Social Construct Quotes

Psychiatrists look for twisted molecules and defective genes as the causes of schizophrenia, because schizophrenia is the name of a disease. If Christianity or Communism were called diseases, would they then look for the chemical and genetic "causes" of these "conditions"?

If you know the history of the whole concept of whiteness if you know the history of the whole concept of the white race, where it came from and for what reason you know that it was a trick, and it's worked brilliantly. You see, prior to the mid to late 1600s, in the colonies of what would become the United States, there was no such thing as the white race. Those of us of European descent did not refer to ourselves by that term really ever before then.

It is not important whether or not the interpretation is correct-- if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.

The media is a like any other group of people. Their universe is all that matters.

Race? It is a feeling, not a reality. Ninety-five per cent, at least. Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today.... National pride has no need of the delirium of race.

Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.

Is journalism a profession that serves the public by maintaining high standards, or is it a social construct that should be redesigned to directly serve certain social goods? Some argue that all journalism involves bias, either hidden or revealed. But it is one thing to say that objectivity and fairness are ultimately unreachable. It is another to cease grasping for them. That would be a world of purely private truths, in which the boldest liars and demagogues would thrive.

If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.

So-called racial characteristics are not really racial at all but are due to the historical experiences of the communities in question.

Man is not made for society, but society is made for man.

Dollar bills have absolutely no value except in our collective imagination, but everybody believes in the dollar bill.

Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.

History is written not only for posterity but by posterity as well.

The truth is whatever people will believe is the truth.

When one comes to think of it, there are no such things as divine, immutable, or inalienable rights. Rights are things we get when we are strong enough to make good our claim on them.

The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society.

Ego is a social institution with no physical reality. The ego is simply your symbol of yourself. Just as the word “water” is a noise that symbolizes a certain liquid without being it, so too the idea of ego symbolizes the role you play, who you are, but it is not the same as your living organism.

It’s not what you are that counts; it’s what people think you are.

Progress has always been understood to be driven by exceptional white men. Whether it's the military victories we've achieved, the philosophical foundations that are the underpinnings of the nation, or our economic ingenuity, all this has been articulated through narratives of exceptional white men.

When black men become millionaires and can buy expensive homes for their families, it infuriates people who cherish the social construct where white people are at the top and people of other ethnic backgrounds are below.

In a crisis the true facts are whatever other people say they are.

On a certain level, I don't think there is an answer to what the American way is, because it is constantly being re-defined. It's also been exploited and capitalized upon and politicized by one side or the other to the point that a certain degree of cynicism has attached itself to that term.

It seems important to find ways of reminding ourselves that most 'familiarity' is meditated and delusive.

Our identity is fictional, written by parents, relatives, education, society.

Caste is not a physical object like a wall of bricks or a line of barbed wire which prevents the Hindus from co-mingling and which has, therefore, to be pulled down. Caste is a notion; it is a state of the mind.