Comments on: What Does 90 Look Like? The Social Construction of Aging

By: Hbakker

Hbakker — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 19:00:00 +0000

If you do get around to looking up immigration patterns in The Netherlands then also look into the history of the Dutch Republic and The Netherands in the general sense. I am frequently surprised that very few people in North America have a clue about Burgundy, the Treaty of Westphalia, or the way in which the Republic was changed into a Kingdom by G.B. after the Napoleonic Wars. The history reveals that what we now call Belgium and The Netherlands has always been a cross-roads. Many of the French Calvinist or Post-Calvinist Protestants (Huguenots), for example, went to the Southern Netherlands (now Belgium) and then continued on to the Dutch Republic in the Northern Netherlands (i.e. today’s Netherlands). Jews from Portugal first went to Antwerp and then, when Hapsburg Spanish armies took over the southern part, continued to Amsterdam. In other words, do not just think in terms of the last fifty years or so. It took me a long time to un-learn the ideas about Dutch nationalism that I had learned as a little boy. We cannot accept Hitler and Himmler’s simplistic ideas about a “Nordic” or “Germanic” race, yet the stereotypes persist. Even I was a bit surprised visiting Sweden and Norway, but I should not have been.

By: Hbakker

Hbakker — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:46:00 +0000

There is a social construction component to everything human. the idea of social construction does not lose its meaning by discussing perceptions of age as having a social construction component. the video does make an argument. In fact, it makes many “arguments.” Of course, it depends on how we define the word “argument.” Charles Sanders Peirce’s definition of that “sign” is my favorite.

By: Hbakker

Hbakker — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:44:00 +0000

The notion of a measurement called a “foot” is a social construct. Similarly, a “meter” is a social construct. There are not any literal meters or feet in nature. The precise meaning of an inch or a milimeter has changed as more precise ways of using instruments for measurements have been invented. Any standard of measurement is a social construct (e.g. Fahrenheit versus Celsius, Angstroms).

By: Hbakker

Hbakker — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:40:00 +0000

To say that the notion of “social construction” involves something called “social studies” rather than “social science” is a gross misunderstanding of the word “science.” Science is not limited to the most obvious aspects of a situation. Medical science got a lot of things wrong in the 19th century (and continues to get a lot wrong in the 21st century) but we still call it science.
(It will be even more scientific when we have cures for a whole range of horrible diseases.) To reduce everything to “breaking one’s hip” is silly. Much of what we know in social science now was not at all obvious one hundred years ago. For example, it is now scientifically obvious that there is only one human race both biologically and sociologically. The animal classified as homo sapiens sapiens is the same all over the world culturally and structurally. The regularities that are characteristic of class, status and power have not changed significantly, although the forms that societies take have changed dramatically in the last 5,000 years. That is part of the reason why I consider Max Weber the “Einstein” of comparative-historical sociological Wissenschaft. I guess that is why I bothered to comment rather extensively below.

By: Hbakker

Hbakker — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:33:00 +0000

It is a minor point, but worth a footnote, that The Netherlands had colonies after WWII. The “police action” in the Netherlands East Indies lasted until approximately 1950, although the Republic of Indonesia was declared to be independent on August 17, 1945. Even after independence (merdeka) the area now called Irian Jaya remained under control of the Netherlands, just as the eastern part of Papua New Guinea remained under Australian control.

By: Hbakker

Hbakker — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:30:00 +0000

Again, the terms “black” and “white” are very, very misleading. My problem with the sociological literature on cultural “race” in the U.S. is illustrated by the loose use of the terms in the discussion above. A person of African descent may or may not have a darker skin. Let us not forget that before the Emancipation Proclamation and other key documents like the 13th Amendment anyone with any trace of “Africa” parentage was a “Negro.” Skin color means very little. Culture is very important. Language is very important. In the Netherlands East Indies people from Japan were “white” because they did not neatly fit into the other political categories. Soldiers from Africa who fought with the Netherlands East Indies armies (KNIL) were “white” because of their military allegiance. They fought against “aboriginal” Indonesians in places like Aceh (Atjeh) who were often of mixed Arabic and Middle Eastern descent. In a very real sense there is only one human race. Biologically that is the race called homo sapiens sapiens. (The second sapiens is now necessary because of the discovery of the pervasiveness of Neanderthal genes.)
The video was certainly very good at bringing out aspects of social construction in addition to age. I would even argue that cultural race is more of a social construct than age per se. But age is a social construct to some extent. Note how people in their fifties and sixties dress now versus how they used to dress in many places in the world one hundred years ago!

By: Hbakker

Hbakker — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:20:00 +0000

The concept of “Whiteness” as a social construct is often discussed in very American-centric terms by American writers. If you mean “skin color” then there are no morphologicall purely white people in the Netherlands. The general skin color is a kind of pink. Many Dutch people tend to have a different skin color than Celtic people. The white versus black distinction grows out of the American experience, especially slavery. There are many people in the Netherlands who were born in Indonesia or whose parents or grandparents are from Indonesia. Many of them are mixed-race people. Since “race” is a cultural term it is important to once again note that we are all homo sapiens sapiens. The person who is 100% Dutch but who has dark skin is no less “White” economically than the person who is 100% Dutch and has a lighter skin. A lot of the discrimination and racism in the Netherlands today is against recent immigrant from countries in the Middle East and Turkey. Those people are morphologically light skinned but often economically not as well off.

By: Hbakker

Hbakker — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:15:00 +0000

In Dutch we also use a different way of discussing time. Instead of saying one thirty we say “half two” (half twee). Little things like that have made me very aware of the way in which language shapes one’s worldview. I am fluently bilingual and that has helped me to understand something about social construction, although strong versions of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis may be a bit misleading. We have a Dutch word that cannot be translated: gezelligheid. It refers to the cozy environment of a typical Dutch house. That may have something to do with the weather in the Netherlands. It rains a lot and it is great to get inside away from the rain and drink some strong tea.

By: Hbakker

Hbakker — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:11:00 +0000

I was born in the Netherlands and speak Dutch fluently. It was fun to see the different faces of Dutch people. Not only does it illustrate the way in which human faces change as we age, it also illustrates the multi-cultural nature of Dutch society. The stereotype of the Dutch person has never been accurate. Since I was born in the northern part of the Netherlands, the Province of Friesland, I myself look a bit more stereotypically “Dutch.” But in a sense I am “Frisian.” (When writing about human beings it is “Frisian” and when writing about horses and cows it is “Friesian”!) But even in Friesland the people are of many different morphological characteristics. I am now “vijf en zestig” (65)!

By: Mae Spires

Mae Spires — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 18:42:00 +0000

Another example: My friend started getting gray hair at 18, and my mom only starting getting it when she hit 50.

By: Alsn2

Alsn2 — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 22:25:00 +0000

Well, they’re also more likely to have long beards so I guess it depends what hair you’re measuring and how we average it. :)

By: Li

Li — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 22:23:00 +0000

Speaking as a non-humanities member of academia, how is this deflecting me from “serious inquiries”?

By: Alsn2

Alsn2 — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 22:20:00 +0000

I thought that was interesting too!

By: anon

anon — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 21:46:00 +0000

If you think Vadim is substantially wrong about that (and not merely glib), I’d be glad to hear why. I don’t want to speak for the whole of sociology, but I think that this blog’s treatment of the topic of “social construction” is pretty disappointing, for reasons I’ve outlined elsewhere (in a tone you will hopefully find agreeable).

By: Brandon

Brandon — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 16:31:00 +0000

Your turd-tastic tone is certainly a anti-social construction.