On Language: Social Constructionism, Essentialism, and Nominalism

A Gay Species' Extended Essay

Some "Fuck," Others "Make Passionate Homoerotic Love"

Preface

Given that the State of California must have separate names for the same social facts is disappointing, but easily remedied (see previous post). But until we understand the stakes, and are clear-headed enough to be advocates, rather than activists, we'll continue to lose the battles and ourselves.

THINKING IN A NEW KEY

Natural Facts

If I write the word "male," I bet everyone, including your three-year old niece, understands what I've written. Likewise, "female." Even at that early age. And we know, that the dimorphic division (sectare) of the sexes into "male" and "female" occurs throughout botanical and animals populations. We also know, without too much difficulty, that reproduction of most higher-ordered species evolved from asexual division into sexual reproduction.

We may not know why (reason: recombination of genetic DNA diversifies the population's ability to survive in the struggle for existence). Thus, the biological fact that plants and animals evolved to include sexual selection as one of the five principles of evolutionary reality is to aid the myriads of species to survive against the onslaught of other species. Yet, despite this evolutionary advantage that sexual selection confers to sexual species, including humans, biologists are certain that 99% of all species ever existent are presently extinct. 99%!

The God of Eros (Never the God of "Sex")

Natural Facts with Social Consequences

Even with sexual selection, aiding natural selection by combining 50% the sex and trait chromosomes from a "male" and from a "female" member of the species, remixing the gene pool, even with the extraordinary advantage that sexual selection confers on plants and animals, only 1 out of 100 species on earth since its beginning exist today. Not the greatest of odds, if you're waging on probability of human survival.

What makes that number startling is twofold: (1) the plethora of species that this 1% of the biosphere provides us still, and (2) the need to conserve, not destroy, the panoply of diversity in the biosphere, as it is our only hope to keep our species intact. As we are all too well aware, our species is not only destroying our environment, over-harvesting seabeds and applying mass-husbandry agribusiness, buying carbon-emitting vehicles, and stripping foods of nutritional value, we are causing the polar caps to melt, the rain forests (that consume the CO[2] we exhale and provide oxygen in return) are all rapidly diminishing, our population explosion has caused 41 cities in India to exceed a million in population, China's entry into the "industrial revolution" is just as archaic as Mao Zedung's genocide to solve the problem of starvation and political enemies; and with all these facts known, our species continues to act irrationally, with our governments' subsidies and complicities, so that the wealthy few can be the lone survivors.

The Natural Facts & the Social Facts

Each of the above statements is a statement of natural fact. The use of language, which is concomitantly both a natural and social fact, allows us to make these assertions with epistemic certainty (in other words, true, not "possibly untrue"). No one with a credible education and critical thinking skills doubts a single proposition as stated. Nature can be described, and the descriptions may use language of a social origin, but whatever language is used, the natural phenomena which the language describes and names is not in doubt. Oh, you can bounce up-and-down in your radio studio, protest while ingesting oxycontin, and blast the opponents with a blubbery ass, but it don't change the natural facts.

Catch That Wordplay: The Language Game Played by the Rules

If we wander to the edge of San Francisco, which we call "Ocean Beach," we will encounter the largest body of water on earth. We've named it the Pacific Ocean. Some people may prefer another name, but changing the name does not alter the natural facts of this immense body of water existing as an immense body of water. It is a brute natural fact of our planet, attested by scientists, sailors, swimmers, and voyeurs. Call its the "Poolside Lake," if you choose to be contrarian, but the natural phenomenon is not altered an iota because a different name is applied than the one we habitually and customarily call the "Pacific Ocean."

Social Constructionism

Dogmatic Social Constructionists, the last variant of the sociology of knowledge and occult psychology, deny the previous paragraph. They insist everything, not merely the language we use, but everything is socially constructed, and because it is socially constructed, one person's social construction may differ from another person's construction, and betwixt the two varying social constructs, no one can arbitrate, but the powerful and the mighty. In other words, brute force must be used, because brute natural facts cannot. Many are neo-conservatives, psychologists, sociologists, and theologians, rabbis, priests, and ministers.

Call It a "Chicken," It's Still a Turkey

Non-dogmatic social constructionism, i.e., biological realism, grants the obvious reality that we use language symbolically to NAME identities, whether the IDENTITY is (1) a distinct individual phenomenon or (2) a conceptual idea. Distinct phenomena, like myself, comes NAMED by my parents at birth, and they gave me a first and middle name in addition to their surname. So named, I usually respond when my name is called. This is the first type of identity most of us know, but none of us would consider that name to define ourselves as to who and what and why we are. Dogmatic social constructionists do. The second type of name, conceptual ideas, is the name of a set of descriptive statements that bear resemblance, association, and similarity to each other. The set is named, as shorthand for the mass of descriptive statements (particular examples) we in our mental associations constitute as a CONCEPTUAL IDEA, and then NAME the set. This process has been known for centuries as "nominalism," and we owe it to the Arabs in Moorish Spain for introducing it to the Western Europeans (which promptly condemned it as "heretical.")

Essentialism

Essentialists are just as dogmatic as the social constructionist, but they insist that certain words have irrevocable meaning, even that the meaning of words are appointed for use by the gods, and set forth in stone tablets for all time. We know many of them as "Creationists," Orthodox Jews, Islamic Fundamentalists, who, despite all the evidence to the contrary, insist that the heavens and earth were formed in six, 24-hour days, because their holy texts their authorities gave them reads that way.

For them, the word "day" is literal, as in 24-hours. Even if their same scriptures insist "a thousand years is like a day to the Lord," these scholars cannot think these two thoughts simultaneously, if at all. They cannot allow nature -- as they experience it -- to deny the absolute and eternal truths contained in the Torah, the Scriptures, or the Qor'an -- or else, they must kill those who dare to think for themselves and question the Authority, to whom they bow in obeissance, prayer, and adoration.

They also insist that their god appointed marriage to be "only between a man and a woman," and since it was their god that defined the use of the word "marriage," it cannot change. (Interestingly, "marriage" for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints originally meant polygamy, as it did for the Hebrews. Now they both want it to mean only between one "male and female" -- or, at least, serially, or "one at a time.") This is the source of "patrimony" and "patriarchy" in the West, where women are deemed the "chattel" of men, that men may be adulterous (see, the Prince of Princes, Abraham, who fucks his harem in god's good graces, especially his slave Haggar, whose birthright she insists he pay up -- but doesn't.)

Dance With Me to the Rhythm of Life: Man to Man

Now, marriage, is a social fact, not a natural fact. It is a social institution, admittedly with natural phenomena (like humans) participating in a game-like agreement, with institutional rules and rule books for "playing the marriage-game" according to Church and State. Despite the constitution insistence on a "separation of Church and State," the two decided it was in their mutual interests to have the state get involved in Church marriage. So much for the Constitution's prohibition of the establishment of religion.

Worse. We know that marriage is a social fact, not a natural fact, because the descriptions of the word "marriage" are not universal, not even the Bible. From a natural-fact perspective, we recognize pair-bonding occurs among certain species, including humans, but our state and federal laws are not about "pair bonding," they are manifestly about the religious matrimony from the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptures and traditions. The State, if it has an "interest" in pair-bonding, should, one might hope, call it "pair-bonding," which is much closer to stating a natural fact than the word "marriage" is, but by calling it a "social fact of religious aetiology," that State through rabbis, ministers, priests, and imams, now dictate "monadrous" or "serial" no-fault marriage. But the separation of Church and State often gets confused as to who dictates what. If marriage was not a religious social fact, we would not need all the rules, laws, institutional ceremonies and rites, to confer on the "natural facts" of pair-bonding the perks and onuses of state "marriage." We'd simply issue an acknowledgment of "pair-bonding." One pair, of course, at a time.

Social Facts Change, Evolve Too

Just as with natural facts, like organisms, species, oceans, and mountains that change over time, so too, do social facts. Indeed, the social facts can be arbitrary or well-discerned. For example, the U.S. introduced the Susan B. Anthony "dollar coin," but people did not like "dollars" in coins (except for slot machines), so the coin never reach critical social mass. The natural fact of a circular metallic object of metal alloys representing a social fact of "unit of value" is, of course, illustrative of a natural fact made into a social fact -- by the formula:

X acts like Y under circumstance C

We take natural facts and construe them into social facts, by imprinting it with the above formula all the time. For example, "this circular metallic object of metal alloys [X] when imprinted with relief figures and the image of Susan B. Anthony [Y] will act as a unit of value for consumers and producers to trade in exchange [C]." The rules, set by Congress and the Federal Reserve, the production of coins by several regional mints, and our consent to accept this naturally-composed item to represent a unit of value when we want to trade in values, is precisely how natural facts and social facts interact.

Rabbis, Politicians, and Power-Exchange Hungry Deviants

What Is "Marriage?"

While we may find pair-bonding in the state of nature, including pair-bonding of same-sex and opposite-sex couples, clearly pair-bonding is closer to our natural facts than the word we socially use from the Book of Common Prayer: "marriage" and "matrimony."

In the Torah, marriage was between a single patriarch and a harem of female chattel -- a type of marriage still common in Islamic countries. In other places, a marriage is between single members of the opposite sex, as the celibate prophet Yeshua (Jesus) suggests is the norm. Among Roman Catholics and Anglicans, "marriage" is "solemnized," not created by the Church. In other words, the "couple marries," and the Church simply "recognizes and blesses it." Now, the 50 States do so -- in violation of the First Amendment.

In some jurisdictions, any two people that cohabitate for seven years are deemed "legally married," even if none of the "social facts" like a ritual, licenses, or ceremonies occurred. This is the tacit recognition of "pair-bonding" by a State, and is commonly known as "common law marriage."

Others have described Beloved and my bond in the words of "marriage," but we do not. We are pair-bonded, but not "married." We don't want the Church or the State -- gawd forbid -- to dictate how we must regard each other with all those encumbrances and mandates. Well before the current brouhaha, we negotiated our own "rules, institutions, and norms," had them "solemnized" by an attorney and the county recorder. We also prefer to call our "pair-bonding" a "bond," simply because it is closer to the natural fact of "pair-bonding," rather than imitative of a formal church, temple, or mosque wedding.

Cannot Enter the Kingdom of God

Indeed, we often correct our opposite-sex friends and colleagues who refer to our bond as "marriage," because our pair-bonding is not a "marriage" or a "domestic partnership," justified by the State of California, much less the Church of Rome, Constantinople, or England. Indeed, we do not want that "marriage," although we believe in equality and justice, so, if the state offers it a pair-bonding social "product" to heterophiles, the same social product should be offered to homophiles. The Rule of Law requires it.

Excursus On Gender

I'll conclude with reflections on the use of the word "gender." Gender is a social fact, in which social values identified as "masculine" and "feminine" are juxtaposed. I can change gender in an instant, by simply adopting the opposite-sex's manner, dress, and attitudes -- assuming a monolithic adoption is possible. I can adorn myself with cosmetics, cover myself with a "skirt and blouse,," step into stilettos, and heaven knows what, and change my gender traits, without affecting my natural fact as a biologically dimorphic male. I can chop off appendages, just as in wartime, but I will remain a male. I can cross-dress, I can act like a female, but the natural fact is that a chromosome has marked me for life as a "male." Even with my genitalia removed, as also happens in wartime, I am not changed from being a "male organism."

Vulnerable, Available, Lovable: Yes Men Can

Thus, the notion of "transsexual" is really impossible conceptually and physically. We can surgically reassign our anatomical features, just as we can be obese or slim, undergo liposuction and face lift, but the "natural fact" of the individual exists on a more primitive level than superficial changes. Thus, it is proper to speak of "transgender" when speaking of those males that wish to be regarded as females, and females as males. Whether it is the psychosexual gender identity disorder of one's body image, or a more natural affect due to social pressure, exceeds my ability and competence to judge. But, to speak of a "transsexual" is itself a meaningless impossibility, and thus we can be more accurate and specific by speaking of "transgender."

Obviating Confusion

I was only too happy to adopt the identity of "gay" to identity in words what is a natural fact: I am sexually attracted to my own dimorphic sex. That attraction pre-existed any "homoerotic" act, and will persist without any "homoerotic" acts. My sexual disposition or "orientation" is congenital, my natural birthright, and I am proud of adapting myself to a minority of the population as a homophile, or more specifically, as an androphile.

Who Claims Men Don't Kiss Men?

Notice I've introduced perhaps new words to some readers, but apparently, these words were always the more precise choice over "gay" and "queer" marketed in the Fifties. The words come from Greek, appropriately enough, and rather than misusing the word "sex," much less reduce myself to "being defined by sexually simulated acts with the same sex," all of which is gravely mistaken, I've come to adopt a more accurate lexicon. "Andro" for of the male member of the species, and "philia" for "amity, affinity for, fraternity and affection for, friendship,""is certainly more descriptive of my IDENTITY and a term that does not make a person reducible to a sex act, much less a simulated sex act, that is homoerotic, not sex at all. Words like "homosexual" are simply oxymoronic and an abuse of language.

I detest other names some androphiles are named: "faggot," "queer," "bitch," and so forth. When I see or hear these words, I wince. Faggot, of course, comes from burning androphiles and gynophiles at the stake, as their sins polluted the holy community of god, and needed to be purged by fire. Queer, of course, means " Strange, odd, eccentric; of questionable character, suspicious.." Well, I am not queer, certainly not "deviant," at least by the definitional entries of the Oxford English Dictionary. Nor am I a "queen," a "fairy," a "pantywaist," a "fudgepacker," although in truth, I am a "cocksucker," and proud of it. But then, even my female sibling is so described with pride.

We Are Named, Not Defined!!!

The grave mistake that dogmatic social constructionists -- whether of the queer type, or of the religious essentialist type, or of the postmodernist "bullshit" type -- is to regard all language as socially constructed, all facts as social facts, and all norms as social contrivances, that only the proverbial and nasty dead-white-and Semitic patriarchies yoked all into submission. As long as language continues to be used -- to be played according to the rules of Jewish and Christian linguistics -- that is essentially and typologically, rather than nominalistically, we are generally talking past each other, fighting over "rights" that don't rise to the occasion, confusing substance for signification, and a preference for conflict and belligerence rather than understanding.

But It's Not the ONLY Caresses I Offer

Language does not define anything. No one, much language users, defines me. I, like others, use language to name identities. I identify as a "gay man," or now, with added maturity and sophistication, as an "androphile" and fellow "homophile." These words name my identities, act as markers to navigate, not albatrosses strung around our necks, tied to our feet, and submersed in the Great Salt Lake or the Dead Sea.

I use words that name IDENTITIES to identify myself to others, both to distinguish heterophiles and homophiles, to use that KNOWLEDGE appropriately in the pursuit of our proximate interests. I am not just my "sex," much less my "sexual orientation," or worse, "a simulated sex act." I am a living organism of the Homo sapiens species, I identify myself with other members of the species that are sexually and affectionally attracted to their same-sex (albeit, not exclusively). My actions do not define me in this regard. Rather my sexual orientation is a completely natural variant of the human species, whether or not others thinks so, believe so, or vote so. And certain descriptive features fit me more accurately than other descriptive features. The SET of descriptive features NAMED androphile come the closest in accuracy (as "gay" did and still does).

I respect those that prefer to identify themselves as "queer" and "deviants" just as I respect those that identify themselves as "straight" or "heterophile." But I do not IDENTIFY myself as a "queer" or "deviant," much less some of the other monikers that are linguistically abusive personally offensive. Language provides the conduit for verbal communication of my natural affinities, an adaptive measure given those human species to IDENTIFY friend or foe, not to cast a conflict in the ether of essentialist heavens or the hell of socialist constructed sociological theory.

Every One Is Unique; We Share Identities

We name either (1) particular individual or (2) the set of descriptions that fit our conceptual idea. None partakes in an eternal and transcendent essence, but only in the existential moment when we come together and need to share information quickly, rather than robustly encounter each other in naked silence. And this Gay Species is happily and joyously bonded with a beloved in an androphile pair-bonding that needs no external recognition to achieve its merit, but by all rights, must not be hidden, re-named as something "different" when not, nor confused by making our natural pair-bonding into the religious essence of the social institution of "marriage." The difference is readily apparent: The natural facts get a visible rise of interest, whereas my social facts require adumbration, explanation, and even logical syntax and semantics. To think them one and the same really does damage as does all propaganda.

NOTES & REFERENCES:

1. John Searle, The Reality of Social Construction, 1995.
2. Ian Hacking, The Social Construction of What? 1999
3. Book of Common Prayer, 1789.
4. William of Ockaam, Summa Logicae, 1349.
5. David Hume, On Human Nature, 1749.
6. Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, 1859, Descent of Man.
7. Ernst Mayr, What Evolution Is, 2000 (particularly Chap. 4 & 5)
8. Matt Ridley, The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature, 1993
9. E. O. Wilson, On Human Nature, 1978.
10. Karl Popper, "Two Kinds of Definition," [1945] in David Miller (ed.), Popper Selections, 1985.
    

Advocacy, Not Activism -- The Homophile Renessance