Environmental Sociology : The Fundamental Problem with Humankind's Ideologies of Nature
Environmental Sociology
The Fundamental Problem with Humankind's Ideologies of Nature.
An optimistic view of human/environmental processes and interdependencies.
If no organic being excepting man had possessed any mental power, or if his powers had been of a wholly different nature from those of the lower animals, then we should never have been able to convince ourselves that our high faculties had been gradually developed. But it can be shewn that there is no fundamental difference of this kind. We must also admit that there is a much wider interval in mental power between one of the lowest fishes, as a lamprey or lancelet, and one of the higher apes, than between an ape and a man; yet this interval is filled up by numberless gradations. (Darwin, C., p. 445)
Environmental Sociology
There is a problem with the way humans interact and view their environment. This problem causes humankind to neglect, abuse and manipulate their surroundings with little or no regard for the consequences. Obviously, this causes many ills to all inhabitants of the forgotten earth, including humankind themselves. This strange behaviour seems to stem from the fact that humans forgot a long time ago that they are themselves a part of nature. The concepts of domination over nature and the conquest of nature are everyday reminders of this oversight. If humans cause harm to their own natural environment, and the reason they do this is a perceived understanding by humankind that they are somehow superior to nature, then it seems that the study of this phenomena must be undertaken by sociological means. In this essay I will explore the sociological view of the interaction between humans and their environment. Surprisingly, this is an extremely new way to study what has been called environmentalism; to study the human component of the holistic system that is the environment. In classical sociology there was very little work done in this field, and there are some evidently problematic assumptions that were made about our place in nature. There is more work being done these days, and the majority of that work is concerned with modifying previous modes of study and sociological views of the environment. We will first explore the history of thought in environmental sociology, followed by a discussion of current trends in the field, and finally, some possibilities for improvement and advancement in this field will be offered.
The History of Environmental Sociology
Sociology has traditionally made a distinction between humans and nature. As we will see, this is precisely the problem that humans coincidentally suffer from when interacting with their surroundings. Automatically, it seems we are put at a disadvantage by forming human social structures and ignoring the larger all-embracing society of the animal and vegetal realms. If one were to think in terms of humans as an integral part of nature, and therefore inherently natural, many problems associated with the abuse of the environment should be positively affected. Classical sociology was concerned primarily with humans as a part of systems. These systems were limited primarily to the social and economic sectors of human society. The emphasis was on something akin to soul searching; looking within for solutions that are available without. As Redclift and Benton point out in Social Theory and the Environment, "The classical sociologies deriving from Weber and the German neo-Kantian tradition, and from Durkheim and French structuralism, establish (albeit by different theoretical moves) sharp nature/society dichotomies."(Redclift & Benton, p.45). It seems that the traditional sociologies paid scant attention to the range that the human habitat may take, and focused more squarely on man. Let's explore the views classical sociologists held on humans and their relation to their environment.
Durkheim
Emile Durkheim was one of the founding fathers of sociology, and was the first French sociologist. To Durkheim, men were creatures whose desires were unlimited. Unlike other animals, they are not satiated when their biological needs are fulfilled. "The more one has, the more one wants, since satisfactions received only stimulate instead of filling needs." It follows from this natural insatiability of the human animal that his desires can only be held in check by external controls, that is, by societal control. Society imposes limits on human desires and constitutes "a regulative force [which] must play the same role for moral needs which the organism plays for physical needs." In well-regulated societies, social controls set limits on individual propensities so that each individual knows the eventual limit to his/her activity. Durkheim did distinguish the social realm from the psychic, biological and mineral realms, yet he saw society as a phenomenon of nature. This can be witnessed in many plant or animal settings, where associations are formed which enable the species to survive or flourish. Of the traditional approaches, Durkheim's does lend credence to the idea that environmental problems can be understood within the context of cultural production and reproduction. Durkheim's positivism and constructivism gave us the legacy of examining environmental problems as a science with observable consequences and socially constructed causes.
Positivism: This doctrine was first called positivism by the 19th-century French mathematician and philosopher Auguste Comte, but some of the positivist concepts may be traced to the British philosopher David Hume and the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Comte was, in the main, interested in a reorganization of social life for the good of humanity through scientific knowledge, and thus control of natural forces.(emphasis added)("Positivism," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.)
Although Durkheim formulated an organismic theory of society where each organism must function in its own place and time in order for the whole to remain healthy, he neglected to bring the environment in which that work is being done into the picture. He did not however insist as his contemporaries did that nature was "socially produced". Durkheim introduced the notions of agency and structure to sociological theory; agency is defined as the power that humans have to operate independently of the constraining social structure. The structure itself is dependent on agency for its existence, it is comprised of such things as laws, conventions, taboos and so on. An interesting result of Durkheim's theories of agency structure is that they can be subversively used to undermine the traditional lack of attention paid to environmental problems. Agency would seemingly allow us to either neglect or care for the environment as we so choose, but the social structure could dictate certain modes of action which can be oriented towards a conservationist perspective. Further, if the environment itself were to be seen as the governing structure within which humans must operate, with the laws of nature guiding human agency, it seems against (human) nature to destroy the very structure which supports our meagre selves.
Weber
Max Weber would probably have rejected this idea of the environment as a determining structure; he was concerned primarily with humans as a system unto themselves, their being constituted the only social reality. He did not believe that sociologists (or any one else) could discover some overarching structure that was universal to humankind. Ironically, Weber devoted much of his academic life to describing the alienation of the capitalist worker, where human agency was largely overruled by the hierachical structures of instrumental rationality and beauracracy. This disenchantment stems from the separation of the workers not from their capabilities for the use of agency, but from their implicit rejection of nature in favor of capitalist business practices. The beauraucratic structure may stifle the workers, but the true distance is between the surrounding environment and their desk jobs. Some may posit that this separation of humans from their environment is a product of the technology that is being employed in these workplaces, as if technology were something alien or unnatural. We must remember however, that humans are inherently both a part of and a product of nature; how then can human constructs be unnatural? They are simply an extension of our natural ability to use tools and to communicate with one another. Weberian disenchantment is quite different, for it is the arbitrary construction of limits, punishments and rewards that make up the beauraucratic authority system. Is this really unlike the structure that we deploy against nature? Both are arbitrary, both possess too narrow a scope to assess all the complexities of a system and both impose control in a manner that tends to be destructive to the subject of the control. The worker becomes disenchanted; the environment becomes polluted.
Marx
The most "green" of the early social theories, Marxist thought usually sees any society as a system of societal relations. This allows for an understanding that social production of goods depends on relations between individuals as well as between people and nature. Marx did make a distinction between nature and society, nature was what provided the raw materials with which the labourers made their living and fed their families. Marx saw science and society in rational terms, beleiving that science was a progressive and liberating force, one that would enable humankind to gain control over nature and therefore to better control their chosen path in life. According to Marx, the appropriation of natural resources in this manner were only possible in a specific social setting. He theorized that in the transformation of resources into goods for human consumption, humans themselves were transformed. Despite this, he thought that relations between humans and their environment was static, for they are both essentially social and common to each step of social existence. Therefore, the interactions between humans and their environment cannot provide a source of change in society; this can only occur between groups of people. Marxist ideology relies heavily on the idea that economic development under capitalism involves the creation of value as resources are transformed into commodities. The problem is, there cannto be creation without destruction. In order to create value, we must destroy and sully valuable natural resources; not valuable as commodities, but as a life sustaining matrix upon which we all rely. The value of natural resources must always be weighed against the long term consequences of their use.
Current Modes of Thought
Technological Determinism
The meme of technological determinism is pervasive throughout the environmental research agenda and forms the basis of much of the public debate on this topic. The main characteristic of technological determinist ideologies is their foundation in optimistic views of human "progress". There are two distinct categories of deterministic views:
Cornucopian: This view is also called the Promethean or Technological Optimistic view.
Prometheus: from Greek mythology was one of the Titans. He was known as the friend and benefactor of humanity. Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus were given the task of creating humanity and providing humans and all the animals on earth with the endowments they would need to survive. Epimetheus (whose name means afterthought) accordingly proceeded to bestow on the various animals gifts of courage, strength, swiftness, and feathers, fur, and other protective coverings. When it came time to create a being who was to be superior to all other living creatures, Epimetheus found he had been so reckless with his resources that he had nothing left to bestow. He was forced to ask his brother's help, and Prometheus (whose name means forethought) took over the task of creation. To make humans superior to the animals, he fashioned them in nobler form and enabled them to walk upright. He then went up to heaven and lit a torch with fire from the sun. The gift of fire that Prometheus bestowed upon humanity was more valuable than any of the gifts the animals had received. Because of his actions Prometheus incurred the wrath of the god Zeus. For Prometheus's transgressions, Zeus had him chained to a rock in the Caucasus, where he was constantly preyed upon by an eagle. Finally he was freed by the hero Hercules, who slew the eagle.
There are two aspects of the cornucopian view of the matter of mastery over nature:
We must become more able to protect ourselves from the forces of nature, such as from floods, diseases and predators.
Nature should become the "cornucopia", providing humans with raw materials to use and enjoy.
With these goals in hand, cornucopian ideologies tend to promise and end to all social ills such as poverty, insecurity and disease.
Managerialist: An adherent to a managerialist view of nature beleives that further technological advancement is needed to solve the problems caused by earlier "dirtier" technologies. This view emphasizes the advances in "clean" technologies that have been made in the recent past. A managerialist would strive to attain the "good life" which includes new, efficient technologies and a ready access to provisions that will enhance their quality of life. Other than this, the managerialist position is similar in context to that of the increasingly discredited cornucopian viewpoint. In Figure 3, Nash's illustration of the value of nature to society taken from Wilderness and the American Mind illustrates his theory of the three stages through which societies pass in their estimation of the relative value of nature and civilization in the course of economic development:
Initially, in most deveolping countries, the marginal value of civilization is much higher than that of wilderness, because wilderness is abundant. This favours the destructions of wilderness, through agricultural enclosure or tree-felling, as the value of natural resources such as forests can be realized through the market. Wilderness is even experienced as a threat to civilization.
With the passage of time "civilization" takes root and wilderness becomes scarce. Consequently the marginal value of each changes. Societies begin to consider conserving nature as a way of deriving value.
After the curves cross in Figure 3, society comes to value nature more as wilderness becomes less plentiful. Nature appreciation increases.(Redclift & Woodgate, p.59-60)
Fig 3. Nash's model of the valuation of nature and civilization. (Redclift & Woodgate, p.60)
Naturalistic Reductionism
The stance naturalistic reductionists take is at the opposite end of the ecological spectrum from the technological determinists. These arguments are found primarily in radical environmental discoureses. They wholly reject the views of technological determinism on progress and development, including in the realms of environmental technologies and scientific development. The adherents to this ideology believe that humans live alongside and as part of the natural environment in a web of interdependencies. From this basis they theorize that the philosophical principles of ecology are generalizable as a set of norms for human conduct. An example of this the Malthusian ideal which reduces human ecology to an equation of population. The naturalistic reductionist's cure for the world typically involves a return to a materially simple, egalitarian and decentralized communal existence; a
return to the "Golden Age" of humankind where humans lived in harmony with one another and with their natural surroundings. What caused the move away from naturalistic tendencies in the first place is the subject of controversy presently. For some it was the establishment of social hierarchies, with the subsequent development of capitalism and the state as forms of control and domination over both humans and nature. Other versions blame the heavy-handedness of patriarchy on otherwise harmonious gender-equal societies; the simultaneous domination of women and the environment is responsible for the runaway train of technology and its attendant pollution. Other forms use pervasive modes of conscioussness and value orientations: those derived from mechanical science or mechanistic views of nature, atomism, dualism, anthropocentrism or logocentrism. Benton, in his essay Biology and Social Thory, argues that the "golden age" of humanity is a fiction;
"...There is no 'natural' mode of human relation to nature. No original, ecologically 'harmonious' golden age or state of grace from which we have fallen. Humans have no single, instinctually prescribed mode of life, but a range of indefinitely variable 'material cultures'. The ecological consequences and conditions of human/environmental interaction are a function of each specific mode of social life in relation to its ecological sustaining conditions and bio-physical media of activity. Each form of society available for anthropological study is characterized by its own specific constellation of limits, affordances and vulnerabilities to ecological unintended consequences. The forms of human ecology, as culturally mediated relations to physical, chemical and biological conditions, are both limitlessly variable and ecologically bounded."(Redclift & Benton, p.43).
Social Movements
The organizations involved in the environmentla movement are may and varied. Their goals occasionally coincide, but ususally the interests of each group is seen as conflicting with another's version of the proper course of action. These divers lobby and interest groups consist of advocates from nature preservation clubs, Native Americans, labor unioins, professional political activists, scientists, homemakers, eco-saboteurs, farmers, antinuclear groups, established church organizations, New Age religious groups, vegetarians, feminists and many others (Harper, p. 300). The growth of the environmental movements in North America can be usefully analyzed in terms of four different but related developments:
National Organizations and the Environmental Lobby:
Older organizations joined forces with newer ones to form a network of large national American environmental groups. They have diverse interests, with some concentrating on lobbying for environmental awareness and change, some using litigation in order to shape the future of environmental law and policy, while others simply purchased land and set it aside from the hands of developers. Within this grouping, there are ten organizations which formed an informal coalition in order to wield extended power through their numbers. This "Group of 10" work closely with smaller organizations, providing resources and support.
Texts
Darwin, C. 1872 The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Appleton.
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