I don’t understand how so many people seem to understand the concept just fine. It sounds oddly complicated to me. The concept to me sounds like collectively concluded delusion or like if society collectively concludes something to be objectively real, that means it’s objectively real. Maybe I’m not understanding correctly?
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A social construct is usually used as a contrast against something like an objective fact or truth about the universe. The name spells out what it is – a “social construct” is something that *society* has *constructed*.
Gravity is not a social construct because gravity exists whether or not we decide to believe in it. If we all woke up tomorrow and decided that gravity didn’t exist, that wouldn’t stop us from dropping off cliffs if we walked over them.
Money is a social construct. If society woke up tomorrow and decided that paper money was worthless for whatever reason, then it *would* be worthless. Society collectively agrees that paper money can be exchanged for goods and services. If society decided tomorrow that paper money was wasteful, or ineffective, and decided to stop honoring it, then paper money would become useless. Nothing about the money *itself* changed – the only thing that changed was how it was seen by society at large.
Here’s the definition Google gives:
>A social construct is a concept that exists not in objective reality, but as a result of human interaction. It exists because humans agree that it exists.
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