{"id":3744,"date":"2019-06-01T15:03:07","date_gmt":"2019-06-01T15:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2019\/06\/01\/race-social-construction-and-lewontins-fallacy\/"},"modified":"2019-06-01T15:03:07","modified_gmt":"2019-06-01T15:03:07","slug":"race-social-construction-and-lewontins-fallacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2019\/06\/01\/race-social-construction-and-lewontins-fallacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Race, Social Construction, and Lewontin’s Fallacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

I asked a correspondent what it means when leftists say that race is a social construct. Here is his response with my comments:<\/span><\/p>\n

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What do they even mean<\/em>?  I wonder about that too.  What could it mean to say that race is a "social construct"?  Do they mean that there are no biological or ancestral differences at all between Whites and Blacks and Orientals?  That's just ridiculous — like saying there are no biological differences between human beings and gorillas. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It is indeed ridiculous on the face of it. It's like saying that the difference between fish and mammals is a mere artifact of our conceptual decisions and classificatory activities. It implies that reality has no inherent structure or intelligibility; whatever intelligibility it has it acquires from us. But that is tantamount to saying that there is no reality. It is Kant gone wild: the Critical Philosophy without the Ding an sich<\/em> and without an invariant categorial framework. <\/span><\/p>\n

Here is perhaps the deepest metaphysical error of the Left: leftists deny that there is a reality antecedent to our classifications and conceptualizations. (V. I. Lenin was of course an exception.) Everything becomes a social-political construct. How convenient for identity-political totalitarians! The bird of reality can be carved up any way that suits the will to power of some interest group — because there is no bird to carve. Next stop: the Twilight Zone. Rachel Dolezal is black. Elizabeth Warren is a Cherokee. Warren, a.k.a. Fauxcahontas<\/em>, despite her contribution of a recipe for lobster bisque to Pow Wow Chow,<\/em> that must-have cook book for the bien pensant,<\/em> is the Rachel Dolezal of American politics. Continuing in the alimentary mode, she is now anent her Presidential pretensions, 'toast.'<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I think in most cases they don't mean anything much.  They haven't thought about it.  It's a smart-sounding phrase they picked up from PBS or from some half-wit university lecturer.  It's the kind of thing the bien pensant<\/em> people say.  So they say it too.  And they know that, whatever it really means, it must be true and morally right to say it.  They know that only Nazis disagree.  I've talked to some educated intelligent Leftists who say stuff like this.  They usually just retreat to Lewontin's fallacy–more differences within races than between, and all of that.  Again, it seems they just don't want to think about it and they use these dumb phrases as a way to avoid thinking.  The dumb phrases change once in a while.  I guess in earlier decades we'd hear more about how "There is only one race, the human race".  But it may be a mistake to expect any clear or coherent meaning behind these propaganda phrases.  <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That's right. You might think that those who inhabit academe would be critical thinkers; the truth, however, is that many if not most are all-too-ready to succumb to groupthink, whether to advance themselves career-wise, or to fit in and be accepted, or just because they lack the skeptical, scientific spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lewontin's Fallacy?<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

A. W. F. Edwards on Lewontin's Fallacy<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Wikipedia on Lewontin's Fallacy<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Neven Sesardic, Race: The Social Destruction of a Biological Concept<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I asked a correspondent what it means when leftists say that race is a social construct. Here is his response with my comments: What do they even mean?  I wonder about that too.  What could it mean to say that race is a "social construct"?  Do they mean that there are no biological or ancestral differences … Continue reading “Race, Social Construction, and Lewontin’s Fallacy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fallacies-informal","category-race"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}