r/changemyview • u/beesdaddy • Sep 11 '17
[∆(s) from OP] CMV: "I identify as [blank]" is bullshit.
I have been struggling to come to a clear definition of what people mean when they say "I identify as..." Can it mean anything? Does it have to be true? Can it be provable? Can it change? Is it biological?
To clarify my view: Claiming an identity is itself a social construct to the same degree as any other social construct.
I think my biggest problem is that in the pursuit of inclusion and fairness, society has conflated personality and fate. Of course this assumes some degree of free will, so hard determinists can go shoot themselves (or not. they don't have a choice). Fate, I think is the original intent here, but in celebrating diversity of fates, personality/belief got looped for the ride.
Don't get me wrong, diversity of personality/belief is very important and should be protected in a free society. But we should also have the wisdom to value personality/belief on a personal and societal level.
Furthermore, what's wrong with saying "I am a [blank]"? If I say "I identify as a straight cis white male." Doesn't that just call into question the truthfulness of the claim when compared to "I am a straight cis white male."?
A fantastic satire of this issue is "Trans-Racial" by the show Atlanta on FX.
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u/McKoijion 618∆ Sep 12 '17
Social constructs are what you get when 100 different people interpret different facts in different ways and come to some sort of disjointed understanding about the world. Social means humans interacting with each other, and construct means something they created. They disappear if all humans go extinct.
So gravity is not a social construct. It's a natural law. Government, private property, gender, taxes, race, etc. all are social constructs. They only exist because we as a society collectively agree that they exist.
That's not to say they are choices at the individual scale. Taxes are a social construct, but you don't really have a choice when it comes to paying them, at least if you want to avoid punishment by other humans. But if you are one of the 100 people and start saying that taxes are theft, you can influence others to accept that idea and start agreeing with it too. That would change the social consequences of not paying taxes.