Is Everything a Social Construct?

What the notion of a “social construct” can teach us about the balance of autonomy and surrender

There is a common stereotype that a liberal arts education will teach you that “everything is a social construct.” Depending on one’s ideological and political alignment, this could be seen as liberating young minds or as corrupting young minds. Some think viewing our conceptual grip on the world as culturally mediated awakens us to our autonomy and others think it brainwashes us into an overly intellectual delusion that is disconnected from reality. I think both these interpretations contain a glimmer of truth if we are willing to look at each honestly and with discernment. Let’s start by analyzing the positive interpretation. The summer before I started graduate school in philosophy, I was working as a counselor at a summer camp for middle school children. One day one of my colleagues came to me with a light in their eyes, informing me of his recent revelation that he only had to get married and have children if he wanted to. Although he had not yet decided whether or not he wanted to pursue a family life, it was palpable that there was a great sense of relief and freedom stemming from the his realization that life was not a predetermined path set out to walk on, but a unique experience that he could participate in and discover the meaning of for himself.

Seeing the way in which a belief, practice, norm, or habit gains its significance within a particular cultural context does have potential to bestow this great sense of relief and freedom. The lens through which we view our possibilities in life often gets narrow as we age and internalize our culture’s particular set of ideas about the nature of the universe and the purpose of a human life. Whether it be through self reflection, meeting individuals with alternative perspectives, or studying the humanities, an acknowledgement that many highly intelligent thinkers and many flourishing, healthy communities advocate different points of view has the potential to soften the seeming solidity associated with these internalized beliefs and greatly expand our scope of possibility. We see this occurring today especially with the younger generation around traditional gender roles, traditional religious values and metaphysical schemes, and traditional ways of orienting one’s life; many more individuals now being comfortable with forgoing the usual marriage/career/children life path.

That being said, I do not think this autonomy and ability to self define alone allows us to synchronize fully with the deepest truths of our nature as human beings embedded in a social and natural world. As I see it the nature of the world, the human being, and happiness is only partially up for grabs. Philosopher Ken Wilber discusses “social construction” in a way that will help me convey what I mean. Ken Wilber suggests that every concept has two “sides'' to it: A left and a right side. The right side is the concept's “exterior” ; we encounter this side of the phenomena as something given, something our interpretation cannot change. A concept's right side would be its most basic, shared meaning in our language. The “left side” of the concept is its “interior” side, it is the aspect of the concept that gains its meaning through our own values, cares, and beliefs and can change from person to person and from community to community.

 

The right side of concepts provides both our conceptual worlds with a sense of stability and permanence. Wilber calls this the world’s “isness.” The left side points out something seemingly paradoxical, that this stable world is also a fluid, processual, and constantly changing phenomena that we participate in through the process of interpretation. Wilber solves this seeming paradox by organizing these sides in a hierarchical manner. He argues that the left side of a concept is more fundamental in the sense that the meaning and significance of the right side, or the “isness,” is always embedded within a culturally situated schema of interpretation, even if that schema is implicit.  Let's look at a simple example: a rock. Although there is a sense of givenness to the physicality of a rock, the way that givenness takes on a meaning in our experience and perception will always be mediated through what we have learned about the constitution, nature, and purpose of rocks. Even if we make an effort to forget this object is a rock and just focus on one of its perceptual qualities, let’s say color, we still will implicitly relate to that color based on what we have learned about color and our past experience of color. (this claim is supported by empirical evidence that those who have more words for different shades of blue can actually perceive more shades). 

     Since the right side of an object always gains its significance within the context of the left side, we cannot escape cultural and social interpretation and construction. Since we cannot escape this interpretive movement, we might as well perform it consciously and autonomously. That being said, this framework suggests that autonomy and interpretation is not the whole picture. Just because we can never pry apart the rock from its grounding in an interpretive scheme does not mean that our interpretive schemes can just run wild. There are physical aspects of the rock that are given which our interpretive scheme must work with. It makes no sense to say the rock is soft, for example. The way Wilber articulates this is that the more fundamental left side of interpretation must include and incorporate the features and laws which operate at this right side even as the meaning and significance of those features and laws will always be open for interpretation at the left side level. We cannot get away from interpretation but if our interpretation is to be useful it must accommodate the laws which govern the “isness' ' of the world; recognizing our autonomy is essential but it has its limitations. Even within the boundaries of interpretation, the “isness” or right side of the world continues to exert a pressure that we cannot bend with interpretation. 

The sense of life as a path of discovery and adventure which we traverse with our own autonomous choices must be balanced with a respect for and surrender to laws and forces beyond our control if we want those autonomous choices to align gracefully with the totality of the context in which we live. For this reason, I would warn against thinking we can simply dismiss any value, norm, or practices simply, because it contains some element of social construction, thinking we can define our lives completely outside of the realm of these social standards. It is true that some social constructs are rooted in oppression, power grabs and are contrary to the natural flow of nature. However, other social constructs may be particular cultural reflections of laws and norms that apply universally to all humans; may be reflections of the “isness” of the world that it would serve us well to heed. I would suggest that we develop the ability to make this discernment ourselves. To give one brief example that I have found to be true in my own in experience: although it is true that the a conservative leaning prohibition against a pleasure seeking, hedonistic lifestyle is a culturally constructed value, I have found this warning to contain a simple wisdom that the human organism is just not built to handle the constant seeking of pleasurable experiences. In my experience, such a lifestyle produces physical and mental fatigue and eventually disillusionment. There are plenty of social and cultural ideals that contain no wisdom at all, but also many that I think contain much. Realizing the culturally mediated and interpreted nature of a phenomena can show us our inherent autonomy and freedom but respecting the “isness” of life shows us an equally important aspect of our humanity; humility and surrender to that which is beyond our control.

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Please feel free to leave a comment if you have clarification questions, feedback, critiques, or anything to add. Philosophy is all about dialogue! I will do my best to respond to all questions and concerns.