Constructionism Quotes

“Labels such as ‘‘the culture wars,’’ ‘‘the science wars,’’ or ‘‘the Freud wars’’ are now widely used to refer to some of the disagreements that
plague contemporary intellectual life ... But I would like to register a gentle protest. Metaphors influence the mind in many unnoticed ways. The willingness to describe fierce disagreement in terms of the metaphors of war makes the very existence of real wars seem more natural, more inevitable,
more a part of the human condition. It also betrays us into an insensibility toward the very idea of war, so that we are less prone to be aware of how totally disgusting real wars really are.”
― Ian Hacking, The Social Construction of What?

“Specific reifications are variations on this general theme. Marriage, for instance, may be reified as an imitation of divine acts of creativity, as a universal mandate of natural laws, as the necessary consequences of biological or psychological forces, or, for that matter, as a functional imperative of the social system. What all these reifications have in common is their obfuscation of marriage as an ongoing human production. [...] Through reification, the world of institutions appears to merge with the world of nature.”
― Peter Berger, Thomas Luckmann

“The guiding principle when searching for the cause of everything wrong in the world has been, all too often: _cherchez la femme_.”
― Natalie Haynes, Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths

“A person is a point of view. Every person you meet is a creative artist who takes the events of life and, over time, creates a very personal way of seeing the world. Like any artist, each person takes the experiences of a lifetime and integrates them into a complex representation of the world. That representation, the subjective consciousness that makes you you, integrates your memories, attitudes, beliefs, convictions, traumas, loves, fears, desires, and goals into your own distinct way of seeing. That representation helps you interpret all the ambiguous data your senses pickup, helps you predict what’s going to happen, helps you discern what really matters in a situation, helps you decide how to feel about any situation, helps shape what you want, who you love, what you admire, who you are, and what you should be doing at any given moment. Your mind creates a world, with beauty and ugliness, excitement, tedium, friends, and enemies, and you live within that construction. People don’t see the world with their eyes; they see it with their entire life.

Cognitive scientists call this view of the human person “constructionism.” Constructionism is the recognition, backed up by the last half century of brain research, that people don’t passively take in reality. Each person actively constructs their own perception of reality. That’s not to say there is not an objective reality out there. It’s to say that we have only subjective access to it.”
― David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen