Nature/nurture debate!
Tahir: I wasn't talking about the social construction of identity, but I concede that a number of other people were. In fact there are/were some here who have shown no other interest than finding ways to express their own particular identities. (Look at me, look at me!) I was focussing rather on the practices that I think fundamentally underlie the uses of those words. However, the problem comes with statements such as the following:
All biologically determined traits must be embedded in social interactions to create social structure and processes.
(.......)
From the sociological standpoint, biological characteristics cannot explain any social facts, because it is always through social interactions that any social roles, statuses, groups, and institutions
are created and sustained.
Tahir: I think this is truly obfuscating; it is the kind of dogmatic statement that I was arguing about all through this thread. Look at the kind of logic here, or rather lack thereof. Especially look at the foundational role that is assigned to something called "society", the totally unconditioned (according to you, totally unconditioned by nature) that somehow conditions everything else. But where does society then come from? You don't even see that this is the same sort of facile answer that the believer gives to the question of where everything comes from: from God, of course. But where does God come from then? Same with your "Society". It is unconditioned. It just is. Solipsistic, free standing and determined by nothing. Yeah right.
--Thus the "social construction" of homosexuality and heterosexuality, regardless of the biological factors
that influence individual sexual preferences.)
Tahir: Er, excuse me? "Society" is some agency that just "constructs" these identities out of thin air. And it does this "regardless" of biological factors? What utter philosophical vacuity. Actually, just typical sociology.
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