Sociology and the Environment

Sociology and the Environment

1 Environmental History (February 25th):
Changing ideas and perceptions of nature and the environment

2 - Sociology and Nature (February 26th):

Thinking sociologically about nature and the environment

Key Questions:
How have understandings of nature and the environment changed over time and what social transformations have led to these shifts in perception? What can sociological concepts and theories contribute to our understandings of nature and environmental issues?

Outline of Lectures
- Introduction: Sociology and the Environment 1. Environmental History: Changing Ideas and Perceptions of Nature and the Environment - Industrialisation: Modernism and Romanticism - Late Modernity, Risk and the Globalisation of Nature 2. Thinking Sociologically about Nature and the Environment: - Nature in Classical Sociology - Critical Realism vs. Social Constructionism - Ways Beyond the Realism/Constructionism Divide?

Sociology and the Environment

The environment has only recently started to become a major issue for sociology. It is still not seen as one of the core sociological topics, like power, social class, inequality, and gender. Until recently nature and environment were seen as the preserve of natural scientists and of scientific knowledge. Why? Because sociologists (and scientists) have traditionally assumed that nature and society are separate entities they have maintained a strict division between society and nature.

Sociology and the Environment

They have therefore tended to believe that sociologists should study society and natural scientists should study nature. Sociologists have also felt the need to defend themselves against biological reductionism. Biological reductionism = explaining social phenomena in terms of biological factors. E.g. Attempts to explain social inequalities between the sexes in terms of biological differences (e.g. men are naturally more competitive, women are naturally more caring).

 Biological reductionism was central to the socio-biology of the 1970s and can still be found in crude forms of evolutionary psychology. It has been seen as a key task of sociology to challenge biological reductionism, which is accused of legitimising social inequality. This has led to an institutionalised suspicion of the non-social in sociology (Philip Sutton, 2004, 2). --------------------------

insistence that what is social and what is natural must be kept strictly separate.

As a result of this Nature/Society separation:

Environmental degradation and pollution seen as outside the domain of sociological knowledge.

It has been difficult to connect core sociological issues (power, class and inequality) to environmental issues.
There has been a suspicion that environmental issues would prove a passing trend. Also: It is difficult to find the basis for a sociological understanding of nature and the environment in classical sociology (Durkheim, Marx, Weber).

These thinkers seem to present an anthropocentric (human-centred) view which leaves little room for nature. Although some have argued it is possible to use classical sociology to theorise the relationship between society and nature (more on this tomorrow). Another problem has been a tension between: A sociology of the environment wants to introduce the environment as a topic into sociology. And an environmental sociology wants to re-construct sociology by introducing theories and concepts from biological and environmental sciences.

So why are nature and the environment sociological issues? Our perceptions of nature are shaped by society and culture (meanings and beliefs). Our social organisation is shaped by our material interventions into nature (labour and technology). Our responses to environmental problems depend upon social structures and relationships (power and institutions). Human societies are ultimately dependent upon natural life-support systems (the global eco-system or bio-sphere).

Environmental History: Changing Perceptions of Nature and Environment

We often think of nature as completely objective (i.e. solid and definite). Laws of nature = timeless truths But the meaning of nature is not fixed our understanding of nature is shaped by the society we live in. That is why our perceptions and definitions of nature have changed over time.

E.g. Environmentalists today often see nature as sacred:

Nature viewed as a finely balanced natural order which should be valued and protected. But this perception is relatively recent: before the 19thC (1800s) nature was seen as wild, disordered, savage and cruel.

E.g. The savage lives of animals were believed to show that nature was a war of all against all. The 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes based his defence of the authoritarian state on the argument that Without a sovereign power to enforce order human society would descend into an animal state of nature. In this view nature was uncivilised: it had to be subdued and dominated in the interests of human progress.

This meant that:

wilderness had to be tamed swamps had to be drained land had to be cultivated nature had to be cultured

So the dominant view was that culture and civilisation were superior to nature. This idea strongly supported capitalist industrialisation:

the extraction of raw materials/

the use of scientific knowledge to mine sources of energy. the forcible transformation of uncivilised people into a disciplined workforce.

 This view of nature as something to be dominated is explicitly opposed by environmentalists today.

Rather than celebrating modernitys triumph over nature, they accuse it of destroying the natural ecosystems we depend upon. So the historical shift in perceptions of nature has been dramatic.
And this is important for understanding contemporary environmentalism and green politics. But how has this shift in attitudes come about?

 Environmental awareness is often presented as a very recent development But it can be traced back to 19th century conservationist and preservationist movements, and to Romanticism. The 19th century saw dramatic changes in both social organisation and in the material relationship between human society and nature: capitalist industrialisation urbanisation population expansion decline of rural way of life

Critics saw these transformations as leading to: dramatically increased poverty and inequality pollution and degradation of the natural environment moral and spiritual decline and social breakdown These critics used nature as a basis for their attacks on Victorian civilisation. They argued that people had lost touch with nature, and needed to get back to nature and back to the land. i.e. People needed to reconnect with their natural selves.

 The English Romantic Poets (Wordsworth, Blake, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats) were prominent advocates of this view: The Romantic view of nature: Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours. (Wordsworth) Come forth into the light of things, let Nature be your teacher. (Wordsworth) The Romantics were fierce critics of modernity who saw nature as the ultimate source of human spiritual well-being.

They emphasised the importance of sensory and emotional experience and intuitive wisdom against the Enlightenment philosophy of rationality and science.

Romantic thinking was a response to modernity made possible by industrialisation and urbanisation.
But it was fiercely opposed to modern culture and urban life, instead promoting a pastoral existence. This helped to create a country/city polarity with a powerful set of cultural associations which persist today:

Country (rural)
peace innocence simple virtue backwardness ignorance limitation

City (urban)
learning communication enlightenment noise pollution ambition/greed

Like the Romantics, the 19th century conservationists emphasised the positive virtues of country life and the negative aspects of urban life.

 They also argued that industrialisation disfigured both the natural landscape and human moral values.
And this led to the development of an environmental consciousness from the mid-19th century, and the growth of various conservation societies (e.g. RSPCA). So the origins of social organisations dedicated to the idea of protecting and defending nature can be traced back to the 1800s.

Some historians have suggested that a concern for the natural world goes back even further (to the 1500s).
Man and the Natural World Keith Thomas (1984)

Changes in cultural values over a long period (1500-1800) provided the right conditions for environmental concerns to emerge.
Gradual shift away from an instrumental attitude to nature and towards a non-utilitarian attitude. The utilitarian view = the idea that nature is there to be used and exploited to serve human ends

This instrumental view is rooted in Judaeo-Christian theology: = Nature was created by God for humans, who can therefore use it at will. This has often been seen as sanctioning the exploitation of the natural world But, Christian theology always contained the possibility for an alternative view: = Nature was sacred (as Gods creation) and humans were entrusted with its stewardship. E.g Saint Francis of Assisi.

Keith Thomas shows how the instrumental view was gradually challenged by a concern for nonhuman animals and nature.
Why?

Because in an increasingly urban industrial society, peoples distance from nature in the raw and its threats actually fostered a longing for the countryside, for wilderness, and for the well-being of animals.
Therefore: There was a growing contradiction between:

an increasingly emotional caring attitude towards nature and animals.

and the real exploitation of nature and animals on which modern society was based.

It is clear that these contradictions persist today:

E.g. between peoples attitudes towards their pets, and towards agricultural food animals.
Thomas suggests

that the growth of a non-utilitarian attitude to nature resulted from:

changes in social organisation (urbanisation, industrialisation).

the growth of a scientific world-view.

A similar account of historical changes in perceptions of nature is provided by the sociologist Norbert Elias:
The Civilizing Process Norbert Elias

Argues that an increase in human control over nature has reduced our fear of nature and natural events. This has led to more sympathetic attitudes towards nature and animals, and to an aesthetic appreciation of the natural environment. Elias calls this the civilizing process.

Contemporary Views of Nature and the Environment

Todays environmental consciousness is the product of a long and gradual history. It is not just a response to the contemporary ecological crisis (i.e. climate change). But how are social understandings of nature and the environment changing today? Ulrich Beck The Risk Society Beck says that we live in an age of risk, in which the main threats to late modern societies stem from their relationship to the natural world.

 If our increasingly non-utilitarian attitudes to nature were rooted in an increasing distance from nature, and a diminishing threat from nature Then how is the return of nature (i.e. environmental risk) transforming our attitudes?
Are we seeing a strengthening of instrumental attitudes as the distance between society and nature is reduced? Or are we witnessing an ecological revolution - the birth of a new ecological awareness?

Perhaps there will be no major shift in consciousness until the effects of climate change are felt in the everyday lives of people in the West

History suggests that any change is likely to be dialectical: (i.e. it will involve deeply contradictory elements). E.g. Efforts to secure new carbon reduction targets. And at the same time a rush to secure Arctic territories with oil potential. Because new sites of drilling are made possible as the ice melts! Other obstacles to an ecological revolution include the divisions between nations, regions, hemispheres:

Rapidly industrialising and urbanising nations in the third world (the global south) reluctant to curb emissions.
The US as the biggest consumer-polluter is unwilling to give up its carbon advantage (Kyoto).

Summary 1:
No single cultural view of nature is ever completely dominant, there are always subordinate views which challenge it. Modernity has generated contradictory views on nature, polarised between instrumental and non-utilitarian attitudes. These polarised views of nature can be traced back to Christian theology. In modernity the contradiction intensified due to modern processes of social change (industrialisation, urbanisation, population expansion). These social changes led to the gradual emergence of an environmental consciousness, which in turn led to the formation of organised conservationist groups in the nineteenth century.

Summary 2:
These organisations were early pre-cursors to contemporary environmental groups. There has been a dramatic transformation of attitudes to nature since the early modern period.

Rather than an uncivilized wilderness in need of cultivation, nature has come to be seen as a precious resource that must be protected:
Developments today may be leading to a new ecological revolution in which an environmental consciousness is becoming increasingly globalised.

Summary 3: This is a part of the globalisation process, as well as a product of globalisation:

the increasing social and economic interconnectedness of people around the world
the globalisation of industrial capitalism (especially the rapid industrialisation of China and India) the globalisation of environmental crisis

This contemporary age of risk could lead to a new view of nature, a new global ecological awareness. But there are many obstacles to this, and any global environmental consciousness is likely to generate its own contradictions and opposing views.