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It's actually worse than that; any possible definition of race is incoherent in the face of pedigree collapse, so that people who believe and act as if race wer

It's actually worse than that; any possible definition of race is incoherent in the face of pedigree collapse, so that people who believe and act as if race were a social construction are wrong, in the same way that people who believe and act as if horoscopes predict personality and psychics predict the future are wrong. A social construction is a shared fantasy; it's something which doesn't exist but which humans emphatically insist is real. To use an analogy, a reflection doesn't exist either, but that doesn't stop a mirror from causing animals to act as if they were standing in front of themselves. (The photons are real; the illusion that they produce in the mind of the viewer is not.)

dragonwriter 7y ago
> It's actually worse than that; any possible definition of race is incoherent in the face of pedigree collapse I think you are confusing race with races; that definitions of races are incoherent is fully encompassed by the race-as-social-construct school. (Social constructs need not be incoherent, but the incoherence of race is not something unmentioned by those seeing race as a social construct.) > A social construction is a shared fantasy; it's something which doesn't exist but which humans emphatically insist is real. That's...emphatically false. A social construct is a real phenomenon. It may or may not internally reference some other thing which does not exist in the manner depicted in that reference (as the argument goes that images of race do, but law is equally a social construct but does not inherently do this, though particular constructs of law might.) And social constructs are often incompletely shared; there is nothing unusual about race in that regard, as you seem to be referencing (though your actual argument is somewhat opaque.) > To use an analogy, a reflection doesn't exist either, Reflections are phenomena which certainly do exist. Now, they might trick the viewer into believing they are images of an object which does not exist (or, at least, does not exist in the position and orientation suggested by the appearance of the reflection) but the reflection itself absolutely does exist. Likewise social constructs exist whether or not they reference physical things which do not as if they did.

dragonwriter 7y ago

> It's actually worse than that; any possible definition of race is incoherent in the face of pedigree collapse I think you are confusing race with races; that definitions of races are incoherent is fully encompassed by the race-as-social-construct school. (Social constructs need not be incoherent, but the incoherence of race is not something unmentioned by those seeing race as a social construct.) > A social construction is a shared fantasy; it's something which doesn't exist but which humans emphatically insist is real. That's...emphatically false. A social construct is a real phenomenon. It may or may not internally reference some other thing which does not exist in the manner depicted in that reference (as the argument goes that images of race do, but law is equally a social construct but does not inherently do this, though particular constructs of law might.) And social constructs are often incompletely shared; there is nothing unusual about race in that regard, as you seem to be referencing (though your actual argument is somewhat opaque.) > To use an analogy, a reflection doesn't exist either, Reflections are phenomena which certainly do exist. Now, they might trick the viewer into believing they are images of an object which does not exist (or, at least, does not exist in the position and orientation suggested by the appearance of the reflection) but the reflection itself absolutely does exist. Likewise social constructs exist whether or not they reference physical things which do not as if they did.