Social Construct

Notes

Social construct means that some concepts in our lives are based solely on the fact that an idea is accepted by a critical mass of people, enough to influence their behavior, which makes the idea true. Pragmatism Truth. For example, money as we know it today is a social construct. It is not tied to anything of value in the world, only on the agreement that it can be worth anything. If we all decided to stop using dollars as currency, the dollar will be worthless. It gains it's value from our trust and belief that it has such value. It is the societal version of fake it till you make it.

Negative or harmful beliefs can also be shared through social constructs. For example, many believe that "womanhood" and "manhood" are social constructs. That there is no objective reason that ties the properties of womanhood for female, for example there is no reason women should be cooks and cleaners, while men should not necessarily be the "providers" of the family. It is only true because we believe it, but if we replace these Narratives with healthier ones, we can replace the values that these concepts hold because they are not tied to anything concrete in the real world.

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🔼Topic:: Epistemology (MOC) ↩️Origin:: 🔗Link::