Degrees of A Social Construct - Lesley Zore

Recognizing how social constructs overlay with each other - through intersectionality and self-perpetuation mechanics - obviously shows their dependence on the Social Power and other constructs. It is thus unacceptable the study of the constructs has not yet derived at the seperation of social constructs according to their dependencies.

We can first confirm through our glorious tools named relativism, but-why-ism, etc., that all we have to interpret the environment with is empiricism. Whatever we materialistically or consequentially derive from the interactive structure of empiricism is thus a social construct: whatever information we process and then develop through communication must be a construct.

We can thus say concepts derived from empiricism are social constructs simply because empiricism is commonly developed, regardless of the present existance of state hierarchy and society in large.

We can thus allow for basic empiricist concepts we experience to be social constructs. This point has been derived by various philosophical factions already, and as the lack of truth becomes an accepted academic concept, this point empirically prevails.

We can thus conclude the concept of time is a social construct, and is furthermore independent of the present or future existence of the environment, though dependent on past development of empiricism by society.

Time, as Juan Posadas derived, is dependent on material conditions of the observer. When our travel speeds increase, as production is sped up, and cultural progress accelerated, less time is necessary for social goals to be both accomplished and revised, either for a community or an individual. Time thus changes its form depending on the conditions of the observer, one of them the empiricist concept of time being.

However, is it possible to arrive at a social construct not dependent on material conditions either, but on empiricism only, ignoring the possibility of access to empiricism being a material condition itself?

There is the concept of being. While not everyone can afford to ask themselves whether they exist, everyone can empirically say they exist, regardless of metaphysical and etymological validity of their existence. This empirical self-awareness is constructed through our understanding of the self - it is the most basic line of a social construct, necessary for other social nets to develop.

Lesleyism names social constructs, dependent on nothing but direct empiricism, and no (other) material conditions, a primary social construct.

From this very base of existence, we can return to the more problematic concept of time. Is it truly only empiricism and societal material conditions which determine time? Is our perception of time not dependent on our social position, granting diverging conditions of self-experience, time portrayal and logistics? We must thus move time a step further, while we examine a true secondary social construct: that, derived only through societal material conditions and empiricism.

One such construct is the distribution of economic sectors. We know how personal material conditions and social power influence the power hierarchy - social, economic and cultural. But much more interesting to this question is how the proportion of economic sectors does not change to accomodate the wealthy: it goes the other way around. Of course, those with social power may attempt to move production towards the third or even fourth economic sector, but that will only work for as long as societal material conditions are appropriate and comfort is plenty. Furthermore, those with social power cannot decelerate the redistribution of economic sectors, as this concept will then simply move forward on its own and remove those who will not adapt.

Distribution of economy into sectors (First - resources, second - production from resources, third - service from products, fourth - work of the intelligentsia and the governing from those products) is thus a secondary social construct: it depends on empiricism and societal material conditions, but not also on personal material conditions.

We could now group all social constructs which depend on personal material conditions into the tertiary group, however, one issue remains.

Personal social power of the self affects social constructs that have to do with us differently than social power of others does.

For example, the very existence of a state is dependent, other than on empiricism and societal material conditions, also on the personal material conditions of the ones with extensive social power - thus on the existence of social power itself. In the meanwhile, my position within a state is furthermore dependent on my personal conditions - whether or not I hold the social power, whether or not my personal conditions are those of the ones with social power.

We can derive the difference between Existence of Social Power, Conditions of those with Social Power, and Personal Conditions relative to Social Power - all these are crucial factors, and different, though not fully independent, ones.

An example of a social construct with all secondary social construct requirements, but also with the ones of the Existence of Social Power, is the very Existence of power hierarchies - social, economic, cultural. While their forms depend on the needs of those with social power, thus their material conditions, the existence of these power hierarchies depends on the existence of social power.

Thus, the existence of a state, of unequal economic structures, and of cultural oppression against minorities, persists, whether or not its form changes. As the material conditions of those in power changed in the transition from feudalism to capitalism, so did the class structure; but classes did not disappear; if anything, they polarized. This is because, as said, the existence of power hierarchy is not dependent on material conditions of those who already have power: but on empiricism of understanding material conditions, on societal material conditions, and of this allowing for social power to be strong enough to exist at all.

The very existence of the suppressive-class state apparatus, of class divisions, of cultural oppression (against minorities and limiting the public access to knowledge) is a tertiary social construct.

Discussing the quaternary degree of social constructs, we arrive at the question of the separation of personal material conditions of those with social power and of personal material conditions of each individual. While they absolutely are not the same thing - that we have already addressed - they are closely linked. However, they are not of the same level. It is the material conditions, and those the needs, of those with social power, that dictate others' material conditions. Those with social power absolutely are reliant on societal material conditions, thus on societal productivity, but not on individual's interactionism. We can thus conclude that while quaternary social constructs must depend on all the factors tertiary social constructs do, they as well depend on the material conditions of those with social power.

An example of quaternary social construct can thus be both the contents and the very existence and form of religion, morality, ethics, values, norms which are accepted in the culture the social power in question interacts with extensively. Cultural views on common values are of course dependent on the needs of the powerful few, and through socialization force the masses to perpetuate them without contributing their own unique criticism. Only with the cracks in the whole system, as cultural criticism of the social power is rising, does the structure tremble. But the unification of the red and the black banner, which is to threaten the powerful few, is a whole different question.

Thus we can name societal values the fourth degree of a, thus a quaternary, social construct.

What is however dependent on the personal material conditions of the individual is their interaction. The influence of the environment, be it constructive, violent, educative, crippling or otherwise, will always be dependent on the material propper describing the individual, for as long as material conditions are different individual-to-individual. It has been shown a number of times how economic power, social status, and sociocultural capital, together with other factors, always affect one's operation within a society, thus social effects on that very person, forming personal social constructs, such as are the social construction of gender, of binarization (from bimodalization) of sexual characteristics, personal views, et cetera. This is a social construct. However, is it pentary? Or is there something between a quaternary social construct and something like gender?

What is thus to separate the degree of social construct of, for example, gender and race? Are they not both as much of a social construct? They are, though their dependencies are not the same.

Race and gender are both formed through person-society interaction and are dependent on personal material conditions. Oppression defines them both: racial and gendered differences. Both required oppression to form: the antagonism of classes created social influences on gender following the Neolithic Revolution and developed them to their modern form, while antagonism of classes created extreme racial inequality through its needs of colonialism etc. Race does not exist but in the mode of oppression. One who is white is just one who is affected by whiteness: lack of racial oppression. Thus if there is no interest in the oppression of those disadvantaged on the basis of race, race falls. It is not behavioural (except in some fringe concepts, which are all a result of oppression, and resolve themselves as soon as the hand of the oppressed is forced no more). However, gender persists in living individuals once social power is retracted, once oppression is retracted, for gender affects all behavioural, self-perception and hierarchical self-perception. If we remove racial oppression completely, though hard to achieve, whiteness will be demolished, gladly. However, abolition of gender requires more. It requires for the living individuals' identity to slowly fade away: though gender is fluid, and may decrease once no longer enforced, one who has been gendered, will have a hard time behaviourally and cognitively being gender neutral. While behavioural differences on racial lines only exist in the relation to the power hierarchy, behavioural differences, those same changes, on gender lines, exist within all interactions of a human being.

While both gender and race are a social construct, we can see race is only dependent on: empiricism of existence, societal material conditions, existence of social power, material conditions of social power, personal material conditions. Race is a pentary social construct. In the meanwhile, gender is further dependent on behavioural internalized tendencies, which race is not dependent on. Race is only dependent on internalization for as long as momentary self-perpetuation goes, but has no empirical behavioural internalization. In the meanwhile, gender does: even without oppression, one who was gendered due to living within oppression in the past, can have empirical behavioural internalization. Thus the further effect through the sixth degree of a social construct is empirical behavioural internalization (which as shown persists for as long as the individual who was gendered within a power hierarchy exists, unless they undergo a lengthy change of social gender and self-perception).

We can thus name the following degrees of a social construct.

 - First Degree. Based on societal empiricism. Ex.: empirical existence.

 - Second Degree. Based on societal empiricism and societal material conditions. Ex.: distribution of economic sectors.

 - Third Degree. Based on societal empiricism, societal material conditions, and the existence of social power. Ex.: the existence of a state hierarchy.

 - Fourth Degree. Based on societal empiricism, societal material conditions, existence of social power, and material conditions of social power. Ex.: societal values.

 - Fifth Degree. Based on societal empiricism, societal material conditions, existence of social power, material conditions of social power, and personal material conditions. Ex.: race.

 - Sixth Degree. Based on societal empiricism, societal material conditions, existence of social power, material conditions of social power, personal material conditions and empirical behavioural internalization. Ex.: gender.

There may be more degrees of social constructs but these are the divisions Lesleyism interests in. They are useful at describing results of antagonisms of classes, of internal class antagonism, of oppression, and of workers' and minority liberation. They are the useful analytical division, the division to describe the overlap of class conflict, interactionism and intersectionality. They are the Lesleyist Degrees of Social Construct. They are the degrees of social construct derivable through dialectical materialism.