The objective reality behind social construction

 This is the second entry to my series of posts on social constructivism. An important criticizism that have been brought forward by both scholars and public intellectuals have been that social constructivism reduces the human experience. If there is no "objective" reality, then there are no ways to explain the root causes of suffering. 

In a 2012 article by Tracey Loughrahn this criticism is partialy met. The article revolves around the social construction of a psychatric diagnosis - shell shock - which commonly labelled to soldiers in the first world war. The common denomenator for this diagnos was that the soldiers became passive in various ways, from withindrawing into a shell which the outside world had limited possibility to connect with to somatic syptoms such as loosing the ability to use ones legs. In her article, Loughrahn puts forward the notion that this was reported from all over Europe in the early stages of war became described as a psychatric illness. However, given the nature of shell shocks many expression one could ask themselv if this was really one diagnosis - or if it today would be labelled under several different diagnoses. And it is here the social construction comes in: by rendering a wast amount of bodily disfunctions the state managed to gain control over the patients and thus they could be treated. Furthermore, victims of shell shocks were divided into different categories where the most serious cases led to discharge from the armies. 

Does this mean that "shell shock" does not exist? In my reading of Loughrahn this is not the case. Shell Shock do exist, but it is diagnosis that is created in a specifical historical context and with a specific understanding of the syptoms. The state in itself exists - as well as the practices sourrunding it. But it would also be possible to label shell shock as something else  and today we might have spoken about it as a form of PTSD. 



Why then, does this matter? The answer to this is that the concept of shell shock have real consequences for real people, even though it is rooted in a social construct. For starters the severity of the diagnosis meant the difference between life and death for young men in the army. If they would get classified as having severe symptomes, they would become discharged. In a war where the expected life-time of soldier was a few weeks to month in the trenches, the discharge would mean that the soldier survived the war. On a larger scale, a to wide definition of shell shock would whoever also jeopardize the war effort, since this form of war is depending on the amount of soldiers. Therefore, the construction of "shell shock" have consequences, both for the 18 year old soldier in the trench and for society at large. Thereby, history can not be understood as an reflection objective reality but rather how this reality was understood and thus enabled certain historical events. 

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