to say that biology is socially constructed is *not* and *never* is about saying that we simply apply willy nilly over the obvious physical differences anything we want.n it is not saying that discourse can determine whether we get melanoma or sickle cell anemia. those are two physical diseases associated with "race" that find have absolutely not plausible meaning in definintions of race and yet we know they exist, we know they are biological differences and we give them absolutely no important meaning currently in how we think of who has race and who doesn't and whether race is a social construct or not.
the notion that the social can physical create biology or anything of the sort--as if we're magic-- is not what anyone has *ever* said in this discussion. nor is it what butler said as far as i can tell from reading excerpts. what it means to say that it's socially constructed is that how we make meanings out of the biological differences and how we see them and what we point to as important and what is not is absolutely social and does not and is not determined in any straightforward way by something intrinsic located in the body. [all social and physical scientists understand this about scientific research so it's hardly a revolutionary claim]
rob's examples were perfect examples of the social construction of instinct/biology. he wanted to say, as he told me off list, that it's instinctual to eat. but what did he describe that as? as soon as he attempted to locate a biological instinct, as soon as he tried to order it, conceptualize it, he came up with an extraordinarily specific example that is not determined by the instinctual and, as i pointed out, is clearly historically specific --it requires property to steal, it requires capitalism to have a commodity, it requires money to purchase something. it requires the notion of scarcity of food and so on. rob was imagining a situation in which he was in a store and became hungry and wanted to eat. well, i guess he can do that. i do all the time. i snatch an apple and then i pay for it at the end of the shopping trip. forpetesake.
had he simply said, it's human instinct to eat i could hardly have objected. but it's when he attempted to render it meaningful in a social context and to show how he might not follow his instincts, *then* it became eminently social and carried a lot of baggage that is quite debatable.
had he simply said humans have an instinct for the contact of other human beings, no biggie. sounds plausible. but to say that his instincts even are involved in any important way in a desire to touch a stranger is organizing, locating, fixing, constructing an instinctual need in the realm of the social in a fundamental way.
the point though is that in and of themselves statements like humans need to eat and need other human contact are unremarkable. it is in the attempt to order them, organize them, show what it means to say 'contact' or 'eat' that we immediately enter the social and cannot escape it.
whether judy is ahistorical, i don't know. i've not read bodies. but i do know that there are tons of social constructionisms, plenty of materialist social constructionisms and marxist ones as well. so there's no reasons to say all constructionisms are the same or can be reduced to judy.