#social constructivism

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/specious

1 : having a false look of truth or genuineness : sophistic specious reasoning 2 : having deceptive attraction or allure 3 obsolete : showy

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Noam Chomsky: If you look at what's happening, I think it's pretty easy to figure out what's going on. I mean, suppose you are a literary scholar at some elite university. Or, you know, anthropologist or whatever. I mean, if you do your work seriously, that’s fine, you know. But you don’t get any big prizes for it.

On the other hand, you take a look over in the rest of the university and you’ve got these guys in the physics department and the math department and they have all kinds of complicated theories, which of course we can’t understand, but they seem to understand them. And they have, you know, principles and they deduce complicated things from the principles and they do experiments and they find either they work or they don’t work. And that’s really, you know, impressive stuff.

So I want to be like that too. I want to have a theory. In the humanities, you know, literary criticism, anthropology and so on, there’s a field called theory. We’re just like the physicists. They talk incomprehensibly, we can talk incomprehensibly. They have big words, we’ll have big words. They draw, you know, far-reaching conclusions, we’ll draw far-reaching conclusions. We’re just as prestigious as they are.

Now if they say, well look, we’re doing real science and you guys aren’t, that’s white male, sexist, you know, bourgeois or whatever the answer is. How are we any different from them?

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I worry that when I describe this idiocy as "fraud," people think I'm exaggerating, being hyperbolic or otherwise overstating it.

I'm not. If anything, I'm understating it.

All of this postmodern crap we're dealing with is completely fake. All this ridiculous intersectional jargon is a big grift. All of these domains producing this ridiculous nonsense are bogus and corrupt. All the scholarship they produce is fraudulent. It's fake from top to bottom.

All of it.

These people are cloaking asinine retardation in fancy words to cover up how asinine and retarded this asinine retardation is.

The people producing it are shallow and stupid. Not to mention, envious and spiteful about the status and authority of science. They just use absurd jargon to hide that fact and trick you into thinking it's too deep and profound for you to understand. But when it's decoded into simple English, à la the Tweet summaries above, the retarded, moronic nature becomes obvious.

The response to this kind of ridiculous shit needs to be laughter and derision, not tenure or a tertiary qualification.

The philosophy of personality explores the nature, origin, and development of individual identity and selfhood. It involves questions about the essence of what makes someone who they are, how personality is formed, the relationship between personality and free will, and how external and internal factors shape personal characteristics.

Here’s an overview of key concepts and perspectives:

1. Nature of Personality

Personality refers to the unique patterns of thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and experiences that define an individual. Philosophers examine whether personality is something inherent (fixed by nature) or whether it evolves over time (shaped by nurture and experience).

Essentialism vs. Existentialism:

Essentialism posits that personality is rooted in an essential nature that is relatively stable over time. This is often linked to the idea of a fixed "soul" or "self" that defines identity.

Existentialism, on the other hand, argues that personality is fluid, shaped by personal choices and life experiences. For existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre, human beings are not born with a pre-defined personality but create themselves through actions and decisions. Sartre famously claimed, "Existence precedes essence," meaning that who we are is the result of our lived experiences, not an inherent nature.

2. Personality and Identity

Self-Identity: Philosophers such as John Locke have explored the link between personality and personal identity, especially how continuity of consciousness relates to being the same person over time. Locke's memory theory of identity suggests that we are the same person to the extent that we remember our past actions and experiences.

Psychological Continuity: Theories of psychological continuity focus on how personality and mental states over time create a coherent sense of self. If a person experiences radical changes in personality or memory loss, philosophers question whether they remain the same person.

3. Determinism vs. Free Will in Personality

Determinism: Determinists argue that personality is shaped by a combination of genetics, environment, and social conditioning. According to this view, free will plays little to no role in shaping personality because external factors like upbringing, culture, and biology predetermine how we think, feel, and act.

Free Will: Opposing this, many existentialists and humanistic philosophers believe that individuals have the power to transcend their circumstances and freely shape their personalities. Sartre argued that people are "condemned to be free," meaning that they must take responsibility for their actions and the personality traits they develop.

4. Personality and Moral Responsibility

Character and Virtue Ethics: Philosophers like Aristotle emphasized the role of character in shaping ethical behavior. According to Aristotle, personality traits like courage, temperance, and wisdom can be cultivated through practice and habit, leading to a virtuous life. In this view, personality is not just a collection of traits but something tied to one's moral development.

Moral Luck: A challenge in the philosophy of personality is the idea of moral luck—the notion that aspects of one’s personality may be shaped by circumstances outside of their control, yet they are still held morally accountable for their actions. For example, someone born with a naturally aggressive disposition may find it harder to behave ethically, raising questions about responsibility and fairness.

5. Personality and the Unconscious

The role of the unconscious mind in shaping personality has been a major topic of discussion, especially in the works of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Freud proposed that unconscious desires and conflicts shape much of our personality, and many of our behaviors are driven by unconscious motives rather than rational choices.

Jung expanded on Freud’s ideas by introducing the collective unconscious, which he argued contains archetypes that influence individual personalities. These archetypes are universal symbols and themes that shape human experience and personality development.

6. Personality and Social Context

Sociological and Cultural Influences: Many contemporary philosophers and social theorists emphasize that personality is not developed in isolation but in interaction with society and culture. Social constructivism suggests that much of our personality is shaped by societal norms, values, and roles. According to this view, personality traits are often expressions of the expectations and constraints placed on individuals by their social environment.

Gender and Personality: Feminist philosophers like Judith Butler argue that gender, as a central aspect of personality, is a social performance rather than an inherent trait. In this sense, personality is something individuals enact within the framework of societal norms.

7. Personality and the Self

Concept of the Self: Philosophers debate whether there is a "core" self behind personality traits or whether the self is an illusion, constructed through interactions with the world. Some argue for a unified self, where personality is an expression of a consistent internal essence. Others, such as David Hume, believed that the self is a bundle of perceptions with no fixed identity, constantly in flux.

Narrative Identity: Some philosophers, like Paul Ricoeur, suggest that individuals create their identities through the stories they tell about themselves. Personality, in this view, is tied to the personal narrative that individuals construct over time, making sense of their past experiences and future goals.

Is like. And I say this gently.

You need to learn a new coping mechanism.

Avoidance is a survival tactic, but it’s a temporary one.

If the most you can handle is panicking at the state of the world for a bit and then going “yeah but I can’t do anything. It is what it is.” And pulling up tiktok to watch cute videos,

If your limit for engaging at all is “I voted that’s all I can do”

You are not meaningfully contributing to this fight.

You need to learn how to increase your tolerance for stomaching how shitty the world is, and/or you need to be solution oriented.

I don’t care what you do. Read theory, put your phone or whatever down for a bit and genuinely THINK about a problem and how YOU YOURSELF RIGHT NOW can help even a little bit. Practice being uncomfortable. Learn what your limits are. Get involved with any possible mutual aid in your area.

Are you trans and mad about the executive orders? Find a trans organization in your area. “There aren’t any” are you positive? Where is the closest one? Is there a gay bar near you? No? Where’s the closest one? Can you feasibly get to it?

It’s one thing if the closest gay bar is 98 miles away, but for a lot of you I don’t think it is.

And if it is? THEN WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Sit in on a city council meeting. Volunteer at a homeless shelter (non religious if possible). Even just attempting to talk to your neighbors can help fight individualism that capitalism thrives on. ANYTHING.

In short, the social production of nature confuses ‘modification’ and ‘construction’. For its advocates, touching is building. However, even if we touch a tree, it does not mean that we have ‘built’ the tree. The tree retains its independent existence. While we can build a house, it is not possible to build nature by sowing, cutting trees or mining coal. Rather, all economic activities are dependent on trees and coal, whose processes of formation are independent of humans. Nature is an objective presupposition of production. Vogel’s constructivist critique of nature welcomes Bill McKibben’s ‘end of nature’ in a literal sense, but the end of nature is simply not the case. Even today human labour is extremely dependent upon what is produced by nature without any human intervention, namely fossil fuel. If there were really no longer any nature left, there would no longer be anything for capital to extract. Capitalism and our economic activities require nature at least as a form of natural resource that exists prior to its extraction and exploitation.