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this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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I’m low key annoyed about the whole “it’s a social construct” to mean “it’s not real”. Social constructs are real as fuck and they can fuck you up good.
The economy is a social construct. Days of the week are a social construct. I still need to show up to work on Monday morning so I can give my socially constructed fiat currency to the grocery shop in order not to fucking starve.
What bothers me is when people use that argument to advocate for replacing 'constructs' which evolved more or less naturally over tens of thousands of years, even before the dawn of civilization, with something deliberately engineered by individual humans. Is a cis-normative nuclear family the only way that it's possible to live? Of course not, but it's also what the vast majority of the population wants in their lives, which is why it's the standard.
This is patently absurd. For one thing, the nuclear family itself is not currently what the vast majority of the population wants; if you look at the global population, both now and historically, the extended family is dominant. I might as well argue that children abandoning their parents and home is an unnatural construct, that's replacing the 'tribal' way of living that was natural for humans for millennia. I could further argue that (since the nuclear family only became the most common type in the US in the 1960s and 70s), it was done in corporate interests to sell more cars and suburban houses, and that it is in fact YOU that is slobbering all over corporate cock.
But I wouldn't make that argument, because it's reductive and, frankly, a bit silly to let a narrative take the place of actually reading some sociological studies.
You might enjoy reading some analysis into how capitalism requires the nuclear family in some ways
https://bpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.middlebury.edu/dist/2/3378/files/2015/01/DEmilio-Capitalism-and-Gay-Identity.pdf
It's a very interesting article. I broadly think its argument is sensible, but there's a couple of places I'd offer some dissent:
I think the idea of greater socialisation of child raising is framed as avoiding turning back the clock to a time when the nuclear family was stronger. I'd disagree with this framing of the suggestion; in many ways this is a return to tradition. Capitalism and the autonomy it represents has led to a loss of the kinds of community the author is describing. It has allowed the destruction of the 'village' in the idiom 'it takes a village to raise a child'. There is now enough wealth for parents to leave the extended family and the local community to form their own, isolated nuclear family, which I personally think can be damaging for children's socialisation.
I think the author makes a good point about 'gay' and 'lesbian' as identies having the space to exist as subcultures with the greater autonomy afforded under capitalism, but I would take issue with the suggestion that queer identities are only able to exist as a result of capitalism. There are numerous examples of historical transgender and homosexual identities, not just behaviours (e.g. two-spirit people in Native American culture).
Overall I think it's an interesting narrative and a good point about the distinction between homosexual behaviour and desires, and queer identity.
Thanks -- I'm familiar with some of Engels' analysis on it, but will have a look at this. Seems interesting!
I think if "you wouldn't" make that argument, because it's reductive, then you should refute it, after you have spelled out the narrative in your comment. I would appreciate that. Or just point me in the right direction idk that might be good enough.
My personal view is that you should always be wary of people asserting "this is how it is". We're in a science sub; we know that the purpose of a hypothesis is to rigorously attempt to disprove it and find counterexamples.
To discuss an area that I know some specifics about and can be more confident on: the historiography of the French revolution. Starting with George's Lefebvre, the Marxist historians had a clear idea of what the revolution represented: a movement from the feudal mode of production to the capitalist, and so while their work is incredibly important and academically worth studying, they also tend to go into their work with a clear idea of what they wanted to find. So when the revisionists (starting with Cobban) come along, they find a lot of inconsistencies; the facts of the period don't directly align with what the Marxist narratives wanted it to be (e.g. Cobban's disagreement is that he thinks the feudal mode was near extinct by the time of the Revolution, and that it was more a political conflict than social).
Bringing it back to your question: I disagree with the narrative I put because I think reductive narratives aren't helpful, and cause us to miss a lot of nuance. The nuclear family was dominant in England from the 13th Century onwards, but to leave it there misses a host of interesting social structures and changes (e.g. the role of the church and monasteries as social institutions that exist wholly separate from the family). Moreover, I don't think it's helpful to use the past as a suggestion for how we should build our future. The 'return to tradition' that's suggested often has an idealised view of the past that misses all this nuance. The narrative around 'ancient greek masculinity', for instance, conveniently misses off their ideas around pederasty, which we perceive as abhorrent today.
As for reading, Foucault on how we like to categorise everything is quite interesting. If reading isn't your cup of tea, the Thinking Allowed podcast from the BBC has an episode on Foucault that covers him that's worth listening to.
That’s a huge strawman jk. We really just want the hets to stop trying to harm/kill people that are different from them.
TEH GAYS WANT TO DESTROY THE FAMILY is vintage homophobia and really needs to go jk.
I know very well that this is what the majority of people want, but bad actors attempt to take advantage of the situation with bullshit, like DEI initiatives, which are really only thinly veiled plots to maximize profits that hurt people who just want to be left alone by weaponizing their lifestyles for political gains.
How do they make a company more money? Is it that it makes them more morally acceptable to buy from, giving them a larger audience? I always thought that the common argument against DEI, and shit like it, was that some morally neutral omnipotent objective third party somewhere wouldn't be able to hire all of the extremely highly qualified straight white men, and would be forced to hire everyone else who are by implication, less qualified, and that would tank productivity metrics.
Edit: which, by extension, ruins the economy, something something yadda yadda crushes western civilization, because now every company is run by some trans woman that wears programming socks, and has replaced everyone with a highly efficient system of different spreadsheets, connected to one another in some sort of chain, which generates free energy.
Studies done by Amazon and others show that diverse groups of workers are less likely to unionize. Other studies show workplace education on things like unconscious bias and racism actually increase our awareness of the differences between us and not in a good way.
Make of that what you will.
The big problem facing the corporate world is that they're running out of space to expand, and so the new rage is all about rearranging what already exists into a more profitable configuration. The big hurdle to this is that we already have large segments of society which are arranged socially for the benefit and enjoyment of the population instead of maximizing profit metrics.
so the idea is basically that they're using DEI to restructure corporations along like. profit metrics, right? sort of along the same lines as laying off the lower 10% of your workforce every year or whatever stupid thing that it is, which I've just been reminded of in a different lemmy post. so is the idea that DEI would basically just provide like a socially acceptable, progressive lens for that process to function through?
you know, that sounds more like you just dislike how corporations work, more than you dislike, necessarily, the idea of DEI initiatives. Like, if DEI initiatives were applied to a less flawed university system, to get more diversity in tech sectors at the beginning of someone's journey into those sectors, at the beginning of their journey into capability and compoetence, would that be, would you speak out against that, or would that be acceptable? I guess what I'm asking is, is it the framework of the system which is flawed, or is it this specific piece that you've called out as flawed, which is flawed? because it seems like the framework of the system, to me.
I also would like to point out that this POV doesn't really speak out against the narrative that like. if we get rid of/hire in their stead, all the capable straight white men everything, that would be bad. here's the point of what I'm saying, I guess. basically, right, if DEI initiatives are applied just to new hires, that would be fine, right? it's just that other people are getting fired, and then they are churning through people, and using DEI to launder that. if that's the case, you should probably, instead of calling out DEI and lumping that in, right, you should be calling out the churn, and calling out the fact that corporate likes to restructure everything every five years to get more short term performance indicators out of it for stockholders.
the DEI is maybe a way to launder that, but people, on hearing you disagree with that, are probably going to think more along the lines of "this guy is calling out DEI because he hates X kind of people", as most people who disagree with it do. what you would need to do is establish credibility first, with the preceding opinion, and then make sure that other people understand the perspective you're arguing from, since they will tend to assume the worst. by having DEI be the main point of contention, corporate has gotten another benefit out of it, which is that now everyone's arguing about stupid bullshit instead of arguing about how it sucks that we're all driven around at the behest of bean counters and their rich gambling addicted lords.
So DEI is DESTROYING TEH FAMILY now?
You need to l lay off the glue jk.
Why are you ending* every sentence in jk
That’s his name. I’m talking to him, zal.
Hah, wondered too, usually jk = just kidding :-)
DEI is a corporate initiative designed to restructure society so it can be more easily commodified and monetized, with a crudely drawn rainbow on it so that people will defend it like these corporate entities are somehow your friends.
Why is everyone obsessed with DEI all of a sudden? Is DEI the new thing to be mad at or something?
Did y’all move on from 15 minutes cities and political correctness?
It's just one simple example of current corporate culture that most people will understand.
CORPORATIONS ARE NOT YOUR FRIEND
No shit Sherlock. But it’s pretty telling that you pick DEI efforts to rage against and not all the actual ways capitalism fucks the entire planet and everyone on it.
It makes it kinda hard to believe you are acting in good faith jk.
Gee, maybe I picked that one because I was initially talking about restructuring "social constructs" by using the cis-normative family as an example.
Nah, that can't be it. You'd better keep the corpo-knob spit polished just to be safe.
You have done zero work showing anyone is threatening the “cis-normative family” jk.
Ah Yes. A fellatio reference. Because oral sex it’s demeaning.
This is a textbook example of why they staple rainbow flags to everything they do, so brain-dead thralls will leap to their defence as though their lives depend upon it.
That’s true. But it still doesn’t tell me how it’s a threat to the nuclear family.
And that’s because it’s not. That’s just persecution complex dreamt up by reactionaries like you.
How convenient of you to ignore not only a much bigger chunk of human history than the last couple thousand years (if even that), and so so many cultures that aren't the handful you're familiar with, but also all of the vast systemic social man made influences that make it that way, like religion, patriarchy, and even capitalism...
That's what people do because they were told so.
God has an elephant head and loves pancakes?
Thunder comes from Thor hitting, ... Clouds with his hammer?
You go to geaven/hell if you do this don't...
...
It's just what many peoples software run on, because that was how they were taught/indoctrinated from birth and they didn't really have the need to break out of it. And well, if it works it might do it for them, the problem is they might think your life/lifestyle is the wrong way to live.
Nah, man, I happen to think that women are amazing and the idea of living with a woman who loves me is pretty damn cool.
I'm not talking about love, but the artificial idea that when you found someone, then you must stay with them "forever" and other things christian marriage enforcing.
I'm not certain that I possess the linguistic ability to adequately express the full magnitude of my feelings on this matter. Sharing my entire life with this wonderful, magical, creature who loves me back, is exactly what pushes my buttons. Nobody has to enforce that upon me.
Sure, and that applies to LGBT+ too, and also if the fire vanes.
What bothers me even more is that for a lot of these subjects they're keen to tear it down, but don't have anything to replace it. People are creatures of order, and patterns. We can't operate effectively as a society without structure, and mutual understanding.
Who is “they” anticorp? Tell me, who wants to destroy the nuclear family?
Immigrants and trans people! Obviously.
/s
I want to destroy the social construct of reality and replace it with tolerance.
How come you're defending something deliberately engineered by individual humans recently, right after saying that behaviour bothers you?