Nowadays, it became a commonplace practice among sociologists to discuss the essence of the surrounding social reality, within the conceptual framework of the theory of Social-Constructivism, which denies the objectively predetermined nature of people’s tendency to act in one way or another, while remaining as the society’s integral elements.
Nevertheless, the close analysis of the theory in question leaves only a few doubts that it cannot be considered discursively valid. The reason for this is apparent – this theory’s main premise is inconsistent with the fact that, being essentially material (because they consist of physically – embodied individuals), human societies are subjected to the most fundamental laws of nature.
What it means is that the ‘socially constructed’ reality, inside of one’s mind, simply reflects the concerned person’s place on the evolutionary ladder – pure and simple. This also implies that there can be no good reason for people to consider themselves ‘special’, except for the fact that it increases the extent of their existential competitiveness, within the context of how they go about securing the concerned environmental niche.
As it was implied in the Introduction, one of the main fallacies, on the part of those sociologists that tend to deploy a phenomenological approach towards assessing the qualitative essence of the observable dynamics, within a particular society, is that they firmly believe that there are no dialectical links between the manner, in which people address life-challenges, on the one hand, and what accounts for the particulars of these people’s biological uniqueness (quality), on the other.
Partially, this explains the concerned sociologists’ clearly defined mistrust, in regards to the empirically obtained sociological data, represented in the form of statistics. As Berger noted: “Statistics can be very useful in answering certain sociological questions. But statistics do not constitute sociology” (7). This point of view, however, cannot be considered as such that represents an undisputed truth-value.
In order for us to be able to substantiate the validity of the earlier articulated disagreement with Berger’s idea, in this respect, we will have to make reference to the Durkheim’s sociological paradigm, which stresses out the sheer objectivity of how people happen to position themselves within the society.
This paradigm’s main theoretical premises are:
- Society is the integral part of the surrounding objective reality. As such, it functions in accordance with the basic societal laws, which are in turn are consistent with the laws of nature.
- Society is in the position to regulate the functioning of its systemic components.
- The collectively observable specifics of how people interrelate with each other within the society, are the legitimate subjects of a sociological inquiry.
These specifics Durkheim used to define as ‘social facts’, while pointing out that: “We are the victims of an illusion which leads us to believe we have ourselves produced what has been imposed upon us externally (social facts)” (21).
What it means is that, contrary to the Constructivism’s provisions, there can be very little rationale in assuming that, due to people’s tendency to ‘habituate’ the emanations of the social reality around them, every particular individual is in essence an ‘existential sovereign’, capable of ‘bending’ the objective laws of nature – at least, within the context of forming its worldviews.
In this respect, we can only agree with Mills, who never ceased pointing out to the fact that the qualitative subtleties of people’s existential uniqueness cannot be discussed outside of what happened to be the affiliated social/historical circumstances, which in turn reflect the unconsciously chosen survival- strategy, on the part of these people.
According to him: “Perhaps the most fruitful distinction with which the sociological imagination works is between ‘the personal troubles of milieu’ and ‘the public issues of social structure’.” (4). After all, as it is being well known to sociologists and psychologists, people do tend to perceive the discursive significance of a particular social phenomenon, in terms of how it may affect their personal agenda in life.
This agenda, however, cannot be referred to as something rather unrelated to what happened to be the currently predominant socio-cultural/political discourse, within the society. In its turn, this implies that people’s endowment with the sense of a self-uniqueness is rather instrumental – while believing that he is indeed being different than the rest, one ends up tempted to adopt the notion of ‘purposefulness’, as its life’s actual ‘fuel’.
Consequently, it increases the extent of the concerned individual’s evolutionary fitness, as the representative of the Homo Sapiens species – the stronger one believes that there is a ‘higher purpose’ to his life, the easier it will be for him to address different hardships, while trying to ensure the propagation of his genes.
Yet, by assuming that they are ‘special’, people do not help bringing about the factual state of affairs, in this respect. This reveals the actual significance of the Class Rule 3 (Where you sit determines what you see). The suggestion points out to the fact that:
The specifics of people’s spatial localization, do not affect the fundamental manner (seeing) in which they perceive the objective reality, and the ‘biological’ essence of what happened to be the foremost agenda in their lives.
Regardless of how strongly ‘unique’ one believes to be, as an individual, his main objective in life remains the same with what happened to be the existential objective of the rest of equally ‘unique’ people – attaining of a social prominence (dominance), propagating genes (sex) and securing the access to the environmental niche’s resources (food).
The only reason why people differ, in respect of their existential attitudes, is that while striving to achieve the earlier mentioned objective, they have no choice but to adjust their perception of the surrounding reality to be consistent with the discursively defined conventions of a ‘behavioral appropriateness’.
This once again suggests that, contrary to the provisions of Constructivism, the flow of time does not change the fact that people are nothing but hairless primates.
Some of them are able to operate with highly abstract discursive categories (reflected by the high rate of these people’s IQ) and some are not – yet, it is specifically the prospect of ensuring their survival/dominance, which concerns people the most, regardless of what they happened to be, in the evolutionary sense of this word.
This provides us with the insight into the main premise of Sociological Realism – no matter what happened to be the particulars of their ethnocultural affiliation, all people are similar, in respect of being ‘programmed’ to seek survival/domination. However, the strategies that they deploy, during the course of the process, reflect the measure of the concerned individuals’ existential complexity.
Whereas, some people strive to maintain their evolutionary fitness by the mean of contributing to the pace of the ongoing technological/cultural progress (quality), the others pursue the same agenda by the mean of making babies on an industrial scale.
In the eyes of evolution, neither of the mentioned strategies can be deemed ‘superior’ – all that matters, is that the chosen strategy ensures the eventual survival/dominance, on the part of its affiliates.
The above-suggestion provides us with the argumentative framework, within which we can discuss the relevancy of the YouTube videos Fault Lines: Baltimore: Anatomy of an American City (Al Jazeera English) and Dinesh D’Souza Says Racism is not the Cause of Black Failure (AllanGregg), as such that expose the fallaciousness of the Constructivist assumption that:
- Poverty is the cause of Black people’s taste for violence,
- The legacy of White racism explains the continuation of societal failures, on the part of African-Americans.
For example, the foremost idea that it is being subtly promoted throughout the first mentioned video, is that the outbreaks of gang-related violence that take place on the streets of American large cities, often appear unmotivated.
Whereas, Constructivist (politically correct) sociologists refer to this in phenomenological terms, the ones affiliated with the Positivist and Realist schools of sociology point out to the ‘phenomenon’ in question, as thoroughly explainable – it is nothing but the indication that the Western civilization continues to degrade rather rapidly.
The Positivist/Realist rationale behind this suggestion is as follows: Human societies can be categorized as archaic (simple/primitive), on the one hand, and industrial (complex), on the other. In the archaic society, people’s individual identities are ‘dissolved’ within what happened to be this society’s ‘collective archetype’.
This explains why in primitive societies, people tend to lead highly ritualized lifestyles, while striving to objectify themselves within the surrounding environment – hence, their endowment with the essentially tribal (mechanic) sense of solidarity, extrapolated by the concerned people’s tendency to indulge in violence.
The existential mode of people in the industrial society, on the other hand, is characterized by their endowed with what Durkheim used to refer to as the ‘organic ‘sense of solidarity. That is, in this type of societies, individuals tend to assess the measure of their relatedness with others, along the lines of what happened to be the particulars of their social/professional affiliation.
Therefore, the actual reason why the streets in many American megapolises have been turned into nothing short of a battleground, is the same with what used to be the reason behind the ancient Romans’ inability to prevent Rome from being sacked by the barbarians in the 5th century AD.
Formerly, this reason had to do with the attitudinal decadence, on the part of ancient Romans, and is now being concerned with the process of contemporary Americans growing increasingly decadent, as well – hence, prompting the latter to adopt a passive stance, while seeing their countries being ‘colonized’ by the modern-day barbarians.
This, of course, implies that there is nothing ‘phenomenological’ about how human societies react to the external stimuli – even in cases when the reaction in question appears rather extraordinary. What it means that is namely the external social circumstances (or ‘social facts’) that define who we are, while simultaneously exposing the nature of our genetically predetermined behavioral inclinations.
That is, in full accordance with the initially stated thesis, people’s sense of ‘specialness’ (as such that is being consciously constructed) does not reflect the actual state of affairs with what they happened to be in the reality.
What has been said earlier fully correlates with D’Souza’s idea (as seen in the second YouTube video) that the legacy of racism in America does not explain the socio-cultural and economic backwardness, on the part of African-Americans.
After all, the fact that until recently, Black people in America used to suffer from having been subjected to the racial discrimination, can be well discussed as such that used to reflect these people’s former inability to impose their existential values upon everybody else – unlike what it used to be the case with the Whites.
The reason for this is quite apparent – due to having their ability to indulge in the abstract thinking somewhat undermined, American Blacks were predetermined to end up being exploited in the past, as the concerned historical era favored specifically the rationally minded individuals, as the most evolutionary adequate ones. Nowadays, however, this has effectively ceased to be the case.
The full soundness of this statement can be well illustrated in regards to the fact that, as of today, it is namely the individuals endowed with the sense of a tribal solidarity (along with the taste for ‘baby-making’), which appear to be gaining an upper hand in their confrontation with the rationally minded but behaviorally decadent descendants of former slave-owners.
For example, within the matter of forty years, the population of Ethiopia has tripled – despite the fact that, throughout this time, Ethiopians continued to suffer from the never-ending civil war and famine.
On the other hand, it is not only that, throughout the course of recent decades, the rate of the decadent Whites’ fertility has been reduced considerably, but they have also grown increasingly incapable of addressing even the most basic challenges of life.
In its turn, this has effectively turned them into the crowd of self-indulgent whiners, absolutely incapable of adopting an active stance in life – hence, their naïve belief that it is indeed possible to establish a ‘fair’ and simultaneously ‘multicultural’ society.
In other words, regardless of what happened to be these people’s views of themselves, the objective laws of history presuppose that the future will prove rather bleak for the people in question – in full accordance with the Darwinian Theory of Evolution.
Quite evidently, this again suggests that, contrary to the advocates of Constructivism, the functioning of human societies never ceases to remain ‘realist’ – that is, it reflects the full scope of the affiliated ‘social factors’ at play. As a result that, the idea that people’s tendency to assess the surrounding social reality through the lenses of a perceptual subjectivism makes them de facto ‘special’, does not stand much of a discursive ground.
Works Cited
Al Jazeera English. “Fault Lines: Baltimore: Anatomy of an American City.” YouTube. 21 Aug. 2012. Web.
AllanGregg. “Dinesh D’Souza Says Racism is not the Cause of Black Failure.” YouTube. 24 Oct. 2011. Web.
Berger, Peter. Sociology as an Individual Pastime. 3-12. Durkheim, Emil. What Makes Sociology Different? 19-26. Mills, Wright. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959. Print.