The idea of \u201csocial construction\u201d is really hip in the social sciences and the humanities, or at least it was really hip a decade or two ago. Generally the concept gets invoked with another idea, namely \u201cessentialism.\u201d Here is how the game works. We take some quality \u2013 say race \u2013 and then we argue about its nature. If we are essentialists (and it is pretty unhip to be essentialist about anything), then we would argue that race is somehow an inherent, natural, biological quality. If we are social constructivists (and being the hip, smart people that we are, we are, of course, social constructionists), then we argue that there is nothing inherent about race. All of the characteristics we associate with this concept are actually social creations that are not contingent on nature, essence, or anything else. The distinction gets deployed in normative discussions as well. That which is essential supposedly provides us with a sure foundation for ethical judgments. On the other hand, that which is merely socially constructed is open to revision and reconstruction according to . . . something (socially constructed or otherwise). This particular duo of concepts pops up in discussions Mormon from time to time, and I am skeptical that it is as useful as we hip thinkers think that it is. Indeed, Mormonism may be even hipper than we have thought.
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\nThe social construction\/essentialism paradigm has produced the most heat (light is another matter) in discussions of gender. When the Proclamation on the Family declares that gender is an essential and eternal characteristic we are supposed to get very upset. The reason is that gender is taken as the paradigmatically socially constructed characteristic. Indeed, those who haunt the halls of women\u2019s studies have even created a specialized vocabulary around the distinction. Gender refers to that which is socially constructed \u2013 think everything from nurturing motherhood to the missionary position \u2013 while sex refers strictly to biology, which is taken as essential (subject to the obligatory kibbitzing about hermaphadites). Hence, the Proclamation, by associating things like nurturing and traditional gender roles with eternity has committed the heresy of essentialism. What are<\/i> we to do?<\/p>\n
Thus far, I have seen basically two responses by Mormon intellectuals. First, there are embarassed mea culpas by some, who reluctantly admit that, yes, the Proclamation is a horribly reactionary document containing an indefensible claim of gender essentialism. Efforts at \u201cdamage control\u201d generally consist of demoting the Proclamation from \u201cimportant prophetic doctrinal announcement\u201d to \u201cpolitically motivated press release.\u201d Second, there are those Mormons who pound their fists on the table and insist that some things really are essential and immutable, dang it!<\/p>\n
The caricatures above are set up so that I can propose a third way (you knew they were, didn\u2019t you?): the Mormon deconstruction of the essentialism\/socially constructed dichotomy. Traditionally, God is the ultimate in non-socially constructedness. Divinity and eternity are the great realm of essence, where things exist not as a matter of convention but rather in their true form as what they really are. The concept, of course, is Platonic, and you can find the original statement in The Republic<\/i>, where Plato has Socrates describe the realm of the forms.<\/p>\n