Since we know that your challenger probably believes that you, in fact, did do the trick you say you did, we have to look for another reason motivating his challenge. As I just said, what he really means has more to do with whether or not the trick “counts.” And whether something “counts” is a great deal more subjective than whether or not something happened.

In that case, the worldview really isn’t empirical at all. It’s a constructed worldview—or, put academically, it’s motivated by the tenets of Social Constructivism. Social Constructivism usually suggests that things like knowledge don’t exist independently of people, which is to say that all knowledge is somehow manufactured. In other words, if you want knowledge of something, you always have to learn about something else first. Really, it’s an infinite regression that only ends when you decide you’ve had enough.

So, when you film yourself doing a topside soul down a rail and show the footage to your rollerblading hommie, he accepts the trick as having happened, but he’s also already been educated as to what a “topside soul” is in the first place. You show that same clip to Uncle Bob and he can’t confirm that you did a “topside” anything.

But it gets more complicated than that because we already know that proof of your trick isn’t the only thing your challenger is after. Since you didn’t film or photograph your trick, what your challenger is really doing is accusing you of not participating in rollerblading the way he wants you to—or rather, in a way that he thinks is normal.

In fact, he’s suggesting that you aren’t doing your share to be part of the spectacle. He wants you to do what “everyone else” is doing because it causes social cohesion within our community.

Now, there isn’t anything inherently bad or malevolent about that. And I’m not saying that you should or should not film yourself. Social cohesion is great for rollerblading because it creates unity in our culture. On the other hand, it forces us to value certain things above others—and the things that you find yourself wanting to do probably aren’t things you thought up on your own.

So, in a way, rollerblading is both empiricist and socially constructed at the same time. There must be an external reality independent of people, but rollerblading can’t exist without knowledge. Whether you think one is more important than the other is entirely up to you.

Thanks for reading.

-fs