[kelseyfrog]

You can measure how much money you have in your bank account and money is a social construct. Spending money leads to having measurably less money. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

You might be confusing "social construct" with fake. That's not at all what I'm saying.

[HyperSane]

IQ isn't a social construct because intelligence is not a social construct. A social construct is something that is created by everyone agreeing that it is real, like money. Human intelligence is a function of how the human brain works and is NOT a social construct.

[kelseyfrog]

It's funny arguing with someone who has reified the concept so thoroughly that dereification is unthinkable.

First off I'm setting aside the argument that intelligence is constructed or not. Ssecondly, social ontologists would say that you're arguing from grounding.

You're arguing that because one thing is grounded in the other and the latter is real that the former is real as well. It also sounds like this is taken as axiomatic, to which I simply say, prove that's how grounding works.

[HyperSane]

Are you willing to argue that height and weight are "social constructs" because IQ is as much a social construct as they are.

[LudwigNagasena]

Everything is a social construct. It is just a vapid meaningless statement sociologists use to legitimize their expertise and colonize other fields of inquiry that were traditionally the domains of philosophers and scientists. The whole thing is just repackaged Marxist analysis of everything as a social relation.

[HyperSane]

Things that only work if everyone thinks they are real ARE social constructs. Money is the best example of these. But some pretentious people just LOVE to feel smart by saying everything is a social construct like it is some profound insight that we would all be in awe of.

[FrontierPsych]

You didn't comment on the rest of the statement:

"sociologists use to legitimize their expertise and colonize other fields of inquiry that were traditionally the domains of philosophers and scientists. The whole thing is just repackaged Marxist analysis of everything as a social relation."

[kelseyfrog]

Let me guess, sociology isn't a real science?

[LudwigNagasena]

It’s a very heterogenous academic field. Some parts of it are scientific; some parts are pseudo-scientific; some parts are simply non-scientific, which, of course, doesn’t mean that those parts are less worthy or worse than scientific parts.

[kelseyfrog]

Right, and even withing social ontology/constructivism there are multitudes. Dismissing the entire subfield as vapid comes across as intellectually immature. If you have specific critiques feel free to share them but, "constructivism bad because Marxism bad," is about as thought-limiting cliché as one can get.

[LudwigNagasena]

> Right, and even withing social ontology/constructivism there are multitudes.

There are multitudes; and that’s exactly why such statements are vapid and contain no information. You failed to clarify what you meant and only managed to make a vague reference to Berger.

There are thousand contradictory ways to interpret what “a social construct” means (see The Social Construction of What? by Ian Hacking), but the most important thing about that statement is that it allows a sociologist to say “it’s something I am an authority on”.

> Dismissing the entire subfield as vapid comes across as intellectually immature.

Would dismissing astrology be intellectually immature? I don’t think so.

> "constructivism bad because Marxism bad," is about as thought-limiting cliché as one can get

Indeed. Good that it is not what I’ve said.