What is your stake in the view that "race is culturally constructed" and that "gender is culturally constructed"? — Bitter Crank

Society probably cannot function without gender. At least not at this juncture.

Reproductive technology like artificial wombs might make sexual reproduction, including pregnancy, obsolete. AI might replace humans in parenting. AI might make humans obsolete in military, law enforcement, business and organizational management, education, legal representation, and other work. Males and females might end up all doing the same things, and roles related to sex might not be needed.

But at this time society probably cannot function without gender.

Race, on the other hand, serves no function other than dividing us and making us easier to manipulate and dominate. The sooner we all see through the smokescreen of race, the sooner we can identify and confront the real sources of suffering in the world.

Race is real and isn't determined by culture; it's inherent in the genetic makeup of a person. — Bitter Crank

All of the evidence that I have seen says that that is false.

Culture is also real, and is learned. There isn't a genetic link between race and culture. There are links of learning and environment, however, between race and culture. People tend to behave like those around them--that's cultural.

Maleness and femaleness are real and are biologically determined. Men are males, women are females. Both males or men, females or women, have certain sex-linked characteristics and traits, and both males or men and females or women learn an array of culturally specific roles in connection with their sex and gender.

All humans inherit tendencies to behave in various ways, and also learn behaviors in early life. Some of the behaviors are "stereotypes", a term applied to specific types of individuals or certain ways of behaving intended to represent the entire group of those individuals or behaviors as a whole. So, girls playing with dolls and boys with trucks are "stereotypes".

A "role" is culturally defined manner of behaving. "The stereotypical male role in a family is to provide financial support and leadership." A "role" may also be biological. The male "role" in reproduction is inseminating females. The female "role" in reproduction is bearing off-spring. The male may play the role of "family defender" because biologically he is bigger and stronger than the female (usually). The male may also play the role of care-giver, which is a role usually assigned in stereotypical fashion to females.

It's just an inconvenient fact of life that roles, stereotypes, biology, and culture are braided together. With some effort the specifics can be teased apart. We struggle to do this all the time. "Was so-and-so born with high intelligence (genes, biology, prenatal environment, etc.) or is so-and-so very successful as a result of obsessively hard work? Or in joke form, "If you're so smart, how come you are not rich?" — Bitter Crank

Social roles are in no way tethered to elements like biology, immediate environment, stereotypes, personality, etc.

What stereotype is the social role of consumer built on? What immediate environment is the social role of consumer derived from? None and none, respectively. Anybody with any traits and background can act in the social role of consumer. Just like anybody with any traits and background can act in the social role of patient, client, suspect, customer, leader, worker, student, teacher, entrepreneur, etc.

And what role one finds himself in can change in the blink of an eye. For a long time, academics were authorities guiding people called students who looked up to them. Now academics are more like customer service representatives working for highly-paid administrators and trying to please paying customers. If the customers--formerly known as students--in your class give you bad reviews your highly-paid bosses who are focused on the bottom line might not renew your contract next semester. Medical professionals also seem to increasingly find themselves and the people they treat / care for in different roles. Increasingly the latter are customers rather than patients--they'll even get a survey emailed to them asking them to rate the care they received!

Social roles are parts in the screenplay called society. Male, female, black, white, gay, tall, short, introverted, extroverted, disabled, healthy, sick, high IQ, low IQ, etc., symmetrical face, asymmetrical face, fat, skinny, etc. might predict what roles one finds his/herself in and how often, but they are not roles themselves, and roles are not constituted of them.

What stereotype is the social role of consumer built on? What immediate environment is the social role of consumer derived from? None and none, respectively. Anybody with any traits and background can act in the social role of consumer. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

The "consumer" is an economic stereotype made possible and created by industrial society. "Consumer" started to become popular around 1900.

Prior to the deployment of various labor-reducing devices using electric motors, automobiles, and so forth, men and women devoted most of their time to producing. Men worked in production jobs (farm or factory, mostly) and women produced food, clothing, and some domestic goods at home. A woman often prepared food from a kitchen garden and used eggs from a backyard henhouse. Food was prepared from simple raw ingredients.

The industrialization of the home converted women from producers to consumers. One drove to a store and bought bread (didn't make it), canned fruit (didn't preserve it), meat (didn't kill it), and ready-made clothing (didn't sew it). The woman shopped for and "consumed" household goods, as well. Families consumed housing and transportation.

"Consumer" is now applied to everybody, even mentally retarded individuals who "consume" custodial care services, so the term has approached meaninglessness. But if you set aside these nonsensical uses, the term is still meaningful.

The economic role of consumption (by consumers) is a critically important element in the modern economy. Something close to 3/4 of the GDP is derived from the acts of buying stuff that define the role of consumer.

In many ways, being a "consumer" is a degraded role, a shrink wrapped stereotype.

Social roles are parts in the screenplay called society. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

And we are in this screen play whether we jolly well like it or not, playing out our various defined roles, and just like characters on the screen, we can not walk out of the screen, we can not walk out of society.

Increasingly the latter are customers rather than patients — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Calling patients, clients, students, and so "consumers" is a piece of current bullshit lingo. It's a trend that comes out of business management schools, which says that schools, hospitals, social service agencies, and so on will perform better if things are run like a business. The approach is aided and abetted by (often) laudable moves to make institutions a little more accountable.

Should professors be teaching to suit the standards of their students? Well, I don't think so, but if students are going to rate teachers, and administrators are going to look at the ratings, then they will teach to make the students happy. A large proportion of college teachers are now adjuncts -- a nice work for "temporary". If they want to get hired for the next term, they had better have good ratings.

Colleges, hospitals, and social service agencies do the same thing they have always done; a change in language (health care consumer rather than patient) is likely to be a transient phenomenon.

Race is real and isn't determined by culture; it's inherent in the genetic makeup of a person.
— Bitter Crank

All of the evidence that I have seen says that that is false. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Will you please explain how you think white, black, asian, and aboriginal people get born? If race isn't biological, then something VERY MYSTERIOUS is going on. You know, when two asians have children, there is a much, much better than a 50/50 chance that the children will look like other asians. Same for whites, blacks, and aboriginals. Like it or not, the races are propagated by sex.

Now, you may not like the concept of race, but the distinctions between groups of people, whether they are races or not, are still transmitted through sexual reproduction.

Race and sex would be disconnected IF, as George Carlin said, two black parents could produce a child who had straight blond hair and blue eyes.

What is socially constructed is not the skin and hair colour and nose shape but the importance of these things in influencing our judgements and categorisations unjustly. This in turn focusses our attention on skin and hair colour etc. When someone says 'race is determined by culture not genetics' I think the charitable way of reading this is that the racial basis of prejudice, hatred and discrimination and thence of the study of and focus on racial differences is entirely arbitrary. If we have any charity left and I hope we do.

What is socially constructed is not the skin and hair colour and nose shape but the importance of these things in influencing our judgements and categorisations unjustly. This in turn focusses our attention on skin and hair colour etc. When someone says 'race is determined by culture not genetics' I think the charitable way of reading this is that the racial basis of prejudice, hatred and discrimination and thence of the study of and focus on racial differences is entirely arbitrary. If we have any charity left and I hope we do. — Cuthbert

No.

Speaking for myself, when I say that race is socially/culturally constructed I literally mean that races in the human species are fictions that people created--mostly to justify oppression, exploitation, etc.--based on arbitrary characteristics/traits and that do not correspond with any known reality in the natural world.

It is so easy that anybody can do it in less than a minute. Pick a group of people, pick a biological characteristic/trait that they have and you don't, and say that based on that characteristic/trait they constitute a race and you constitute a different race. "Those people over there, they have free-hanging ear lobes. We over here have attached ear lobes. We are "attacheds", they are "free-hangers". It is biological reality that no rational person can deny: we are a distinct group separated from them by our attached ear lobes!".

Read "The Sneetches", by Dr. Seuss.

Biological race is, basically, a myth created to justify treating certain people as less than human. Biological reality, as I understand it, is that we are overwhelmingly all the same and that the biological differences between us, as an instructor I had in a college geography class once put it, "are miniscule".

Biological reality, as I understand it, is that we are overwhelmingly all the same and that the biological differences between us, as an instructor I had in a college geography class once put it, "are miniscule". — WISDOMfromPO-MO

This is simply not true (or at least wasn't true 100 years ago, thankfully it is becoming more so now). People with hanging earlobes have had no different cultural heritage and history than those with attached earlobes. The two populations have always been mixed and formed part of the same culture. The distinctions identified in race, whilst having no bearing at all on personality, did once indicate very strongly the cultural heritage of that person and so what adopted values they may have.

Nowadays, thankfully, this is becoming so much less the case that to read anything into race would be unfair stereotyping, but our history of oppression and its legacy still means that someone's skin colour gives a statistically more significant indication of the sorts of challenges they've had to face in life than their ear lobes.

It's not just arbitrary. It meant something significant about cultural heritage a hundred years ago, and shameful though it is, it still means something about one's history today.

Yes, that's what I meant. 'Minuscule' or not, the differences are arbitrarily chosen; it's the unjust discrimination that is important.

The distinctions identified in race, whilst having no bearing at all on personality, did once indicate very strongly the cultural heritage of that person and so what adopted values they may have. — Pseudonym

All of the evidence that I have seen says that that is completely irrelevant to why racial categories were created.

Nowadays, thankfully, this is becoming so much less the case that to read anything into race would be unfair stereotyping, but our history of oppression and its legacy still means that someone's skin colour gives a statistically more significant indication of the sorts of challenges they've had to face in life than their ear lobes. — Pseudonym

That does not make racial categories correspond with any reality in the natural world.

It's not just arbitrary. It meant something significant about cultural heritage a hundred years ago, and shameful though it is, it still means something about one's history today. — Pseudonym

No.

All of the evidence I have seen shows that racial categories were arbitrarily created based on arbitrary characteristics and then projected onto people.

The way that I understand it, your characterization of racial categories as objective intellectual tools based on what they "signify" is patently false.

Furthermore, no concrete evidence from history, anthropology, biology or any other authority has been presented in support of this "race signifies biology and culture" assertion.

The "consumer" is an economic stereotype made possible and created by industrial society. "Consumer" started to become popular around 1900.

Prior to the deployment of various labor-reducing devices using electric motors, automobiles, and so forth, men and women devoted most of their time to producing. Men worked in production jobs (farm or factory, mostly) and women produced food, clothing, and some domestic goods at home. A woman often prepared food from a kitchen garden and used eggs from a backyard henhouse. Food was prepared from simple raw ingredients.

The industrialization of the home converted women from producers to consumers. One drove to a store and bought bread (didn't make it), canned fruit (didn't preserve it), meat (didn't kill it), and ready-made clothing (didn't sew it). The woman shopped for and "consumed" household goods, as well. Families consumed housing and transportation.

"Consumer" is now applied to everybody, even mentally retarded individuals who "consume" custodial care services, so the term has approached meaninglessness. But if you set aside these nonsensical uses, the term is still meaningful.

The economic role of consumption (by consumers) is a critically important element in the modern economy. Something close to 3/4 of the GDP is derived from the acts of buying stuff that define the role of consumer.

In many ways, being a "consumer" is a degraded role, a shrink wrapped stereotype. — Bitter Crank

False dichotomy.

It is not "producer versus consumer". It is "frugality versus consumption ".

And it is an integral component of capitalism, not a latent effect of industrialization.

In Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism Richard H. Robbins shows how a class of people who are willing to consume more and more stuff had to be created and how it is maintained. The propensity to frugality had to be overcome. "Customer service" was created to make people feel like they have some special status when they consume goods (there is nothing special about going to a big box store and selecting and purchasing an item that you really don't need; it is robotic and dehumanizing, if you think about it). I recall this as well: the attractions at Disney World, Robbins convincingly shows and thoroughly documents, are designed to downplay / obscure in the minds of visitors the negative impacts of capitalism and maintain a class of consumers willing to buy more and more stuff.

The capitalist consumer is a social role created and maintained as an integral element of the global capitalist system. Without people playing that role, capitalism would not work.

Personally, I hate acting in the role of capitalist consumer. All of the advertising, merchandising, marketing (I may be in the minority, but I hate junk mail), and everything else trying to manipulate me into buying stuff is physically, emotionally and spiritually taxing. Alas, I have to navigate through all of it to meet my needs.

But don't worry, capitalists. Plenty of people are convinced that the consumer role is for royalty like them even though it makes life stressful; takes time and energy away from their relationships, hobbies, etc.; burdens them with a lot of debt; etc. I believe that some people even love it--if Black Friday was to disappear they would feel deprived.

“You, they, themself, (their name)” Properly utilized syntax will make you immune to even the most ravenous retaliation and critisim; all without even having to have an opinion on the matter. Incase you found the matter to have qestionable value that is.

It is not "producer versus consumer". It is "frugality versus consumption ".

And it is an integral component of capitalism, not a latent effect of industrialization. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, how independent was industrialization and capitalism in Europe and North America? Pretty much synonymous.

Look, I'm a pretty thrifty fellow, most of the time. I've never been in debt except for a mortgage I paid off in 10 years, and not because I had so much money. I've always been relatively poor -- certainly at the bottom of income expectation for a guy with a masters degree. But... never mind that. The point is, buying objects that one needs like food, clothing, shelter; objects that one wants like books, newspapers, dog food (I don't want it, but the dog certainly does), a gadget or two..., and services like an occasional and inexpensive lunch in a restaurant with friends are not crimes against nature, Wisdom.

People have been consuming necessities, luxuries, and services ever since hunter-gatherers settled down to grow barley and wheat 12,000 years ago. Chemical analysis of containers indicate that they were brewing beer and wine. They gathered to share feasts. They engaged in decorative practices. It's in our nature to produce and consume. It isn't dehumanizing, it isn't unclean, it isn't wrong.

We manipulate things: that's part of our nature, and in order to obtain things and experiences to manipulate in our hands and in our heads we have to work to earn money for these things. Maybe people who go to Disneyland are not living up to your expectations (not mine, either) but everyone isn't going to study philosophy and wear a barrel (Diogenes).

Don't sneer too much at consumers, Wiz. If everybody reduced their consumption by 25%, and eliminated a lot of the superfluous stuff, the world economy would crash and people like us would lose what little we have. It would be globally catastrophic.

BTW, my dentist and I were discussing a picture of 200,000 year old homo sapiens teeth, the oldest modern human teeth found. He said they look like Chinese teeth--the fissures in their teeth are like those in the picture, deeper than other people's teeth. Similarly, he said, European/American teeth and bone structure is different than black teeth and bone structure, and yet again Asian teeth and bone structure is different. Japanese teeth are different than Chinese teeth.

Just a dental reflection on race differences.

Just a dental reflection on race differences. — Bitter Crank

No one denies that there are traits which are distributed almost exclusively across some populations. That's the same when people mention how medications sometimes add warnings that Afro-Americans shouldn't take these, and how that support race theory. It's just besides the point entirely. A 'racial' understanding of human society is devoid of true meaning because we never applied the selective force necessary for racial differentiation to human reproduction, i.e. breeding.

An additional reason why this is devoid of meaning is because it is entirely superfluous. People's identity are not tied to race, but to heritage and location. Contrary to your last picture, we are not turning into nothing because we acquire a better understanding of the real sources of semblance and difference amongst humanity.

People who are threatened by the perceived collapse of white culture have a weak identity, at the core. That's the best I can put it. If you want to find pride in your heritage, study your ancestor's history. They shouldn't claim shit other people have done simply because you share skin colour. Better yet, they shouldn't seek pride elsewhere then in themselves and their own accomplishments.

no concrete evidence from history, anthropology, biology or any other authority has been presented in support of this "race signifies biology and culture" assertion. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I don't understand what you are saying here. Are you suggesting that there is literally no evidence that different races have had, on the whole, different cultural experiences? Are you saying that the cultural history of, say, Polynesian Islanders, has not been unique, or that Polynesian Islanders do not have any shared genetic traits?