell us our views are wrong because they are socially constructed, but they do this in service of constructing a different society. 13
Posted by silver on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:14 | #
Sc’s not much more than an intellectual fad that long ago fantastically overshot its bounds. Still, it’s important to recall that its foundations do rest on some fairly firm philosophical footing, and many of the structural prejudices and biases it uncovered have benefited man; many of them are dispensable and ought to be dispensed with, especially at this time, when there are much larger fish to fry. 14
Posted by James Bowery on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:01 | # silver: Sc’s not much more than an intellectual fad that long ago fantastically overshot its bounds. I suppose we could then call ethnospecific bioweapons mere social constructs that long ago fantastically overshot their bounds. 15
Posted by calvin on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:55 | # “After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley’s ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it—“I refute it thus.” Boswell: Life of Johnson 16
Posted by Guessedworker on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:31 | # Silver, Would you care to have a shot at defining the legitimate bounds of Constructionism? 17
Posted by Old Guy on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:47 | # Guessedworker; You said “Finn linked the other day to a de Benoist article on the French New Right”. I don’t know which “other day” you’re referring to, and would like the source for the Benoiste article for further study. Could you provide that please? Another observation: The theoretical “stuff” Finn presents is fascinating and pregnant with possible “on the ground” action to change things in “our” direction. But who is actually putting these principles to good use, as we “speak”? My nomination for one such group is the guys over at http://www.resistingdefamation.org You .all know them. They are using many of the ideas suggested in Finn’s text for real work, and achieving real results. No, we’re not “saved” yet. That will require MORE such work. Would anyone here care to take Finn’s in another direction than criticism of his text? How about suggestions for more “on the ground” actualizations of the theory, either in the same vein as resistingdefamation, or other “new” thrusts entirely. The more the merrier! And Finn, thank you for this text (“text”??? We DO seem to be in SC land, don’t we!). You’ve whetted my appetite for both MORE theoretical understanding, and MORE application opportunities. While I think your presentation was a by “cryptic”, and maybe could have been “devolved” to a more easily understood level with more examples and less “lists” ... the relevance of the categories you laid out for “dialectical war” are obvious. Hyvaa Paivaa, and all that! Mita Kuulu, dude! 18
Posted by Guessedworker on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:11 | # TOG, This is the link to the de Benoist review of the FNR, written in the year 2000:- 19
Posted by Wild Bill on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:39 | # The Ford Motor Company, A little history on modern civilization: Everything that we love about modern America was created by The Ford Motor Company and Thomas Edison. General Motors is a copy of Ford by a consortium of American investors. So was Chrysler. From the beginning of time and up until the early 1900*s and the development and mass production of the automobile by Henry Ford, the founder of The Ford Motor Company, the vast portion of the population walked from here to there and worked barefooted like draft animals on farms. The first mechanized transportation came with the railroads in about 1850. Railroads did not serve a statistically significant portion of the population. By 1875 street cars were coming into use in the largest cities, being first pulled by horses. With the advent of Henry Ford*s Model T automobile regular men of normal intelligence had for the first time in the history of the earth the ability to produce their own goods and get them to market. Simultaneous with the development of the automobile, The Ford Motor Company also invented and put into place the device called a tractor. This machine liberated hundreds of millions of men and women from the incomprehensible drudgery of subsistence farming world wide. These tractors were also used to power portable lumber mills and some mining equipment. With this tool it did not take long for the intelligent segment of the population to start making things and get them to market. In a few short years, other men built machines that could fly, wash clothes, cook meals and weave socks. When we hear talk in the media of Ford or GM going bankrupt or being bought out by the Communist Chinese Government …. and the ignorant commentary eructed by the stupid and uneducated American talking heads, bipeds who never made so much as a wooden candle holder in junior high, then it is necessary for those of us who know the score to attempt to shed a little light on the subject. Here goes: Ford can also be credited with causing the glass industry to expand exponentially. With the manufacture of millions of cars comes tens of millions of rubber tires and a demand for copper wire and the beginnings of electrical controls. Gears and rivits provided a hundred thousand good jobs and sent thousands of young men and women to medical school. The machine tool industry and everything that spun off from it was a creation of The Ford Motor Company. Ford also created the airline industry and the planes to support it. The Ford Tri Motor is still in use in rural South America today. It is not a stretch to note that every manufactured item anyone surfing the Internet can see was a direct result of the industry created around The Ford Motor Company. It is also a demonstrable fact that more people have had their lives made livable as a direct result of the operations of The Ford Motor Company than all the religious figures, politicians, doctors, do gooders and wars for peace combined since the beginning of time. It is another easily demonstrable fact that everything good about modern America was created by The Ford Motor Company. This includes every industrial device ever created or manufactured and all the benefit this has brought our families and country. Every little girl playing piano is the direct result of good parents and the industrial activity created by The Ford Motor Company. The great Bill Gates could not have done anything without the foundation laid before by The Ford Motor Company. Because the high technology product of The Ford Motor Company liberated mankind from the status of draft animals the super rich quickly realized that their monopoly on power was beginning to wane. The super rich, who profited handsomely from doing business with the Ford Motor Company, began to make war on it. Now, after 110 years of concentrated war the super rich are about to kill The Ford Motor Company which is also the America the reader knows and gets his meals and shelter from and has his future with. This concept, economic war, is probably too difficult for most people to comprehend. Elements of the war against Ford: Early in the 1990*s GM was ordered by elements of the US government to open manufacturing plants in China of face a bankrupting recall of every car it had ever built. The GM Board of Directors protested, to no avail or relief, that such would lead to a weakening of their domestic operations, America. Those in control of the labor unions, protected by the government, piled on and forced unconscionable elements like $75 per hour wages into their contracts but still Ford and GM survived, so powerful was the economy they created. Perhaps the reader remembers this exchange between Larry King of CNN and candidate for president George W. Bush during the 2000 election theatrics: King: *So, what you are saying is that no one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American People? Bush: *Well Larry you know I cannot give you a direct answer to that and be truthful but yea, I know what you are saying.* This, the situation with the Big 3 Auto Makers, is one of the moments they were talking about. The American people, damnably fat and lazy with all these creature comforts cannot now see or understand what is about to happen. This is what is about to happen: It is that serious. Here is how you will return to draft animal status: The demonstrable fact that not one American politician holding high office comes forth and says the bankrupting of The Ford Motor Company cannot, shall not and will not happen is proof that they are all in an organized conspiracy to dehumanize the American People back into draft animals. Nothing can do as much damage to America, and the American People, as the bankruptcy of The Ford Motor Company. Protest this with as much vociferation as you can, the life you love depends upon it. Recommended reading: 20
Posted by Lurker on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 03:16 | # I only question the continued use of the tri-motor aircraft South America. I doubt there are any left in any kind of revenue earning service outside the US. Were you perhaps thinking of the Douglas DC-3? 21
Posted by Captainchaos on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 03:44 | # The Ford Foundation is a notorious funder of left-wing, anti-White, internationalist intitiatives with a “Fiscal year 2007 assets valued at $13.7 billion” : http://www.fordfound.org/programs PROGRAM UNIT FIELD OF WORK
Signature Initiatives Partnerships __________________________________________________________________________________________ And of course, they are in bed with the Jews to start the work of race-replacement in Eastern Europe that is well underway in Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. This is what happens when the Race serves the economy, and the economy doesn’t serve the Race - the Race is chewed up as so much fodder. Capitalism sucks. 22
Posted by Jay Z on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 06:16 | # I think Silver is being too charitable towards “social constructionism”. I’m a philosopher with some experience talking to people who believe in this garbage, and in my experience all such views eventually reduce to something (a) obviously false, (b) hopelessly confused, (c) true but totally trivial and no threat to the possibility of objective knowledge of a mind-independent world. For a start, what exactly do these people mean by “construction”? A trivial claim would be this: the ways that we conceive of the world, categorize things, etc., are not determined by nature, but by our interests, capacities and dispositions. That is, our view of the world is in part the result of our mental activity, and could be otherwise if we were very different. Duh. This is no threat to objectivity. Maybe Martians wouldn’t have much use for the category of “human beings” or “red things” or “currencies”, or whatever. This doesn’t change the fact that human beings exist or that some things are red and others not, or that the American dollar is worth so many British pounds. What does Silver think is both non-trivial and defensible in SC? 23
Posted by a Finn on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 07:54 | # Short answers: To Guessedworker. At the fundamental level, I don’t believe in prejudice, the concept, the way it is used now, is an artificial and false social construct. Ethnocentrism is preference, not a judgment like a decision /sentence of a judge in court. Ethnocentrism, i.e. ethnic human kinds module can be seen in studies, but the problem is that in Europeans it is on average too weak. E.g social pressure, social conformity and authority overwhelm it on average quite easily. Many “racism and prejudice” studies are helpful in defining it. Examples of “prejudice” studies: Whites may be more favourable towards blacks than whites to conform to present social norms, i.e. to avoid the attribution of “prejudice” to them (Dutton, Lake et. al. 1973). Gaertner (1976) suggested that white people who say they are not “prejudiced” towards blacks (read: have no ethnocentrism), still prefer whites (read: still are ethnocentric), they just dissociate those feelings from their “non-prejudiced” self image. People with this “aversive type of prejudice” may avoid behaviour that reveals it. However they are more likely to prefer whites in situations in which their behaviour have sufficient explanations that prevents the attribution of “bigotry”. Gaertner and Dovidio (1977) studied 75 white female students. They helped blacks more often than whites in a case of a staged accident (93,8% vs 81,3%) and did it faster (Measured separately; time to stand up and open the door to the accident room, ~33,5% and ~28%), when they didn’t have explanation to their underlying preference of whites. When they did have an explanation, i.e. other people in the room who didn’t help, the situation was more than reversed. They helped whites more than blacks (75% vs 37,5%) and helped whites more quickly (~48% and ~30,5%). At the fundamental level, it is necessary to whites to increase ethnocentrism by selection and group evolution. At the surface level I believe in afterknowledge, that is part of the reason I am pro-European. Autonomy: If you are referring to an autonomy of average individual, it is fairly weak. Social pressures, authorities, social and reciprocal networks and obligations, psychological continuities and commitments that are induced by outside influences, kinship and ethnicity networks and their pressures and obligations, other similarity pressures, faked social proof illusion of media, countless meme manipulations, etc. form the most part of individuals. The topic is large, but it is dealt with especially in social psychology. In general it is good that the group is more important than individual, but the problem is, again, that our ethnocentrism, and thus our groups, are on average too weak, enabling all kinds of hostile and destructive memes and manipulations to prosper. Waking consciousness: Whatever works and is efficient. We Finns are that practical. To Old Guy: Kiitos, oikein hyvää. And thank you for the compliments. It seems that I make a second part, where I explain the topic further; more parts of Sc, explain why Sc works and give practical advice. Maybe suitable schedule would be before the present year ends. It seems that this time Silver gave quite accurate description of Sc and I agree. Your history has created permanent knob of carefulness to neural networks, but if you stay in the narrow path of righteousness, maybe we start listening to you. 24
Posted by a Finn on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 08:07 | # Jay Z, I agree with you too, but maybe you could assess it part by part, not in it’s totality. As whole it is a sorry sack of lies, but there are useful and valid parts in it. E.g. I think it’s quite proper to analyze the inaccuracies and accuracies in language, and how the rules and meanings of social transactions, say in a restaurant, are constructed. 25
Posted by a Finn on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 08:40 | # I answer this separately, just in case. Silver: “Fair enough, but some things quite clearly are socially constructed.” - Of course, and that was not the issue of my text. 26
Posted by the Narrator.. on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:03 | # Of course if you really want to put a bee in the bonnet of the Social Construction promoters, just point out to them those other socially constructed identities that they always conveniently leave off of their list of social constructions…...victim and victimizer or oppressed and oppressor. 27
Posted by a Finn on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:16 | # Addition to Guessedworker: You may have expected Sc definitions of prejudice etc., but there is not one answer. It is a loose collection of information from different sciences, mainly philosophy, history, sociology, political science, linguistics, and also literature. It seems that almost every social constructionist tries to create new concepts, new logics, new ways of defining, new nuances, so the end result is a messy cacophony compared to e.g. engineering, and it’s exact concepts and logics. What is (generally) common among social constructionists is some basic principles. But the comparable large mess that would be useless in engineering, becomes a treasure house of endless useful or possibly useful tools in politics and influencing. Personally, as you can see, I prefer more exact psychological definitions. Still I see the necessity of Sc in politics. 28
Posted by James Bowery on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:24 | # Still I see the necessity of Sc in politics. And the necessity of politics arises from dispute resolution through argumentation rather than experimentation. Since the sophists will lose out to the truth, they can’t allow experimental tests of their arguments—which is why “separatism” is a dirty word to them. 29
Posted by James Bowery on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:10 | # I should probably debunk the notion of “empiricism” as entailing “tabula rasa”: We embody a prior probability distribution (heritage, wisdom of the ages, prior interpreted experience, prejudice, bigotry, knowledge) which experiences the world and then presents a new prior to subsequent interpretation of experience. The only question that is interesting about empiricism is not whether there are ingrained prior probability distributions but whether there are what might be thought of as UNIVERSAL prior probability distributions. This is a ultra-violet-hot issue due to the potential that such a UNIVERSAL prior could allow determination of truth through argumentation about experience rather than through experimentation (controlled experience). This means, for example, that if truth is embodied in the most parsimonious representation of experience (Kolmogorov Complexity of the experience) then you can establish an objective test of the degree of truthfulness embodied in an argument by simply comparing the length of its resulting description of experience in terms of number of bits of information and going with the shorter one as the best. This alternative to controlled experiment is equally terrifying to the sophists because it constrains argumentation to an objective test of truthfulness from which they cannot escape. Imagine a world in which you can beat the sophists through argumentation! Perhaps their worst nightmare because then, by their own rules: “There is no place for” THEM. 30
Posted by Captainchaos on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:49 | # Finn: “They helped blacks more often than whites in a case of a staged accident (93,8% vs 81,3%) and did it faster (Measured separately; time to stand up and open the door to the accident room, ~33,5% and ~28%), when they didn’t have explanation to their underlying preference of whites.” The Lemming Factor. “When they did have an explanation, i.e. other people in the room who didn’t help, the situation was more than reversed. They helped whites more than blacks (75% vs 37,5%) and helped whites more quickly (~48% and ~30,5%).” But in order to be in a position to combat the Lemming Factor you need to have the auspices of authority, status, and actual dependence of the lemmings on you for important necessities of life. In other words, you must consciously strive for power. “At the fundamental level, it is necessary to whites to increase ethnocentrism by selection and group evolution.” The Final Solution to the Lemming Problem. Assuming you had achieved power, would you use it to pursue this eugenic course? James Bowery: “Imagine a world in which you can beat the sophists through argumentation! Perhaps their worst nightmare because then, by their own rules: ”There is no place for” THEM.” But how to get the lemmings to listen? 31
Posted by James Bowery on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:10 | # But how to get the lemmings to listen? The same way you get them to watch football: Turn it into a fair competition with a numeric score picking the winner. 32
Posted by Svigor on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:48 | # I don’t know much about philosophy, but I have to agree with this:
Posted by Jay Z on Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 05:16 AM | # Uhm, yeah. Let’s see how many Social Constructionists argue with an oncoming truck about objective reality. I categorize this stuff under “shit people serve to others, not themselves” and move on. 33
Posted by Jay Z on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:01 | # Hi Finn, “As whole it is a sorry sack of lies, but there are useful and valid parts in it. E.g. I think it’s quite proper to analyze the inaccuracies and accuracies in language, and how the rules and meanings of social transactions, say in a restaurant, are constructed.” This is just the kind of thing I’m talking about. Taken seriously as some kind of metaphysical claim about the “construction” of reality, which is what SC has to be if it’s to be at all interesting, this is just silly. Of course things like the rules or regularities of social transactions are “constructed” in one obvious sense. If there were no human beings with a certain kind of culture, history, innate dispositions, etc., then there would be no such rules and regularities. Or those rules and regularities would be very different. In principle, this is no more interesting or threatening to objectivity than is the fact that, say, some people eat with chopsticks and some people eat with forks. So if all we’re talking about is the “construction” of human behavior through tradition or upbringing or political or economic pressure or whatnot, these people are just saying something blindingly obvious: that we human beings play an active role in making our societies what they are, that using chopsticks or going to mass is not determined by our genes. This really just goes without saying - although, of course, knowledge about the details of some particular culture or tradition can be interesting and important if you’re a tourist or an anthropologist. But no facts of this kind imply anything whatsoever about our ability to know about a largely mind-independent world that we did not “construct” (apart from, e.g., what the construction industry does with cranes and bricks). Likewise, there can be “inaccuries” in language, if that means that people sometimes say or imply or suggest things that are false or misleading with their words. And there’s such a thing as propaganda, etc. But again, although it can be important to notice when this is happening and why, the mere fact that it DOES happen is utterly obvious. Moreover, even to make sense of this kind of thing requires just what the SC folks apparently deny: a largely mind-independent world that was not “constructed” by or out of bits of language or modes of conceptualization. If I say something inaccurate, what makes it inaccurate is precisely that the objective world is not as I describe it. (What else could it mean?) So if this claim about inaccuracy is supposed to lead some claim about the “construction” of the world, i.e., the non-existence or unknowability of a mind-independent reality that transcends what we perceive or believe, it is obviously a non-starter. Why then should we grant that any of the (obvious) truths that SC proponents use to ground their obviously stupid and confused conclusions have anything to do with “social construction”. Insofar as they’re saying anything remotely plausible, it is obvious and leads to nothing like “social construction”. And insofar as they’re asserting “social construction”, in anything like what they mean by that pretentious term, they’re saying something very stupid and very confused. By analogy, the race denying egalitarian left sometimes say true things, e.g., that blacks are poorer than whites. By conceding that obvious truth are we conceding that racial egalitarianism or race denial are true or plausible to some extent? No. The true things they say are totally unrlelated to either of those false and silly positions. Likewise, if someone who talks about SC claims that, say, there are different ways of thinking about the world, that is an obvious truth with no actual relation to SC (although such a person may well think, in his confusion, that there’s some kind of connection there). 34
Posted by Captainchaos on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:35 | # James Bowery: “The same way you get them to watch football: Turn it into a fair competition with a numeric score picking the winner.” Getting Whites to once again see competition with each other to advance the interests of the tribe as the gold standard of social status free from authoritarian pressure is the brass ring. My hope is the media/financial manipulators keep fumbling the ball before they can get it in the end-zone. History shows they always have before. 35
Posted by Armor on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:23 | #
It is a good categorization. Leftist phony philosophers indulge in absurd relativism and constructivism as it suits them. For example, they will ask: what is Britishness, why can’t a Zulu be British, and so on. But they never ask what is Zuluness, as they think the Zulus have a right to exist. 36
Posted by silver on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 08:36 | #
Sure, I could take a “shot” at it. Mind you, it wouldn’t be amateurish in the extreme, and not anything a “professional” philosopher would dare put his name to, but then philosophy is maybe unique in that it allows for such contributions. I’ll have a go at what might be non-trivial and defensible, too. Later though. I have to organize getting out of this nuthouse here, Thailand, first. 37
Posted by a Finn on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:44 | # Answers: Captainchaos: “The Final Solution to the Lemming Problem. Assuming you had achieved power, would you use it to pursue this eugenic course?” - No, I would create propitious environment to non-hostile ethnocentic group networks. I don’t consider what I described as eugenic, because in that propensity area there are many development directions and what is valued decides what is regarded as useful and progress. There are of course many objective advantages in the model I advocate, but if some people want to regard increasing liberalism, mixed marriages and universal egalitarism in their groups eugenic and progress, they can do so. Final solution it is not. It is, when intelligently arranged, permanent solution in one area of life to the ethnocentric groups, but other solutions must be done constantly, like in life in general. Also outgroups continue to do their own solutions normally. I would inform the liberals that they can live in their groups as they wish, but they can’t destroy everybody’s environment (I refer to more categories than mere natural environment) with immigration, including their own. Then I would reverse the tide of immigration. When one immigrant comes in three will go out, and the one coming in is most likely to be an European. 1 can be replaced with 0, while the outflow continues. This goes on as long as is necessary. Svigor: “I categorize this stuff under “shit people serve to others, not themselves” and move on.” - You and I and millions of others are those to whom the shit and it’s consequences are served. They will do so long as their methods are studied thoroughly, understood and reversed. Jay Z: Ordinary hammer can be socially constucted to be a nail hitter, mineral rock breaker, paperweight, back scratcher, hair plucker or tootbrush. We start here from the natural, suitable and the best use and move gradually to the worst, unsuitable and absurd. If everything and every social interaction is studied, and somewhat similar gamut is created, then there you see all the potential political manipulation possibilities of social constructionists. They don’t have to necessarily move the social interactions to absurd levels, it is enough that they make small alterations in many places here and there and it creates radical overall change in society. That is generally what has happened, although they have made bigger alterations too. If I objectively observe that this has happened and advocate using selected Sc methods, this doesn’t imply that I accept their absurd beliefs. Ps. Off-topic: Finnish immigration critic made a Sour Christmas calendar with uplifting tasks. http://koti.welho.com/maijarvi/ Click the days, where the door is open. 1. What might be lurking in the picture? Build the puzzle and you will know. Click a part, release the button and move the part where you want it. Click again. (Multicultural car). 2. 12 year old Fatima is sent next week to Pakistan to be a bride to his 48 year old uncle. Choose the right wedding clothes and be part of this beautiful and natural process. 3. You are fishing in troubled waters… (Refrain in the liberal media). Move the fishing pole with arrow keys and catch the fish by pressing space. 38
Posted by Top on Sat, 06 Dec 2008 20:02 | # “I suppose we could then call ethnospecific bioweapons mere social constructs that long ago fantastically overshot their bounds.” Exactly James… I have long ago given up arguing with Asians and Africans about the objective reality of our race relations. I believe there is something hardwired inside humans that makes that endeavour impossible. There is a reason why we have borders after-all. Jews in diaspora are the most impossible to argue with because they are the best at constructing realities in their head that will advance their ethnic agenda while selling it as objective reality. The only question that should concern us Euro-whites is why so many of our people fall for this stuff. The fact that they do in such large numbers points to a larger truth and perhaps to our greatest weakness, but confronting this question also points to a way out - the only way out of our present demographic predicament. The way I approach these whacked-out theories (ex. social construct) with whites and non-whites is simple. I refuse to get lost in them and reduce everything to racial truths. The interesting part is that in general most non-whites immediately take the exit strategy with me and we no longer attempt to have such fake conversations. In my experience non-whites on average are much better at seeing racial conflict and while I cannot come to an understanding with them, at least I can come to an uneasy peace with them. Whites on average on the other hand are much more difficult to disengage. They refuse to leave the confines of some theory that some non-white in diaspora came up with and instead they choose to immerse themselves in it. That’s where I often have my work cut-out for me, but I will refuse to argue with them within the assumption set of that particular theory. In reality most of the time I am up against a whole range of theories designed to keep that particular person paralyzed and unaware of the racial conflict around them. It is truly amazing what the university and media take-over of our institutions has done to our people. I hate it but at the same that I see the power of it. The only way out for us is to regain our language. We don’t speak English anymore - we speak tha language of alien group that wants us exterminated. What we are facing is is an advanced form of ethnic warfare at just about every level. We need to fully disengage from the language of our enemies and keep the correct labels. That is where the true fight is. For example, many WNs are happy to give away the moral high-ground because that is how it is has been constructed for us by the aliens. But giving away the moral high-ground and attempting to fight from a position of moral deficiency (ex. ‘white supremacy’ ) we are creating a recipe for defeat and disaster. We are fighting what they want us to fight on their battlefield with their troops in place to decimate us. In reality we have the moral high-ground. We are fighting for self-preservation. I don’t need any arguments for that and anyone attempting to drag me into a philosophical discussion of why I or my people have the right to exist is an enemy. That is what we need to make our people aware of. Not the particular points of of theory or another but that anyone who wants us demographically exterminated, anyone who wants to morally belittle us, anyone who wants does not recognize our right to exist is an enemy and all language with that person is impossible. Why would do want to talk to those who want to kill us? That is the point we need to get accross. We need to simplify, simplify, simplify, and retake our language back. It really is all about survival at this point. 40
Posted by a Finn on Sun, 07 Dec 2008 07:33 | # Top: “But giving away the moral high-ground and attempting to fight from a position of moral deficiency we are creating a recipe for defeat and disaster.” - True. 41
Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 07 Dec 2008 11:53 | # Top: In reality most of the time I am up against a whole range of theories designed to keep that particular person paralyzed and unaware of the racial conflict around them. It is truly amazing what the university and media take-over of our institutions has done to our people. I hate it but at the same that I see the power of it. ... The only way out for us is to regain our language. We don’t speak English anymore - we speak tha language of alien group that wants us exterminated. What we are facing is is an advanced form of ethnic warfare at just about every level. We need to fully disengage from the language of our enemies and keep the correct labels. That is where the true fight is. That realisation is 50% of the way there. The other 50% is seeing that re-labeling is not enough. It is the ideas which words and labels communicate that are formatory to the zeitgeist. To take your reference to the immorality of white supremacism, the idea here is to delegitimise righteous dissent from the dual regime of land and cultural dispossession that has been forced upon American whites. If you relabel “supremacism” with “nationalism”, or possibly even “segregationalism” you are not yet disaccomodating the ruling idea. But it IS wholly moral for a people to choose life over a soft, slow genocide, and there are ideas, such as the supremacy of indigenous rights and interests, which can nullify the attack and which, in action, are formatory of a new and revolutionary zeitgeist. Intellectually and ideologically, we have to walk out in the mornings from the base position of a healthy philosophy. Anything less is meddling with the symptoms of our malaise. 42
Posted by Fred Scrooby on Wed, 10 Dec 2008 06:28 | # Last year the Jews denied there was a War on Christmas, now they’re denying they’re the ones waging it. http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/12/up-to-point-lady-copper.html We’re talking a very, very honest ethnic group here. 43
Posted by Fred Scrooby on Sat, 20 Dec 2008 20:25 | # Talking about social constructs: by drumming it into goy heads for decades that it’s evil and anti-Semitic to think Jews run Hollywood Abe Foxman has finally gotten the percentages of goys who think that down to 22% (used to be something like a hundred percent). http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/12/joel-stein-asks-how-jewish-is-hollywood.html How did the Jews pull off such a successful mind-control campaign among the goys? Dunno, but they did the same with race-replacement: the Jews have gotten the percentages of goys willing to openly discuss the race-replacement crisis down to ten to the minus 22 percent. Post a comment:
Next entry: Nationalism and the environment
|
|
Existential IssuesDNA NationsCategoriesContributorsEach author's name links to a list of all articles posted by the writer. LinksEndorsement not implied. Immigration
Islamist Threat
Anti-white Media Networks Audio/Video
Crime
Economics
Education General
Historical Re-Evaluation Controlled Opposition
Nationalist Political Parties
Science Europeans in Africa
Of Note MR Central & News— CENTRAL— An Ancient Race In The Myths Of Time by James Bowery on Wednesday, 21 August 2024 15:26. (View) Slaying The Dragon by James Bowery on Monday, 05 August 2024 15:32. (View) The legacy of Southport by Guessedworker on Friday, 02 August 2024 07:34. (View) Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan … defend or desert by Guessedworker on Sunday, 14 April 2024 10:34. (View) — NEWS — Farage only goes down on one knee. by Guessedworker on Saturday, 29 June 2024 06:55. (View) Computer say no by Guessedworker on Thursday, 09 May 2024 15:17. (View) |
Posted by silver on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:54 | #
Fair enough, but some things quite clearly are socially constructed.
A good critical book dealing with (exposing, lambasting, dismissing) social constructionists’ excesses that I skimmed through, reading some sections more closely than others, about the time I first had the sense that something was really awry about the “reality” social science and the humanities were describing, is Ian Hacking’s The Social Construction of What?. My impression is it does to social constructionism what John Ellis’ Literature Lost did to deconstructionism: intellectually damning but in neither case to much practical effect. Importantly, however, both allow that the other side raises certain significant points. It’s the purpose those points are put to as much as the fact that they are raised which is at issue here.
Case in point: those categories are to some degree socially constructed; see the disagreements about them here and on racialist forums everywhere.
How to confine social constructionism to its proper domain, preventing it from wreaking the havoc it does, is the more urgent question, rather than that social constructionists play fast and loose with reality as it suits them.