Why cannot race (and gender, for that matter) be both a significant biological realities and a social constructs? Which it is might well depend upon the phenomena one is examining.
I recall when Murray and Herrnstein’s “Bell Curve” first came out. It was a bold move because few would discuss group differences in IQ.
At the same time, I am not sure race and gender differences are a particularly fruitful area of inquiry for things like cognitive skills and personality traits. Why? Because the last time I checked, these things are a little difficult to change especially compared to other things like behaviors and beliefs.
“At the same time, I am not sure race and gender differences are a particularly fruitful area(s) of inquiry for things like cognitive skills and personality traits.”
Why not? You say because you can’t change them? Why does that preclude studying them and discussing them? If there is arace difference in IQ then why should that not be a fact that leads to different educationaal systems? Gender differences we know are factual so how society treats women can also be different as long as it is not discriminayory.
Murray’s thesis is anti-diversity and that’s why the academics are against it.
I read the book and it is valuable for discussion and policy planning.
Why should race differences have to be changed?
Do you believe black people are imperfect white people?
If not, why does it frustrate you that they are different?
“Why cannot race (and gender, for that matter) be both a significant biological realities and a social constructs?
What’s a social construct?
Where does it come from?
How is it related to reality?
Answer those questions and you will discover that social constructs come directly from realities.
Social constructs are simply the classification of things with observed similar characteristics.
Lions and tigers and cats and dogs... are social constructs, ie, classifications based on perceived objective traits. Every named thing is a “social construct”.
So social constructs are not separate from reality, they are tightly linked. Dismissing them as artificial and changeable on a whim is like all of sudden redefining a tiger a poodle... or a man into a woman.
It’s what we call insanity.
And the source of this insanity is postmodernism which denies reality and logic and has completely taken over academia and is infecting the broader society.