Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 22:39:31 +0100
From: James Heartfield <James-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk>
Subject: M-TH: Social Constructionism


Thanks to Rakesh for his plug for my essay and Suke Wolton's book.

Rakesh gives a good account of the argument as regards race.

The background point in the book is that 'social construction' theory
(as elaborated by Alfred Schutz, Karl Mannheim and Max Scheler in
Germany between the wars) has become ubiquitous in modern American
sociology, and that despite superficial similarities, it is hostile to
the Marxist method.

What falls under the heading 'society' in social construction theory is
only those immediate interpersonal relations between subjects. In that
way the theory abstracts from those underlying social laws that order
interpersonal relations. Taking the latter for the former, social
constructionists misrepresent capitalist society as conscious and
deliberate, where in fact is is unconscious and spontaneous, as
transparent, when in fact it is opaque, and as all surface, when in fact
it has hidden depths. If I was to write that essay again I would have
made it clearer by saying that social construction theory abstracts from
the relations of production, which is to say precisely those relations
which inform all other relations in capitalist society.

I don't know the details of Ralph's example of the Portuguese, but I
don't doubt that scores of such examples could be found. Indeed they are
in the hundred of books that now go under the de rigeur title of The
Social Construction of _______ (fill in as appropriate). The argument is
that any social trend becomes clarified out at a certain point, at which
point it is formalised in legislation, culture, policy and/or ideology.
The error of the social construcitonists is to take the point at which
social trends register in our political and adminstrative institutions
as the point at which it is 'constructed'. Before a ruling elite can
construct a policy of divide and rule, it must take hold of an already
existing, spontaneously generated division within capitalist society.
Equally, it would be an error to say that Lincoln freed the slaves,
because he signed the proclamation, and thereby 'constructed' blacks as
free men. Even before the civil war, a real process towards the
commodification of labour made the possibilites of slavery more and more
hostile to capitalist accumulation. That social process gave forth
social struggles and finally the formalisation of the proclamation. the
proclamation did not free the slaves.

Suke's book is available (at a rather exorbitant cost) from Amazon at:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/Author=Wolton%2C%20Suke/5504-3606926-4
75611

And from Bookpages in England at:

http://www.bookpages.co.uk/Twist/twist.plx?form=/Inetpub/Web/Bookpages/S
cripts/BookDetails.htx&UID=127689!PPP=20!CID=1!CSL=P!CXR=1!CS==A3&ISBN=033
3659015

Shamelessly
James Heartfield


     --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---