. . .what was nothing more than an invitation, a preamble to investigation has, by and large, been concerted instead into a conclusion--e.g. "sex is a social construction," "race is a social construction," "the nation is an invention," and so forth, the tradition of invention. The brilliance of the pronouncement was blinding. Nobody was asking what's the next step? What do we do with this old insight? If life is constructed, how come it appears so immutable? How come culture appears so natural?

back