Socio-Political Implications of a Life Lived

Socio-cultural conditioning is at the root of the respective existence of each and every human being. Through various socio-cultural and even political constructs, we are formed into beings capable of participating in structures of social order. Indeed, these structures constitute the means by which humans achieve the ends of civilization. Subsumed under the banner of human conditioning are religious, gender-based, capacity-based and racial considerations, each of which bears heavily on the manner in which an organized and civilized society is formed and furthered. If this same society is to continue its evolution, we must not allow these constructs to dominate independent thought and identity.

Systems of belief are often formed according to religious parameters and the various religions of the world are crucially different insofar as they mandate crucially different modes of existence. The tension between these various ways of living, as mandated by some higher authority, creates a climate potentially ripe for controversy and even forceful disagreement. The Catholic mode of existence, for example, is rooted in an after-life to which all faithful participants hope to gain access. As such, many argue that Catholics are far too committed to proving their relative worth and propriety for a world in which they do not live but only hope to one day live. This world-view implicates serious concerns relating to the extent to which an individual may be engaged with the world. In some instances in which religious hierarchies are so pervasive as to alter its adherents’ capacity for contributing to the world-at-large, organized religion has been identified as potentially destructive.

At the heart of gender v. sexuality discussions is the nature v. nurture debate, which seems destined to define the parameters of the former dialogue for many years to come. This debate turns on the extent to which it may be possible to relegate naturally evolved genetic qualities to a less impactful space with regard to the development of the human being (Pinker, 2004). In other words, there are those who believe that gender is a mere construct, artificially designed and just as susceptible to artificial adjustment through forms of social conditioning. Indeed, there are those who believe that human conditioning is almost entirely capable of overcoming any undesirable evolutionary impact of genetics and nature. However, as Pinker aptly suggests, “If nothing in the mind is innate, then differences among races, sexes, and classes can never be innate, making the blank slate the ultimate safeguard against racism, sexism, and class prejudice” (Pinker 2004). The degree to which the human slate can be called “blank,” however, remains uncertain.

It was a Johns Hopkins doctor with revolutionary and pioneering dreams who coined the term by which we have come to attempt to bridge the gap in understanding between gender and sexuality. Dr. John Money coined the term “gender roles” and, since this time, the concept has been subjected to a variety of functional interpretations (Money, 1998). For Money, and for many of today’s more progressive thinkers, gendering is something of an impropriety in that gender is but an informal construct that is limited by that which can be altered; namely, conditioning designed to alter gender. As such, if gender can be altered, it is more likely than not that sexuality is a form by which gender is determined. The primacy of sexuality has thus been firmly embedded in our social constructs as we seek to distance ourselves from gendered forms and norms.

While not gendered in nature, the varying forms of disability afflicting so many are part and parcel of the core traits by which the character of our society is formed and cultivated. A society prepared to willingly accept all manner of disabled individuals is typically associated with a civilized social hierarchy in which all life is valued equally. Of course, there are those within such social constructs who do not abide by the welcoming initiative of the majority, preferring instead to relegate the disabled class to a sub-human subset of society. Occupying the middle ground of this dialogue is the position of those like Princeton ethicist Peter Singer. Singer believes, for example, that the line drawn between “disabled” and “able-bodied” is far too concrete and should be subject to greater scrutiny. For Singer, there are classes of disabled persons on whom we should not expend resources because their lives are not ones that would benefit from the expenditure of such resources. Of course, this position can be subjected to potentially dangerous over-simplification, which is the risk entailed in seriously addressing the values of incorporating the disabled members of our society into our social constructs and orders in a meaningful way.

Of all forms of human conditioning, perhaps none are more pervasive and outcome-determinative than social class and race. The tension surrounding these topics has never been greater and the extent to which they bear on our continued cultivation of an organized, civilized and productive society cannot be overstated. Class-based prejudices continue to afflict all cultural civilizations and it is just as difficult as ever to transcend classist power hierarchies. Similarly, race consciousness is as high as it has ever been and the nuances of race relations continue to pop up when we least expect them, most recently at the Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, where Russia’s “anti-gay propaganda” laws are almost universally condemned as prejudiced or bigoted. However, in delving further into this law, it becomes clear that race and class are far more complex notions than we have ever considered.

We perceive social class and race simply according to our own biased perceptions of these notions. These perceptions are limited by the spheres in which we exist, through which we are often shielded from all manner of geopolitical nuances and intricacies. As applied to American perceptions of Russian socio-cultural norms relating to class and race, Americans have a very limited understanding of how the latter operates. Accordingly, Americans perceive Russians as classist individuals on account of a law that they perceive as limiting the free expression rights of the homosexual class. Realistically, however, there are very few gay people in Russia and much of Russia is dominated by citizens who have neither confronted nor with to confront a gay person in their lifetimes. Similarly, there are no people of color native to the Russian mainland as there are in the United States, for example. As such, Russian perceptions of race relations are inherently inapplicable to our own. In other words, race-based and class-based societal nuances are unique to a given society and cannot be compared relative to other social orders aside from preexisting versions of the one at issue.

As such, American research suggests that citizens with explicitly racist attitudes rose from 3% between 2008 and 2012, while those with implicitly racist attitudes rose by a whopping 7% during that same time period (Potak, 2013). Certain analysts have suggested that this apparent rise in racial consciousness amounts to a minor setback in the national effort to gain freedom from racially-limited forms of thinking. Ultimately, it is this kind of thinking that results in lessened outcomes for many of America’s most gifted underprivileged children. Whether due to classist attitudes or overly-racialized thinking, many of these youths are unable to fulfill their respective potential due to a simple preoccupation with thinking mired in the very depths of racism. These children concern themselves primarily with how their race defines them and how others perceive it, as opposed to moving forward productively and living a life unbridled by the fear of racially-sensitive stereotyping.

Accordingly, the extent to which ours has become a society dominated by little else aside from class-based considerations and racially-charged delineations is quite remarkable. Today, a person is universally defined by his or her access to the kinds of material possessions that have come to mark one class from another. Racial perceptions are equally polarizing in that members of various racial subsets feel obligated to adhere to a particular brand of racial identity, as opposed to cultivating their own unique brand. In other words, race and class have emerged as vehicles by which the individual can be compromised and thus more easily assimilated into society-at-large. While these forms of identity are routinely presented as the only means of self-definition, it is the slavish adherence to them as appropriate standards for an independent personality that tends to allow them to manifest in ways that serve only to curtail the potential of so many people of lower social class and of color.

The religious, the gendered, the disability-based and the socio-racial dominate the manner in which we perceive our society’s capacity for the cultivation of a meaningful social order that can be perpetuated just as it has always been. As these constructs evolve, we continue to presented with opportunities for growth as individuals; the process by which the collective is enhanced and furthered. Unfortunately, many of these social constructs inhibit our respective capacity for individual thought, which in turn hinders our ability to cultivate unique personal identities, which themselves serve to further the civilized society in which we are to live. As we continue to engage in productive dialogues dealing with the above-referenced and discussed subject matters, we might consider allowing them to exist in and of themselves, as opposed to continually seeking to find them housed within the individual, who is typically viewed as the only means by which these constructs might be physically expressed. Instead of making these restrictive socio-political constructs tangible, we might leave them intangible, which would leave room for the kind of individual growth that has been most lacking in a manner proportionate to that with which the social constructs curtailing them have proliferated.

References

Money, J. (1998). Sin, Science, and the Sex Police: Essays on Sexology and Sexosophy. New York: Prometheus Books, 1998.

Pinker, S. (2004). Why nature & nurture won't go away. Daedalus, 133(4): 5-17.

Potak, M. (2013). A Backlash, Not Necessarily a Setback. NYTimes.com The New York Times, 20 Nov. 2013.