The Reality of Social Reality
The Omaha area has been host to a series of ongoing discussions over the question of the rights of transgender access to social protection. Sometimes the discussion has been public, as in last year’s open comment session on Omaha Public Schools’ transgender student policy. The discussion has often taken place over social media, and in last year’s case of a local bar owner, has shifted to the public square as well. In a guest op-ed, a local writer attempts to systematically explore the fundamental concepts underlying this and other questions we have about our social world, and provide a more steady foundation for our discussions about such questions.
The other day, I made the mistake of scrolling through the comments on a Facebook meme concerning gender. The meme sought to ridicule certain remarks some progressive YouTuber made about the existence of “three, four, or even five genders”. I cringed as I read the unsurprising slew of statements repeating, in a multitude of unoriginal ways, the “obvious axiom” that “there are exactly two genders: male and female”. While these comments annoyed me, they fell short of moving me in any substantial way, if only for their complete lack of novelty. However, one commenter did attempt to defend a non-traditional view of gender and their contribution is what caught my eye. Their comment was brief: “Gender isn’t real”. Of course, this statement received dozens of negative responses from the ‘two-gender’ crowd and the whole thing seemed hopelessly futile.
Witnessing the pernicious rhetorical and logical clumsiness of such internet ‘debates’ is rarely enjoyable. Still, in this case it brought me to reflect on an issue that, although typically discussed in academic settings, more people, particularly progressives, should familiarize themselves with. My hope is that a small amount of theoretical legwork will go a long way towards facilitating more productive defenses of certain progressive values. I by no means wish to imply that every leftist activist must have an expansive grasp of all the most esoteric and technical aspects of the theory that supports their views. However, what I intend discuss here is relatively non-technical, and, hopefully, widely useful.
I want to explore why starkly denying the existence of things such as gender, race, ethnicity, proper grammar, or even objective moral values might not be an effective or adequate analysis. Moreover, when one is in discussion with a realist about these things, flatly denying them is unlikely to cause a change of heart. Besides being only partly true, such a response does nothing to explain the visceral feeling of ‘realness’ most people still have about such concepts. Further, when gender, race, ethnicity, prescriptive grammar, and the moral values of the powerful (among many other things) have such an obvious effect on the world, how can they fail to exist? On the other hand, the traditional assumption of their reality has played a tremendous role in perpetuating abusive societal institutions and malignant structures of power. A more nuanced response to the issue not only gets closer to the truth, but, I believe, will be a better practical tool for defending and promoting progressive social values.
The simple version of the analysis I want to promote goes along the lines of ‘gender (or race, or, etc) is a social construct’. I want to affirm and defend the basic truth of that position. This not a new idea and it definitely isn’t my idea. Furthermore, I should make it clear that I am no expert on gender theory or race theory, or really any of the areas of research which focus on the concepts I’ve mentioned. I also realize that most people reading this are already familiar, to some degree, with social construction. My aim is neither to directly deal with theoretical traditions for which my knowledge is lacking, nor to offer unnecessary explanations of concepts that are already widely understood. What I want to do is present and discuss some relevant philosophical theory, developed by G.E.M. Anscombe and John Searle, in order to unpack the idea of a ‘social construct’ in a way that relates to issues of significance in the contemporary social and political climate.
Anscombe, in her 1958 article “On Brute Facts”, introduces the idea of distinguishing between ‘brute’ and ‘institutional’ facts. For example, if you are holding a five dollar bill, there are both brute and institutional facts of the matter. It is a brute fact that there is a bit of cloth and paper in your hand. Besides our inability to articulate that fact outside of language, it does not presuppose any human institutions. Conversely, that what you are holding is indeed currency does presuppose the human institution of money. Another good example of a brute fact is that the earth’s climate is changing. Despite human contributions to the phenomenon, it is true without reference to any human institutions.
Another good example of an institutional fact, and one that leads us back to the point of this essay, is that I am a man. This statement is not untrue. I identify as a man and society views me as such. However, embedded in the semantics of the term ‘man’ is quite a lot of information that is meaningless without reference to human institutions. Actually, an astounding amount of information is conveyed by those three letters: a whole lot more than the brute fact that I have a certain set of genitalia. My identity as a male creates an enormous set of expectations about me, and about how others interact with me. Almost none of these expectations are derived from brute physical facts. Instead, they rest upon the institutions that society has built which constitute gender. If you look at other examples, such as ethnicity or language, the same line of reasoning can be applied. There are definitely brute facts concerning my genetics and the sounds that emerge from my mouth. Still, that I’m ethnically Dutch and Irish or that my grammar is more or less ‘correct’ than that of others is not even interpretable outside the context of human institution.
Searle develops upon Anscombe’s work in several of his publications, including his 1995 book, The Construction of Social Reality. He argues that brute and institutional facts create a hierarchy of realities. There is a brute reality, made up of brute facts, and there is an institutional, or social, reality which exists only in terms of human agreement and construction, although it ultimately also relies on the foundation of the brute reality. With this view in mind, it’s fairly straightforward to see how it can be applied to the question at hand. To reuse the example of gender, it’s not quite right to say that it’s not real, but it’s also wrong to think that it is real in the sense that a stone is real. Gender is real, but only as a social institution. Unfortunately, given the coercive ways that gender is used to control individuals, it’s clear that social reality can be just as powerful as brute reality.
There is still reason for optimism even if you grant that malicious human institutions are real and powerful. Recognizing the way in which social reality comes to be and how it shapes our lives also reveals the wonderful conclusion that we can change it. Even more, if a more just social reality is cultivated, it is every bit as real as the one we’re living in now. Change will likely be slow and difficult, but if those aspects of society which ought to be abandoned can be successfully supplanted by more benevolent replacements, the new social reality will also be challenging to dismantle. So, although it is a fact that I am a man, thankfully, that can change.
