The Social Construction Of Ties

Social Constructionism is the premise where the norms of society are passed from generation to generation to the point where they become taken-for-granted assumptions that people automatically believe to be true without any sense of rational thought. These assumptions become followed on a daily basis, never being considered or analysed as people cannot bring themselves to believe that generations of social well-doers in the past could possibly have all been weak-minded sheep or just plain wrong. And so things that vary from social constraints ('hard work is good for the soul'!) to the downright ridiculous (a roast beef meal should only be eaten at Sunday lunchtimes) permeate society to the extent that only the free-thinking few can think outside the box and will continually be ostracised for it.
A good example of social construction which fits somewhere in between the two extremes is the tie. If you work in professional white-collar employment (as I unfortunately do), every morning (after having been woken up by the socially constructed alarm clock) you will then proceed to take a long piece of strangely-shaped material and tie it in a methodical knot around your neck. Let's think about this for a second: you take what is in effect a noose, put it as tightly around your jugular as is humanly possible without causing permanent damage, and then ensure that it will not be dislodged from that zone of discomfort by doing up your top shirt button and folding over the collar! And why do we perform this masochistic practice every day? Because somebody - god knows who, but somebody - in their eternal wisdom of stupidity, decided many moons ago that this was a really smart thing to do. So now, the sheep in the world automatically presume this to be true as so many have done it before them. But, my friends, if you think about it rationally, there is no logical basis as to why we wear these restrictive contraptions of clothing; it is pure social constructionism. Of course, nobody will ever pay attention to this argument, because the overriding principle of being a sheep is that you don't want to think for yourself. Nevertheless, I will always hate ties!

From Casinos To Piracy

A casino is set to open in the Midlands any time now; not one of the 'super-casinos' that have been widely discussed as of late, but still the largest such venture to date in the UK. Casinos are bad for society for one simple reason: the average gambler doesn't stand a chance; or, in more common terminology, 'the house always wins'. This precisely represents the moral decay that is currently taking place around us. Only money matters; big businesses and the strengthening of the economy are given high priority over the fiscal affairs of the indebted masses. As long as the casinos are making this country richer, then the government is blind to all other arguments, and the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen. Personally, I think hardcore gamblers are foolish who ought to learn more willpower and realise that desperation that excessive very quickly gets out of hand; but I still don't want to see free license granted to exploit these people out of their hard-earned cash at every turn. Governments simply demonstrate moral corruption by endorsing this kind of behaviour.

The only gamblers I respect are those intelligent few who are able to temporarily con casinos out of the money which usually resides in the fatcats' grubby paws. Which brings me to...
Piracy of CDs and DVDs. The reason I see a connection here is because I view both these issues as the rich versus the poor; except with piracy the poor are winning! People who, due to working far too many hours in a week or are restricted to a piss-poor minimum wage, don't have the time or the money to go to the cinema every week or buy original discs from the shops at ten pounds a time, are able to gain copies from their friends at much lower cost to be viewed at home at their leisure. Sure, I understand the arguments about organised crime funding terrorism and all that, but all of the 'pirates' that I've ever come into contact with have just been ordinary folk trying to get by with luxuries that they just can't afford. They're decent people who want to watch the latest film without having to steal their kids' lunch money! And anyway, do you really think that the celebrities and multi-millionaire producers give a damn about organised crime? Of course they don't, that's just their sound bite. All they care about is retaining more money and power for their own future; and it scares them to death to think that the little people might be able to take all of that away from them. Bless their little cotton socks if they have to work a bit harder for their millions nowadays and they can't live in mansions anymore. And, to be honest, it's their own fault to begin with; all pirates are doing is setting up their own small businesses and allowing the silent hand of free market economics to run its course. Capitalists have been hoist by their own petard. So up the pirates I say, it helps with redistribution of wealth. Now if only casinos could be razed to the ground...