George Will delivered a keen insight about the role that "social constructs" play in the leftist worldview. His argument came in the context of Rachel Dolezal's highly publicized resignation from the NAACP. Dolezal is a white woman who claims to be African-American, and served as an NAACP chapter leader on that false basis. She has received near universal criticism from the media, but her contention that she is black has left many liberals in blatant self-contradiction.
Dolezal's claim to blackness is based on the liberal belief that all reality is subjective, that no objective reality exists unto itself. This belief undergirds the transgender movement, which defines the true self as one's internal consciousness apart from the body. The real "you" is not your body, but the you inside your body — your feelings. On this logic, Bruce Jenner — now Caitlyn Jenner — has been publicly received as a woman. Dolezal is laying hold to this same logic: her feeling of being black, not her skin color, is what makes her black. The body is irrelevant.
Enter George Will. He commented on this prevalent liberal belief that all reality is socially constructed, or self-constructed. He pointed out that with this view, fantasy equals reality, and the ones who create the fantasy are the ones who wield power.
"It is a favorite phrase on the left that almost everything, including race and personality is a social construct. If everything is a social construct that is created by the promptings of society, then if a sufficient number of extremely clever progressives can take charge of regulating in the most minute way the promptings of society they can produce almost anything they want. They can turn white into black and black into white. She is a symptom and not an encouraging one."
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The left's project of "deconstruction" purports to liberate us from the illusions of the oppressive past. But it is anything but liberating. It would make us subject to the fantasies of the elite, slaves to the world that they envision, create, and enforce.
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