For humanity: Social constructs are meant to serve the people, not the other way around. — 123rf
IN OUR country today, the phrase “social construct” is often used rather casually, particularly in discussions about ethnicity, identity and social relations. Many speak about it with great confidence, yet few pause to ask what the term actually means.
Worse still, some with political or ideological agendas deliberately distort its meaning - treating social constructs as if they were divine truths carved in stone, immune from reflection, reform, or evolution.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding.
A social construct is not a sacred object. It is not a natural law. It is not eternal.
A social construct is, at its core, a human-made idea or framework created to help people live together, regulate behaviour, assign meaning, or organise society. It exists because we collectively agree that it exists – and it continues to exist only as long as it serves its purpose.
In other words, social constructs are useful fictions. They are tools, not idols.
What it truly means
The social contract itself is one of the most important social constructs through which we organise power, rights, and obligations. Yet in recent years, the term “social contract” has been bandied about rather loosely by many quarters – often less as a serious philosophical or legal oncept and more as a rhetorical device to promote particular political or ideological agendas, regardless of what the term truly means.
When terms are used this way, they cease to enlighten and instead become instruments of persuasion or fear.
Take the Constitution as an example. The Constitution is undeniably a social construct. It is a human-made document, negotiated, drafted, debated and agreed upon at a particular moment in history.
Certain provisions may be declared fundamental, entrenched, or difficult to amend – and rightly so, especially where they protect justice, dignity, or social stability.
But acknowledging something as fundamental does not magically transform it into something metaphysical or infallible.
A Constitution, like any social construct, must ultimately serve justice within changing social realities. When circumstances evolve, when society matures, or when injustices emerge from rigid interpretations, it is neither heretical nor reckless to revisit our assumptions. It is, in fact, responsible governance.
History repeatedly shows that societies which refuse to re-examine their constructs in the face of changing realities tend to stagnate – or worse, fracture.
Perhaps the clearest illustration of how fluid social constructs truly are is money. Money has no intrinsic value. It has value only because we collectively agree that it does. Over time, money has taken many forms – barter, precious metals, coins, paper notes, fiat currency, and now digital representations. The form of money has changed repeatedly, often without most people consciously realising it.
Today, many of us carry no cash at all. Numbers on a screen, digital wallets, and electronic transfers have quietly replaced physical currency. This transformation happened not because of emotion or nostalgia, but because societies allowed the social construct of money to evolve in pursuit of efficiency, convenience, and economic growth.
We did not cling to cowrie shells out of sentimentality. We adapted. Yet, when it comes to ethnic relationships, we behave very differently.
Here, we suddenly become rigid. Defensive. Emotional. Existing social arrangements are treated as if they were immutable laws of nature rather than historically contingent constructs shaped by colonial legacies, political compromises, and past insecurities. Any suggestion of evolution is quickly framed as an attack, a threat, or an attempt to destabilise society.
Why is this so? The uncomfortable answer is that human beings are not always rational. We are often guided by emotion, fear, familiarity, and primitive instincts rather than objective reasoning or long-term collective welfare. Ethnic identity touches deep psychological nerves – belonging status, and perceived survival. These emotions make societies easy targets for manipulation by those who benefit from division.
The cost of rigidity
Political actors understand this well. It is far easier to mobilise fear than to build trust. It is easier to preserve outdated constructs than to explain why evolution is necessary. And it is far more convenient to present man-made arrangements as “unchangeable” than to admit they were human choices in the first place.
The cost of this rigidity is high. Social inefficiency, mistrust, polarisation and brain drain become normalised. The nation expends enormous emotional and political energy managing tensions instead of building shared prosperity and long-term resilience.
Let me be clear: evolution does not mean erasure. Reform does not mean denial of history. And reassessment does not mean disrespect. A mature society should be capable of asking honest questions about whether its existing social constructs still serve justice, harmony, and the collective well-being of all its citizens.
If we can quietly allow money to transform for economic efficiency, surely we can allow our thinking about ethnic relationships to mature for social cohesion and national progress.
The real tragedy is not that social constructs exist. The tragedy is when we forget that we created them – and then allow them to imprison us.
Progress requires courage: the courage to think beyond inherited assumptions, the courage to resist emotional manipulation and the courage to prioritise the future over the comfort of the familiar past.
Social constructs are meant to serve humanity – not the other way around.
Senior lawyer Dato Sri Dr Jahaberdeen Mohamed Yunoos is the founder and chairman of Yayasan Rapera, an NGO that promotes community-based learning and compassionate thinking among Malaysians. The views expressed here are entirely his own.
