Social Constructs are Real
Yes, even that one
In college, I heard many times that “race is not real” and that it is “just a social construct.” These opinions are not limited to college students, as they exist in popular publications too.12
Social constructs do not endure unless they point to some underlying objective reality. Race is one of these social constructs that has stood the test of time because it points to an underlying objective reality.
For a TL;DR, skip to the So What? section at the end.
“Just a” is an inappropriate way to describe social constructs
Saying that anything is not real because it is “just a” social construct is ridiculous. Nothing is “just a” social construct because social constructs are ideas that refer to an underlying reality; that underlying reality is the rest of the story, there is never just the construct. Social constructs are real which is why they endure across time.
What is a social construct?
A social construct is “an idea that has been created and accepted by the people in a society.”3 A social construct is simply a widely accepted idea. For all intents and purposes, all ideas are social constructs. Any idea becomes a social construct when enough people believe it, so the only difference between an idea and a social construct is popularity.
… all ideas are social constructs.
Would you go as far as to say that all ideas are not real? If you would not, then the logic of “race is not real because it is a social construct” totally falls apart. Being a social construct has absolutely nothing to do with how real an idea is, only how popular it is.
If you do think all ideas are not real
One writer defined a social construct as “a concept that exists not in objective reality but as a result of human interaction. Put another way, [a social construct] exists because [people] agree that it exists.”4 This definition is at odds with itself because human interactions exist in objective reality; when two people interact something real is clearly happening. How could the “result of human interaction[s]” exist “not in objective reality?” The ideas produced may be misguided or outright incorrect, but that does not make them not real or mean they do not exist in objective reality.
Here are some examples of what that author considers to be social constructs, and therefore thinks exist outside of objective reality:
Money
There are very real dollars in my wallet right now. Money is a real thing. What kind of money we use, how we use it, and how it gets its value are all social constructs, yet money still exists in objective reality - it is literally tangible.
Countries
I can get on a plane or a boat and go to the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, China, Dr. Congo, regular Congo, &c. These places are real. The governments that rule these places are real. The land these places occupy is real. Yes countries are a social construct, yet they are so real that I can literally see them. Countries are so real that if one disobeys theirs, they will earn themself a free room and three meals a day; if a prison sentence does not qualify as “objective reality” then I do not know what does.
If you are thinking “if I showed this writer two images of landscapes, could he tell me what countries they are from?” I would like to ask you, would my (or anyone else’s) ignorance of reality mean that reality did not exist?
Gender
Men are different from women. Even if the reasons men and women are different are purely social, men and women are still different. Transgender advocates especially must acknowledge this; if men and women were identical then transitioning from one to the other would be a totally fruitless endeavor.
Yes, many social constructs exist; yes, nation-states, gender roles, and money are social constructs; yes, nation-states, gender roles, and money are all real. There is no inherent contradiction whatsoever between social constructs and reality.
At best a twisting of words
One writer said race is not real because real means “based on facts that people can even begin to agree upon,” among other things.5 This is at least coherent, but it has insane ramifications.
Most people agree on very little, therefore almost nothing is real, by this definition. The sky is really blue because everybody can see and agree on that… except the colorblind, so maybe only able-bodied people get to decide what is real? Except, people do not agree what “able-bodied” means; how injured or crippled must one be before they become disabled? Maybe disability is not real and is just a stigma placed on people who cannot do certain things?6 Neither any religion nor irreligion can be a real thing because people cannot “even begin to agree upon” its fundamentals. History must not be real because people across countries and cultures cannot agree upon a shared historiography. Continents do not exist because people cannot agree on their boundaries or quantity.7 People cannot agree on these things, therefore none of them can be real. This is obviously crazy and wrong.
What real really means
Relying on consensus to determine what is real is absurd. People cannot even agree whether water is wet, dry, or something else entirely. In fact, using consensus is almost antithetical to the real definition of real: “having objective independent existence.”8
Objective reality exists. When people try to appeal to consensus to determine what is real and what is not, they are denying the existence of objective reality. To prove something in objective reality, point to it in reality; the collective imagination of even the entire human race cannot will away objective realities, and a consensus in and of itself proves nothing.
Simultaneously, all ideas are real; even false ideas like flat-Earth theory are real. People really do believe demonstrably and objectively untrue things (take your pick of an issue: from anti-vaxxers to flat-Earthers to moon landing deniers to climate deniers to [whatever group pisses you off]) and live their lives as if these crazy things were true. Ideas have direct and observable influence over the actions and attitudes of human beings which makes them real - this is how to circumvent reification.
… all ideas are real… [because i]deas have direct and observable influence over the actions and attitudes of human beings.
The fuzziness of social constructs
Here is the real reason that people think social constructs, like race, are not real: social constructs are fuzzy. The exact boundaries around what qualifies as money, or countries, or gender are unclear and do change over time. Things that are unclear and/or constantly changing (what I am calling: fuzzy) are still real things.
The social construct of money has changed drastically throughout history and is still unclear even today, yet money is still real. Five-hundred years ago, Native Americans used seashells (among other things) as money while Old Worlders generally relied on coinage as money. Coins turned to paper money over time and the Old World concept of money came to dominate the entire globe; in the 20th century the very basis of what money was changed as the world pulled away from the gold standard, and in the 21st century money has become largely electronic. Even today, the exact boundaries of money are unclear; does a check count as money, is foreign currency still money if I am in the United States where it is worthless, or is electronic money even real are all questions that highlight the fuzziness around the definition of money. Money is a social construct which makes it fuzzy and it is so real that I can use it to keep myself alive.
The social construct of gender has also changed drastically throughout history and is still unclear even today, yet gender is still real. Ancient Roman men looked down on wearing pants, while men today would not be caught outside in anything besides a pair of pants. Prior to industrialization, women generally worked alongside their husband to provide for their family, but after industrialization the model of the man as the primary breadwinner emerged. Today, the idea of the man as the breadwinner of the family is rapidly fading. The exact boundaries of gender are also unclear; why is wearing a dress feminine, why are sports or video games masculine, or what does it mean to feel like [insert gender here] are all questions that demonstrate the fuzziness around gender as a concept. Gender is a fuzzy social construct and it is so real that people will undergo hormone treatments and surgeries to feel comfortable in their gender.
The social construct of countries has also changed over time and is still unclear today, yet countries are still real… I think you get the gist by this point.
Even though social constructs are fuzzy they are still real. Demonstrating the fuzziness of a definition does not mean the underlying thing being defined does not exist. Deniers of this fact would do well to read up on Loki’s wager or the paradox of the heap.
A simple reason
The reason social constructs are fuzzy is obvious: social constructs are ideas. Even as a Christian, my concept of God is substantially different from that of the Unitarian-Universalists. Even as a man, my concept of manhood is different from almost every other man’s (not because my view is particularly insightful, but because almost every man has a different concept of manhood). Even as an American, we cannot agree on who is or should be an American. Even people who subscribe to the same idea (e.g., Christianity, manhood, or Americanism) cannot agree on what that idea means to them. Social constructs are fuzzy because they are ideas, and the same idea means very different things to different people.
People do not agree on ideas. When many people view the exact same idea differently, the concept becomes fuzzy. When many people view the exact same thing differently, they are still viewing something that exists in reality.
When are social constructs real
Social constructs are almost always real. Although they may be fuzzy around the edges, ideas are real and the underlying reality is often perceptible.
Almost always
Social constructs are real because ideas are real and because they refer to an underlying reality. People invent language to describe things, and that language is almost totally arbitrary. The very act of naming something that exists in the real world creates a social construct, but that thing in the world is still very real, as is the new name, thus calling the social construct fake would be absurd. Imagine telling a Spanish-speaking person that gatos are not real because I cannot understand that they mean cat - that is saying social constructs are not real.
Math is a social construct.910 There is no reason 2 needs to come after 1 and before 3, nor was it necessary for us to use a decimal system. It is easy to imagine a world where numerals are swapped around to represent different values on the number line, but that does not make math any less real. No matter what we call it, when I have one of something I have one of that thing, when I have two of something I have two of that thing, and so on; if we called one thrembo instead of one then the actual value represented by one and thrembo would still be the same - the underlying value exists in objective reality, but our perception and communication of it is the social construct.
Ethnicity is a social construct. Us Americans often view ethnicity as synonymous with race, but it simply is not; because of our misguided view, many Americans do not understand why many European peoples cannot get along (e.g., everything in the former Yugoslavia or any European and the Roma), but the reason is simple: ethnicity. French is a nationality, but also an ethnicity, as is German, Swedish, Norwegian, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, &c. There are also ethnicities that do not have their own nationalities, such as the Roma, Basque, Catalan, Flemish, Wallonian, &c. Groups of people coming together to form a shared identity is tautologically a social construct, and an ethnicity is one type of group of people with a shared identity.
Ethnicity, math, language, taxonomy, and many more social constructs are real. These social constructs are simply widely accepted ideas, and ideas are real things.
Even untrue constructs are real
Let’s circle back to something I said earlier.
The ideas produced [to create a social construct] may be misguided or outright incorrect, but that does not make them not real or mean they do not exist in objective reality.
Even false ideas are real. Even if one does not agree that all of these ideas are misguided or outright incorrect, hopefully they will find at least one very real idea on this list that they do find to be misguided or incorrect:
Fascism
Communism
Monarchism
Racism
Anti-Racism
Ageism
Classism
Ableism
Evolution
Creationism
[religion of your choice]
Slavery, chattel or otherwise
[heinous act of your choice]
A specific instance of these things is an event; a lynching can be a racist event, a nativity scene a creationist event, a dictatorship can be an instance of fascism, &c. A murder is an event, what constitutes a murder is a social construct (e.g., is abortion murder? Is the death penalty murder? Is self-defense murder?) - this is true for all heinous acts. This is to say, all these things are social constructs and they are real.
When social constructs are not real
For a social construct to not be real, it must have no basis whatsoever in reality.
Only rarely are social constructs not real because it is hard for an idea without any basis in reality to become widespread. Superstition is almost tautologically a fake social construct.
Social constructs may also become defunct or fall out of collective memory. These were real ideas once, but no longer. The most obvious example of this is extinct people groups; Jurchens, Xiongnu, Picts, and Olmecs were all real at one point, but not today.
How does race fit into this?
Race is just like other social constructs, it’s fuzzy and it’s real. People are different from one another and that is alright; individual differences do not make any individual more or less valuable. Let me be perfectly clear: just because race is real does not mean that any one race is better than another; I explicitly believe that all people, regardless of race, have infinite moral worth and are entitled to equal rights.
Race is a social construct because it is a widely accepted idea. Race is an umbrella term which refers to different people groups, by their nature umbrella terms are ideas which roll up other concepts.
Even individual races are ideas. Reasonable minds can disagree about questions like, are biracial people two races simultaneously or some other race entirely, do Jewish people qualify as White, or where exactly the boundaries are to be drawn around any given race. Race as an idea must be fleshed out before race can refer to a specific group of people, and thus become an actual physical thing instead of an idea.
Both the concept of race and the categories of individual races are widely accepted ideas in society. Race is a social construct. Races are a social construct.
Race is fuzzy
Those who say race is not real often focus on the fuzziness of race, but that does not mean the categories do not exist. Biracial or multi-racial people exist; just because someone who is half one race and half another
Race is real
Races are ideas and ideas are real, therefore races are real. This is not where the meat of the argument is.
race is… physically real.
Race is more than just an idea because race is also physically real; people can literally perceive the different races. People really do have different skin colors, duh. People really do have different facial features. People really do have different hair types. People really do have different risks of certain medical conditions (e.g., sickle-cell anemia or lactose intolerance). Oftentimes, the differences between races are visible to the naked eye; other times, instrumental measurements reveal the differences.
Without different races, the world would be a much less diverse place.
Race is genetic
Race is physically real because it is encoded into everyone’s very genes.
How do you think companies like 23andMe work? They look at one’s genes (DNA) and can roughly map where your ancestors came from.11
Deniers of the fact that race is genetic will say that race cannot be genetic because all people share over 99% of our DNA. Why could race not be determined in those <1% of genes? That <1% determines hair color, sex, height, and eye color. Why couldn’t that <1% determine skin color, hair type, or the other differences between people that we call race?
This is the easiest way to know that race is genetic: if two parents of [insert race] have a child, will that child be of the same race as the parents? The answer is obviously yes. Even if Black parents had an albino baby, that baby would still show other signs of being racially Black. Race is more than just skin color, different races have different hair types, facial features, rates of lactose intolerance or sickle-cell anemia. These differences are real and if you think these differences being real means one race is better or worse than another then you are a racist.
Race is heritable and genetic. Plenty of other human features are also heritable and genetic. None of these features affect the moral worth of any person because all people, by virtue of their humanity, have infinite value.
So what?
My senior capstone in college taught me that racism is alive and well in America - which I will discuss in a future article - and racism cannot be combatted without confronting racism. To effectively combat racism, one must acknowledge reality. Failure to acknowledge the reality that race exists allows racists to monopolize the discussion around race which will only create more racists.
Failure to acknowledge the reality that race exists… will only create more racists… when [people] see that race is real and nobody will have and honest conversation with them about it.
People become racists when they see that race is real and nobody will have an honest conversation with them about it. The discussion at its most basic is quite simple: statistically some races may be more prone to commit certain actions, but no group statistic says anything about any particular individual. Judging people by the average actions of other people who look like them is wack. Telling people to deny their eyes and their DNA by denying race exists is just as wack.
Merriam-Webster, paragraph 1.
Very Well Mind, paragraph 1.
Merriam-Webster, paragraph 1.
Restivo, S. (2017). The Social Construction of Mathematics. In: Sociology, Science, and the End of Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95160-4_7