ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIAL THEORY
John Barry
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Environment and Social Theory
While the environment has been a perennial theme in human thought, the
environment and how humans value, use and think about it has become an
increasingly central and important aspect of recent social theory. It has become
clear that the present generation is faced with a series of unique environmental
dilemmas, largely unprecedented in human history.
Environment and Social Theory outlines the complex interlinking of the
environment, nature and social theory from ancient and pre-modern thinking to
contemporary social theorising. It explores the essentially contested character of
the environment and nature within social theory, and draws attention to the need
for critical analysis whenever the term ‘nature’ and ‘environment’ are used in
debate and argument. Drawing on a broad understanding of social theory, the
book examines the ways major religions such as Judaeo-Christianity have and
continue to conceptualise the environment as well as analysing the way the
nonhuman environment plays important roles in Western thinkers such as
Rousseau, Malthus, Marx, Darwin, Mill to Freud, Horkheimer and the Frankfurt
School. It also discusses major contemporary thinkers such as Jurgen Habermas,
Anthony Giddens, Richard Dawkins and Jared Diamond, and the controversy
around Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist. The book also explores
the relationship between gender and the environment, postmodernism and risk
society schools of thought, and the dominance of orthodox economic thinking
(which we ought to view as an ideology) in contemporary social theorising about
the environment. It concludes with an argument for an explicitly interdisciplinary
green social theoretical approach which combines insights from the natural
sciences such as evolutionary biology, physics and ecology with social scientific
knowledge drawn from social, political and ethical theories and ideas.
Written in an engaging and accessible manner, Environment and Social Theory
provides the student with an indispensable guide to the way in which the
environment and social theory relate to one another.
John Barry is Reader in Politics at Queen’s University, Belfast.
Routledge introductions to environment series
Published and forthcoming titles
Titles under Series Editors:
Rita Gardner and A.M. Mannion
Titles under Series Editor:
David Pepper
Environmental Science texts
Environment and Society texts
Atmospheric Processes and Systems
Natural Environmental Change
Biodiversity and Conservation
Ecosystems
Environmental Biology
Using Statistics to Understand the
Environment
Coastal Systems
Environmental Physics
Environmental Chemistry
Biodiversity and Conservation, second
edition
Ecosystems, second edition
Environment and Philosophy
Environment and Social Theory
Energy, Society and Environment,
second edition
Environment and Tourism
Gender and Environment
Environment and Business
Environment and Politics, second edition
Environment and Law
Environment and Society
Environmental Policy
Representing the Environment
Sustainable Development
Environment and Social Theory,
second edition
Routledge introductions to environment series
Environment and
Social Theory
Second edition
John Barry
First published 1999
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Reprinted 2000, 2002
Second edition 2007
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 1999, 2007 John Barry
Typeset in Times New Roman and AG Book by
Keystroke, 28 High Street, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Barry, John, 1966–
Environment and social theory / John Barry. – 2nd ed.
p. cm. – (Routledge introductions to the environment)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN–13: 978–0–415–37617–4 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN–13: 978–0–415–37616–7 (softcover : alk. paper) 1. Human ecology–Philosophy.
2. Human ecology–Religious aspects. 3. Social sciences–Philosophy. 4. Human
beings–Effect of environment on. I. Title.
GF21.B28 2007
304.2–dc22
2006020746
ISBN10: 0–415–37617–3
ISBN10: 0–415–37616–5
ISBN10: 0–203–09922–2
ISBN13: 978–0–415–37617–4 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–37616–7 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–09922–3 (ebk)
Contents
List of illustrations
vii
Series editors’ preface
ix
Preface to second edition
Introduction: the environment and social theory
xiii
1
1
‘Nature’, ‘environment’ and social theory
2
The role of the environment historically within social theory
31
3
The uses of ‘nature’ and the nonhuman world in social theory:
pre-Enlightenment and Enlightenment accounts
51
4
Twentieth-century social theory and the nonhuman world
83
5
Right-wing reactions to the environment and environmental
politics
119
Left-wing reactions to the environment and environmental
politics
154
7
Gender, the nonhuman world and social thought
183
8
The environment and economic thought
205
9
Risk, environment and postmodernism
242
Ecology, biology and social theory
271
6
10
7
vi • Contents
11
Greening social theory
294
Glossary
316
Internet resources and sites
319
Bibliography
324
Index
345
Illustrations
Figures
1.1
1.2
2.1
2.2
3.1
3.2
7.1
7.2
8.1
9.1
9.2
10.1
11.1
11.2
Social theory and the environment schema
View of the Earth from the Moon
The Christian ‘Great Chain of Being’
‘Ecology and Industrial Capitalism’
The Marxist model of socio-historical change
‘The Marxist Boomerang’
The materialist basis of human society
‘The Economic Totem Pole’
‘Economic Growth’
‘We’re All Gonna Die’
‘Guess What’s Coming to Dinner’
Species metabolism with the environment
Caricature of greens
‘Under New Management’
12
26
41
46
71
74
192
196
229
249
254
288
296
301
Judaeo-Christian theory and the environment
Social theory checklist
The Lomborg controversy
The environmental justice movement
The anti-globalisation/global justice movement
Summary of materialist eco-feminism
Some basic principles of green social theory
Catton and Dunlap’s call for a ‘post-exuberant’ sociology
39
122
138
162
176
197
298
304
Boxes
2.1
5.1
5.2
6.1
6.2
7.1
11.1
11.2
Series editors’ preface
Environment and Society titles
The 1970s and early 1980s constituted a period of intense academic and popular
interest in processes of environmental degradation: global, regional and local.
However, it soon became increasingly clear that reversing such degradation would
not be a purely technical and managerial matter. All the technical knowledge in
the world does not necessarily lead societies to change environmentally damaging behaviour. Hence a critical understanding of socio-economic, political and
cultural processes and structures has become, it is acknowledged, of central
importance in approaching environmental problems. Over the past two decades
in particular there has been a mushrooming of research and scholarship on the
relationships between social sciences and humanities on the one hand and processes of environmental change on the other. This has lately been reflected in a
proliferation of associated courses at undergraduate level.
At the same time, changes in higher education in Europe, which match earlier
changes in America, Australasia and elsewhere, mean that an increasing number
of such courses are being taught and studied within a framework offering
maximum flexibility in the typical undergraduate programme: ‘modular’ courses
or their equivalent.
The volumes in this series will mirror these changes. They will provide short,
topic-centred texts on environmentally relevant areas, mainly within social
sciences and humanities. They will reflect the fact that students will approach
their subject matter from a great variety of different disciplinary backgrounds;
not just within social sciences and humanities, but from physical and natural
sciences too. And those students may not be familiar with the background to
the topic, they may or may not be going on to develop their interest in it, and they
cannot automatically be thought of as being at ‘first-year level’, or second- or
third-year: they might need to study the topic in any year of their course.
The authors and editors of this series are mainly established teachers in higher
education. Finding that more traditional integrated environmental studies or
specialised academic texts do not meet their requirements, they have increasingly
x • Series editors’ preface
met the new challenges caused by structural changes in education by writing their
own course materials for their own students. These volumes represent, in modified
form which all students can now share, the fruits of their labours.
To achieve the right mix of flexibility, depth and breadth, the volumes, like most
modular courses themselves, are designed carefully to create maximum accessibility to readers from a variety of backgrounds. Each leads into its topic by giving
an adequate introduction, and each ‘leads out’ by pointing towards complexities
and areas for further development and study. Indeed, much of the integrity and
distinctiveness of the Environment and Society titles in the series will come
through adopting a characteristic, though not inflexible, structure to the volumes.
Each introduces the student to the real-world context of the topic, and the basic
concepts and controversies in social sciences/humanities which are most relevant.
The core of each volume explores the main issues. Data, case studies, overview
diagrams, summary charts and self-check questions and exercises are some of the
pedagogic devices that will be found. The last part of each volume will normally
show how the themes and issues presented may become more complicated,
presenting cognate issues and concepts needing to be explored to gain deeper
understanding. Annotated reading lists are important here.
We hope that these concise volumes will provide sufficient depth to maintain
the interest of students with relevant backgrounds, and also sketch basic concepts
and map out the ground in a stimulating way for students to whom the whole area
is new.
The Environment and Society titles in the series complement the Environmental
Science titles which deal with natural science-based topics. Together this comprehensive range of volumes which make up the Routledge Introductions
to Environment Series will provide modular and other students with an unparalleled range of perspectives on environmental issues, cross-referencing where
appropriate.
The main target readership is introductory-level undergraduate students predominantly taking programmes of environmental modules. But we hope that the
whole audience will be much wider, perhaps including second- and third-year
undergraduates from many disciplines within the social sciences, science/
technology and humanities, who might be taking occasional environmental
courses. We also hope that sixth-form teachers and the wider public will use these
volumes when they feel the need to obtain quick introductory coverage of the
subject we present.
David Pepper and Phil O’Keefe
1997
Series editors’ preface • xi
Series International Advisory Board
Australasia: Dr P. Curson and Dr P. Mitchell, Macquarie University
North America: Professor L. Lewis, Clark University; Professor L. Rubinoff,
Trent University
Europe: Professor P. Glasbergen, University of Utrecht; Professor van DamMieras, Open University, The Netherlands
Preface to second edition
A lot has happened in the six years or so since the publication of the first
edition of Environment and Social Theory. The academic study of social theory
and the environment has exponentially increased in that time with the evergrowing production of new books, journals, networks and research projects
and findings. The area of social theory and the environment is now so vast that it
is impossible for anyone to keep abreast of new developments, and thus this
current volume will no doubt contain multiple omissions (as well as the usual
errors and mistakes). It is however a positive complaint to make, since it demonstrates the vitality of the issues that the intersection of social theory and the
environment raise – no doubt in part spurred on by the growing evidence of
continuing ecological degradation from global climate change to more local
losses of valued landscapes and species. Of particular note is the addition of other
books in the Routledge Environment and Society series, such as Erika Cudworth’s
Environment and Society (2003), Susan Buckingham-Hatfield’s Gender and
Environment (2000) and Pratt, Howarth and Brady’s Environment and Philosophy
(2000), all of which were extremely useful in writing the second edition.
There also seems to be a discernible shift within disciplines such as politics and
sociology towards mainstreaming the study of the relationship between society,
social theory and the environment (less so with economics, as I discuss in
Chapter 8), allied to the welcome growth of interdisciplinary programmes of
undergraduate study, though more marked in North America than in the UK or
Europe which lags behind in this respect. The interdisciplinary focus in research
and research funding (discussed in Chapter 11) is also to be welcomed, driven
in part by the (belated) recognition that technological and scientific approaches
to complex and contested social-environmental issues and problems need the
insights of the humanities and social sciences, particularly in terms of policymaking and governance.
In the ‘real-world’ we have witnessed the horror of 9/11, an event so seared on
the minds of the present generation that it is enough to truncate the event to the
xiv • Preface to second edition
day it happened and the subsequent birth of the US-led ‘war on terror’; the illegal
war and occupation in Iraq, motivated in part by the need of Western powers for
secure sources of oil; the maturing of the anti-globalisation movement into the
global justice movement and the associated development of the World Social
Forum as alternative ‘global civil society’ sites of resistance and opposition to
the World Trade Organization and other institutions of the global and globalising
economy (discussed in Chapter 6) and of course the now permanent background
presence of ‘climate change’ in most societies; and most recently the associated
popularity of ‘energy security’ and ‘peak oil’. All of this means that research
into the relationship between the environment and society and social theory
is even more important and needed in the current age, and will continue to be
needed in the coming decades as human societies come to terms with transforming themselves into ‘post-carbon’ economies against an unstable and
aggressive international relations context in which we cannot rule out future
‘resource wars’ by powerful states as part of an extension of the ‘war on terror’.
I dedicate this book to my daughter Dearbhla, who along with her sister Saoirse,
are never-ending sources of inspiration and hope for the future and whose future
interests and well-being are motivations behind much of my academic interest in
this area.
I would like to thank Zoe Kruze at Taylor & Francis for her patience in waiting
over two years beyond the original deadline, and her understanding of the hectic
work and family context within which this second edition was written. The three
anoymous referees who commented on the proposal for a second edition made
some excellent suggestions, and I hope they will forgive me if I have not acted
on them all.
Much of the additional material in this second edition and the thinking behind
the rewriting of the book is based on the numerous publications I have written
since the first edition, and my teaching and supervision of both undergraduate
and postgraduate students. I owe a great debt of thanks to all those students, some
of whom are now fellow members of the profession, whom I have taught or
supervised and from whom I always learn so much. Here I would like to thank
Iorweth Griffiths for co-writing the section on Giddens, which draws extensively
on his Ph.D. thesis, and another former Ph.D. student Kate Farrell, who introduced
me more fully to ecological economics. I also owe a debt of thanks to all those
colleagues with whom I have discussed many of the issues in this book and
to whom I have presented papers at conferences and workshops. Although too
many to name, I would like to particularly thank Derek Bell, Andy Dobson,
Brian Doherty, Peter Doran, Robyn Eckerlsey, Geraint Ellis, Mat Paterson,
David Schlosberg, Graham Smith, Piers Stephens, Sharon Turner and Marcel
Preface to second edition • xv
Wissenburg for the various conversations and discussions we have had over the
past six years.
It is a curious aspect of the modern academic world that while scholars such as
myself talk of the nonhuman environment, we rarely experience it (though this
could be just me!), and while we may talk of the importance of community, we
find ourselves hermetically hooked to our computers emailing rather than talking
to one another face to face. Both of these I intend to rectify between now and the
third edition!
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the work and support of my partner Yvonne
who deserves credit as a co-worker on this publication in the sense that this book
could not have been written without her taking on an unfair (albeit termporary)
burden of child-care and domestic work. While hardly in the same league as
the products of real care work, I hope this book does at least prove I was doing
something productive all that time in the office!
John Barry
Belfast, May 2006
Introduction: the environment
and social theory
The ‘control of nature’ is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the
Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature
existed for the convenience of man.
(Carson, 1962: 100)
While it may be true that there is nothing new under the sun, when it comes
to discussing environmental issues it seems that perhaps this is not the case. The
novelty of environmental issues and problems, from global warming, climate
change and biodiversity loss, to concerns for animal rights or the intrinsic value
of nature, should not blind us to the fact that humans have always thought
about their relationship to the environment. As such the environment and our
relationship to it is a long-established issue in social theory.
The newness of environmental concerns is more apparent than real in that
thinking about the environment, its meaning, significance and value is as old as
human society itself. However, it is clear that the present human generation is
faced with a series of unique environmental dilemmas, largely unprecedented in
human history. The present human generation is the first one, for example, to have
the capacity to destroy the planet many times over, while at the same time it is
also the first generation for whom the natural environment cannot be taken for
granted. So while the environment has been a perennial theme in human thought,
the environment and how humans value, use and think about it has become an
increasingly central and important aspect of recent social theory and political
practice.
The overall aims of this book are the following:
●
●
to introduce and discuss the ways in which the environment has been used
and abused in social theory both past and present;
to trace some of the historical origins of this relationship and to demonstrate
the importance of the environment for social theory;
2 • Environment and Social Theory
●
●
●
●
to examine key concepts such as ‘environment’, ‘human’, ‘nonhuman’ and
‘nature’ and related concepts in social theory;
to explore some of the ideological uses of the environment in social, political
and moral thought;
to outline how some central thinkers and forms of social theory have thought
about the environment;
to outline both the ‘greening’ of recent social theory and the development
of a green social theory.
Outline of the book
The book is roughly divided into two parts. The first, historical, part (Chapters
2–4) offers a chronological discussion of past and present uses (and abuses)
of the environment in social theory, from Judaeo-Christianity to contemporary
social theory. The second part (Chapters 5–8) looks at a variety of contemporary social theories, from economics, to gender, postmodernism, risk society and
recent attempts to integrate ecological and biological thinking into social theory.
Chapter 1 defines how social theory is understood and used in the book, and looks
at some general conceptual issues of social theorising and the environment. These
general introductory issues include how we define what we mean by ‘environment’, and how this is related to such terms as ‘nature’ and ‘nonhuman’. This
chapter also looks at how and why the environment is used and abused in social
theory, particularly when environment is understood as ‘nature’ or the ‘natural
environment’. Four dominant models or understandings of the environment which
are often used in social theory are then outlined, and the chapter ends with
a discussion of one of the most common ways in which the environment is used
in social theory in terms of ‘reading-off’ principles or how society should be from
observations of how the natural world operates.
Chapter 2 outlines the historical relationship between social theory and the
environment. It focuses on exploring the Judaeo-Christian legacy and moves on
to examine the Enlightenment as a key turning point in social theorising about
the environment. More specifically, it uses reactions to the industrial and democratic revolutions to organise the discussions of how the place, role and power of
environment varied in different forms of social theory.
Chapter 3 looks at pre-Enlightenment and Enlightenment social theorising about
the environment. After a brief discussion of the different views of classical
political philosophers such as Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, this chapter looks
at nineteenth-century social theory and the environment. The centrality of social
theory being ‘scientific’ is examined before moving on to analyse progressive and
Introduction • 3
reactionary social theorising about the environment. The latter proceeds by
focusing on four social theorists: Malthus, Darwin, Spencer and Kropotkin.
Following on from a discussion of the classical Marxist analysis of the
relationship between society and the environment is an examination of the liberal
perspective, focusing on the work of John Stuart Mill.
Following on from the previous chapter, twentieth-century social theory and
the environment is the topic of Chapter 4. It begins with classical sociology, then
moves on to a discussion of some key twentieth-century forms of social theory,
such as the work of Sigmund Freud and existentialism. It then discusses
the critical theory of the Frankfurt School of social thought and its critique of the
‘dark side’ of the Enlightenment and modern societies. This section focuses on
how the domination of the external environment by modern societies (via the
application of science and technology) can lead to the domination and distortion of human social relations and internal human nature. This then leads into
a discussion of Herbert Marcuse and his take on the relationship between the
domination of the natural environment and human emancipation. The latter half
of the chapter is taken up with a critical examination of some recent social theory
and the environment, focusing on the work of Jürgen Habermas and Anthony
Giddens respectively.
Chapters 5 and 6 look at right- and left-wing social theoretical reactions to
and interpretations of the environment and environmental politics. Chapter 5
which looks at right-wing perspectives explores the history of the relationship
between environment and conservative thinking, noting the centrality of ideas
of a ‘natural order’ and concern for future generations (based on respect for the
past and tradition) to conservative thinking as well as the Malthusian concern
with class and population increase. This chapter also looks at the authoritarian
reaction to the ‘limits to growth’ thesis central to the green/ecological movement,
and holds that exclusive concern with population often denotes a right-wing,
developed world and sometimes racist concern with the population of the Southern
world, without acknowledging that the ‘ecological footprint’ of the smaller
populations of the developed North is much greater than the ‘majority world’ in
the South. Hardin’s (in)famous ‘tragedy of the commons’ perspective is analysed
and critiqued, as is the ‘free market environmentalist’ perspective that uses it to
justify the privatisation of environmental public goods. The ‘Promethean’
viewpoint underpinning the right-wing rejection of the idea of ecological limits
to economic growth is also outlined and analysed, as is the related right-wing
discourse of those who reject the science behind environmental problems such
as climate change or ecological degradation. This chapter also looks at the
controversy around the publication of The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn
Lomborg which highlights the politicisation of science and the ideological
4 • Environment and Social Theory
(mis)uses of science and empirical data (particularly statistics) in a manner which
anticipates some of the arguments of Ulrich Beck in Chapter 9. The ‘green
conservatism’ of prominent political theorist John Gray is also examined as an
interesting example of the ways in which ecological concerns and thinking have
influenced right-wing forms of social theory. Left-wing reactions are the focus
of Chapter 6, which looks at the historical and theoretical reaction of Marxism
to the environment and ecological crisis, which ranges from a negative rejection
of the ecological perspective as a middle-class, reactionary and right-wing
phenomenon (largely based on the ‘template’ of the Marx–Malthus exchange in
the nineteenth century), to more recent attempts to develop an eco-Marxist and
eco-socialist theory and politics. The environmental justice movement is also
discussed as a class- and race-based form of ecological and health-motivated
politics of local resistance to development decisions, and represents a grassroots
form of ecological activism which has a left-wing, progressive character. The
other main left-wing political tradition analysed is that of anarchism in general,
and in particular the social ecology thinking associated with Murray Bookchin,
including those critical of his conceptualisation of eco-anarchism. The recent
emergence of the anti-globalisation/global justice movement and the political
potential and aims of the ‘World Social Forum’ are also discussed as forms
of left-wing (though not exclusively so) engagements with central issues of global
ecological protection and a radicalised politics of sustainable development and
global justice.
The issue of gender is a key issue within modern social theory, and Chapter 7
looks at the insights and necessity of adopting a gendered analysis of the relationship between society and environment. It begins with an analysis of the
historical and conceptual set of gendered dualisms within Western culture. These
gendered dualisms begin from an idea of culture or society being separate and
above nature, and involve the identification of women and female with ‘nature’
and the ‘natural’. The chapter then proceeds to discuss three of the main forms
of eco-feminist social theory, essentialist or spiritual eco-feminism, materialist
eco-feminism and political economy, and finally resistance eco-feminism.
Taking economics as a form of social theory, Chapter 8 looks at the ways in which
economic theory has viewed, valued and conceptualised the environment.
Beginning by showing how ‘the economic problem’ sets up the conceptual relationship between economics and the environment, it then outlines some of the
historical connections between them in various economic schools of thought. In
particular, the ways in which the emergence of the modern market economy and
economics conceptualised and legitimated particular uses of the environment is
discussed in terms of the relationship between land, labour and the enclosure
movement, and the relationship which existed both historically and theoretically
Introduction • 5
between material progress, poverty and economics. It then examines the relationship between economic theory and environmental policy-making within the
contemporary liberal democratic state, before looking at environmental economics as a contemporary form of ‘economising the environment’. Finally,
it introduces and discusses ecological economics as a recent development
within economics which attempts to integrate ecological and social insights into
the examination of the economy, and outlines ‘green political economy’ as a more
politically motivated development of the ecological economics perspective.
Chapter 9 explores two recent social theories and how they analyse the environment – namely, ‘risk society’ and postmodernism. In the first half, Ulrich Beck’s
‘risk-society’ thesis is discussed as a particular approach to the environment
and environmental risk. The character of risk is explored before moving on to
how the precautionary principle (which is fast becoming a central regulating
principle of social–environmental interaction) may be seen as a logical extension
of Beck’s thesis. ‘Reflexive modernisation’ (a theme Beck shares with Giddens),
stemming in part from a particular way modern societies can cope with increased
environmental (and other) risks, is discussed in terms of how it seems to imply
a redefinition of progress. A central part of this redefinition involves the extension
of democratic forms of decision-making to more areas of social life. The latter
half looks at postmodern approaches to the environment and environmental
issues. Environmentalism and its commonalities with postmodernism are discussed in terms of a shared rejection of modernity. The insights of postmodern
questioning of the concepts of nature and environment are explored, as are
the useful and provocative suggestions of Tim Luke on ‘eco-governmentality’.
However, some problems with postmodern environmentalism are outlined.
Primarily, an argument is made that environmentalism in particular, and social–
environmental problems in general, do not necessarily call for the rejection
of modernity. Instead, and in keeping with one aspect of Habermas’ thought, a
claim is made that environmentalism can be seen as a critical analysis of and call
for the fulfilment or completion of the ‘project of modernity’.
Chapter 10 is an exploration of some of the issues involved in the relationship
between ecology, biology and social theory. A critical analysis of sociobiology is
offered as an example of the way in which biology and particular understandings of the natural world and human nature have been used to advance or support
particular political positions. Using the work of Ted Benton and Peter Dickens
in particular, the implications of ecology and biology for social theory are
discussed in terms of the desirability and necessity for a ‘critical naturalistic’ form
of social theory. Of particular interest in this and the concluding chapter are the
consequences for social theory of seeing human beings as both ‘biologically
embodied’ and ‘ecologically embedded’.
6 • Environment and Social Theory
Chapter 11 outlines some of the main principles of green social theory and uses
this as the starting point for an examination of the ‘greening’ of social theory.
Building on the insights of green social theory, and ideas discussed in previous
chapters, some suggestions are made concerning the implications of the greening
of social theory. A central claim in the greening of social theory is held to include
the overcoming of a strict and permanent separation of ‘society’ and ‘environment’. A consequence of this is that the greening of social theory requires an
interdisciplinary approach to the study of society and environment in which
the insights of the natural sciences are integrated with the insights of the social
sciences. This in turn suggests new models of social theory and modes of
social theorising.
1 ‘Nature’, ‘environment’
and social theory
Key issues
●
●
●
●
●
●
What is social theory?
Environment, nature and the nonhuman.
Social theorising and the environment.
The uses and abuses of the environment in social theory.
Four environments for humans in social theory.
The ‘reading-off’ hypothesis.
Introduction
What does one consider when one thinks about the ‘environment’? Is the
environment the trees, plants, animals that we see around us? Is it the Amazonian
rainforests or the world’s climate systems upon which all life on the planet
depends? Are genetically modified organisms part of the environment? Is the
environment the same as ‘nature’? Does the ‘environment’ have to do with
concepts such as ‘biodiversity’, ‘ecosystems’ and ‘ecological harmony’? Can we
say that the room where you are probably reading this book constitutes an
‘environment’?
The problem (which can also be an advantage) with the concept ‘environment’,
like many other concepts such as ‘democracy’, ‘justice’ or ‘equality’, is that it
can take a number of different meanings, refer to a variety of things, entities and
processes, and thus cover a range of issues and be used to justify particular
positions and arguments. While of course the environment cannot refer to anything (that is, it refers to some identifiable and determinant set of ‘things’), it is
an extremely elastic term in that there are many things – the room you are sitting
in, the book itself, the chair, the desk, other people, the fly on the window,
8 • Environment and Social Theory
and the unseen micro-organisms and the air around you – all of which could be
considered to constitute your present and immediate ‘environment’. Like many
things, the environment can mean different things depending on how you define
and understand it, or who defines it.
In many respects thinking about and theorising the environment is one of the most
enduring aspects of human thought. For example, the question of the proper place
of human society within the natural order has occupied a central place in
philosophy since its beginnings. Hence, why, how and in what ways the
environment, and related concepts such as ‘nature’ and the ‘natural’, are used in
social theory is not only extremely interesting but absolutely crucial, given the
different meanings and power of these terms when used in argument and
justification. For example, calling something ‘natural’ implies that it is beyond
change, immutable, fixed and given. Hence the power of using this term to justify
a particular argument, and the need to be aware of how and why the environment
and related concepts are employed in social theorising.
At the same time, alongside the theoretical or academic interest, there is a very
important practical aspect to thinking about and theorising the environment in
relation to society. This has to do with the increasing quantity and quality of
environmental problems which face every society on Earth, both nationally and
globally. Global warming and climate change, deforestation, desertification,
pollution, biodiversity loss and the controversies over the benefits and dangers
of genetic engineering and biotechnology – all are familiar terms in our everyday lives. All of these, and others, seem to suggest that there is an ‘environmental
crisis’ which faces humanity (and the nonhuman world), the like of which is
unprecedented in human history. For the first time in history, humanity has at
its disposal the capacity radically to alter the environment (primarily through the
application of science and technology), and even has the capacity (though
thankfully still not the willingness) to completely destroy life on Earth ‘as we
know it’ (as Dr Spock would say) through the collected nuclear, biological and
chemical weapons of mass destruction possessed by a minority of the world’s
nations. At the same time as being the first generation which has this capacity to
affect the environment, one could also say that (particularly since the rise of the
green or environmental movement) this is the first generation which knows (or at
least has some sense) that it is transforming the environment in a way which will
affect the state of the environment inherited by future generations. Hence thinking
about or analysing the role or place of the environment in social theory (the aim
of this book) is not simply of theoretical, but also of great practical interest.
The importance of analysing the environment and social theory can also be seen
when one considers that the majority of the world’s environmental problems are
largely the result of human social action or behaviour. Global warming, for
‘Nature’, ‘environment’ and social theory • 9
example, is accepted by the vast majority of the world’s scientists to be the result
of increased carbon emissions by humans, principally through energy production
and consumption (the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, gas and petroleum to
create electricity) and forms of transport which rely on such fossil fuels. Hence
social theory, defined below as the systematic study of how society is and ought
to be, has an important role to play in explaining, understanding and providing
possible solutions to the ‘environmental crisis’.
What is social theory?
‘Social theory’ as a field of study is particularly difficult to accurately determine
or define. As understood here, social theory is the systematic study of human
society, including the processes of social change and transformation, involving
the formulation of theoretical (and empirical) hypotheses, explanations, justifications and prescriptions. In disciplinary terms ‘social theory’ is often associated
with sociological theory, and modern social theory has its origins in the sociological
tradition. This book however, takes a broad rather than a narrow understanding
of social theory, in that it encompasses sociological theory but goes beyond it
to include other disciplines and intellectual traditions and approaches. As may
be seen from the range of authors and disciplinary approaches surveyed in this
book, social theory includes the ‘social-scientific’ approach to the study of society
(in terms of the disciplines one finds in the social-scientific approach to studying
society and social phenomenon – sociology and anthropology, politics, international relations, economics, legal studies, women’s studies, cultural studies).
However, social theory may also include the disciplinary approaches of history,
philosophy and moral theory and cultural geography. Thus ‘social theory’ acts as
an umbrella under which are gathered a range of approaches to thinking about
society, explaining social phenomena, and offering justifications for advocating
or resisting social transformation.
The main disciplinary approaches of this book are: sociological theory (including
cultural theory), political theory, economics and political economy, but it also
includes the history of social thought. In broad terms what may be called an
interdisciplinary conception of social theory is used throughout the book.
The historical origins of social theory may be found in the Enlightenment,
though aspects of modern social theory may also be found in pre-Enlightenment
thinkers and schools of thought (particularly in political philosophy and political
economy, as outlined in Chapters 2 and 3). And it is in reaction to the
Enlightenment, and the emergence of ‘modern society’, that a large part of past
and contemporary social theory finds its subject. It is in the spirit of the early
emergence of social theory that a broad understanding of it is adopted here. In its
10 • Environment and Social Theory
origins, social theory covered the broad field of the systematic or disciplined study
of society in all its various aspects: political, economic, cultural, social, legal,
philosophical, moral, religious and scientific. Social theory as the systematic
or scientific study of society included looking at such social phenomena as
the relationship between the individual and society, the origins and character
of cultural practices, and the relationships within and between everyday life and
social institutions, such as the family, the nation, the state and the economy.
As May points out, in the nineteenth century the main trends in social theory were
‘First, an interest in the nature or social development and social origins. Second
the merging of history and philosophy into a “science of society”. Third, the
attempt to discover rational-empirical causes for social phenomena in place of
metaphysical ones’ (May, 1996: 13). In a similar fashion, this book attempts to
offer an equally broad and inclusive view of social theory, though of course many
issues, writers and ideas are necessarily left out, or only briefly mentioned. At the
same time, we can use the Enlightenment as a way to demarcate modern social
theory by noting that the ‘subject’ of modern social theory is ‘the analysis of
modernity and its impact on the world’ (Giddens et al., 1994: 1). In particular,
modern social theory analyses the impact of the industrial, liberal-capitalist socioeconomic system which has come to shape the modern global and globalising
world.
Social theory typically has two dimensions, one descriptive the other prescriptive.
In its descriptive aspect, social theory describes society and advances particular
explanations for social phenomena, events, problems and changes within society.
For example, a social theory may involve explaining the emergence of contemporary far-right politics across Europe by reference to a rise in unemployment,
the negative economic effects of globalisation and a consequent appeal of populist nationalist politics in response to the erosion of ‘national sovereignty’ or
‘national pride’.
The prescriptive dimensions of social theory are the ways in which social theory
not only tells a story of the way society is, but also tells how society ought to be.
Here social theory advances particular normative or value-based arguments,
justifications and principles to support its claims about how society ought to be
ordered, changed or whatever. This prescriptive aspect of social theory can
broadly take two forms. On the one hand, it can seek to justify the present social
order, that is, suggest that the way society is is how it ought to be. This may be
described as a ‘mainstream’ or ‘conservative’ position in which the aim of social
theory is to legitimate, defend and justify the current way society is organised, its
principles, institutions and ways of life.
On the other hand, some forms of social theory seek to argue that society ought
to be transformed, organised along different principles and with different
‘Nature’, ‘environment’ and social theory • 11
institutions from those upon which the current social order is based. These forms
of social theory may be broadly described as ‘critical’ in that they are critical
of the current way society is organised and seek to provide reasons for why it
ought to be changed and organised along different principles or with different
institutions. The classical example of a critical form of social theory is Marxism,
which criticises the current capitalist, liberal democratic organisation of societies
in the ‘West’ or ‘developed’ world, suggesting an alternative ‘communist’ or
‘socialist’ mode of social organisation. Below are some examples of mainstream
and critical forms of social theory which will be looked at in this book.
Mainstream social theory
Conservatism
Neo-classical economics
Sociobiology
Social Darwinism
Critical social theory
Marxism/socialism
Feminism
Ecologism/green social theory
Postmodernism
While it is nearly always an advantage to adopt broad and flexible, rather than
narrow and rigid, approaches to the study of society, such an approach is particularly advantageous (indeed, some would say necessary and not just desirable)
when it comes to social theory and the environment. The adoption of an explicitly
interdisciplinary approach to studying the relation between society and environment is something that has become a dominant perspective in recent work in
this area (Barry, 1999b), and will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 10. In
part, this is due to the rather simple fact that there is not just one relation between
society and environment (as this and other books in the Routledge Environment
and Society series seek to demonstrate). Rather, the relation between society
and environment denotes a series of relationships: physical, social, economic,
political, moral, cultural, epistemological and philosophical, covering a multifaceted, multi-layered, complex and dynamic interaction between society and
environment. Given the multiple relations between society and environment, it
is clear that no one discipline or approach can hope to capture the full complexity
of the various relations between society and environment. Hence an interdisciplinary approach drawing on a variety of sources is not only useful, but in some
ways is necessary in discussing how the environment has been conceptualised,
used and abused within social theory.
With regard to social theorising about nature or the environment (and as indicated
below, the two are not necessarily the same), one can trace two other approaches
alongside critical and mainstream. These are what one may call ‘naturalist’ and
‘social constructionist’ approaches. Naturalist social theorising about the environment generally takes the view that the environment is external to society and
exists as an independent ‘natural order’ outside of society. Social-constructionist
12 • Environment and Social Theory
Naturalist
Critical
Conservative/mainstream
e.g. anarchism
e.g. Malthusianism/Sociobiology
e.g. Marxism
e.g. neo-classical economics
Social
Constructionist
Figure 1.1
Social theory and the environment schema
Source: Author
approaches, on the other hand, see ‘environment’ and ‘nature’ as constructions
of society, and therefore focus on analysing the internal relations within society.
Combining them together, we get a fourfold schema of social theoretical
approaches to the environment. This schema may be used as a rough guide to
understanding particular social theories and theorists.
Environment, nature and the nonhuman
One way of starting our exploration of the place or role of environment in social
theory is to look at what we mean by ‘environment’. First, we can note that the
environment is an ‘essentially contested’ term. The phrase ‘essentially contested’
simply means that the term has no universally agreed and singular meaning
or definition. The importance of these issues should of course be obvious when
social theorising about the environment and its relationship to human social
concerns. One of the first and most obvious issues about the environment and
social theory concerns the fact/value distinction. This refers to the way in
which the environment, and related terms, are used not just in a descriptive sense,
that is dealing with the facts, but how they are also used to express, justify or
establish particular values or judgements, courses of action and reaction,
policy prescriptions and ways of thinking. Thus while the environment is used
to simply describe the world, that is, to tell us how the world is, it is also used to
prescribe how the world ought to be, or making some normative (value) claim
about something. For example, the term ‘natural’ carries with it a host of different
value meanings, sometimes positive ones of ‘wholesome’ or ‘healthy’ (as in
organic food), sometimes negative ones, ‘uncultured’ or ‘backward’ (as in passing
judgement on a group’s way of life).
A good way to start thinking about the environment is to list its various definitions
and understandings. Often when one is trying to define terms or concepts, a
‘Nature’, ‘environment’ and social theory • 13
good place to start is a dictionary and thesaurus. Here are some definitions of
‘environment’ that can be found:
environment: ‘surroundings, milieu, atmosphere, condition, climate,
circumstances, setting, ambience, scene, decor’ (taken from a computer
thesaurus).
environment: ‘situation, position, locality, attitude, place, site, bearings,
neighbourhood’ (Roget’s Thesaurus, 1988).
environment: ‘surroundings, conditions of life or growth’ (Collins English
Dictionary and Thesaurus, 1992).
Thus while the environment is often taken to mean the nonhuman world, and
sometimes used as equivalent to ‘nature’, it can take on a variety of meanings.
The roots of the term ‘environment’ lie in the French word environ which means
‘to surround’, ‘to envelop’, ‘to enclose’. Another closely related French word is
‘milieu’, which is often taken to mean the same as environment. An important
implication of this idea of environment is that ‘An environment as milieu is not
something a creature is merely in, but something it has’ (Cooper, 1992: 169).
What Cooper means by this is that environment is not just a passive background
or context within which something lives or exists. It is also something that is
possessed in the sense that to have an environment is an important part of what
the creature or entity is. That is, to have an environment is a constitutive part
of who or what the creature is, so that one cannot identify a creature without
referring to its environment. On this reading, anything that surrounds or environs
is an environment. But ‘to surround’ by itself tells us little. We need to know
what is surrounded in order to know what the environment in question is. That is,
without some specified thing to refer or relate to (a species such as humans, or a
culture or place) the term ‘environment’ means very little. Or rather without
a referent, the environment can mean everything that surrounds everything that
exists. In referring to everything, it also refers to nothing in particular and is
therefore of little use as an analytical concept for social theory!
Thus it is important to note that the environment is a relational concept or idea
in that we need to know what or who is the subject of discussion in order to define
an environment. While we may often speak of ‘the environment’, what is usually
at issue is a ‘particular environment’. Hence often, but not always, the environment within social theory is defined in relation to ourselves and particular human
social relations, and particular historical and cultural contexts. For example, when
people in the Western world speak of the environment they usually mean
the physical nonhuman environment, such as the countryside, forests, animals,
rivers and so on. However, in other cultures the environment may include these
things but also include non-physical things such as spirits and the ghosts of one’s
14 • Environment and Social Theory
ancestors. It is for this reason that it is misleading to equate the environment with
‘nature’ in the sense of the nonhuman natural world, though this is often how it
is understood. For example, the ‘environment’ can refer to the non-natural
environment, as in the human, social or built environment. At the same time, as
a relational concept we can speak of the environments of other animals, organisms
or planets. It is an interesting and instructive thought to consider that we are part
of the environment of other creatures (and of each other in many respects).
However, ‘nature’ does not only refer to the nonhuman world, but is, as Raymond
Williams noted, ‘perhaps the most complex word in the language’ (Williams,
1988: 221). This is because ‘nature’ can and does refer to both ‘human nature’
and nonhuman nature (understood as natural environment), thus crossing the
boundary between that which is human and nonhuman. Indeed, the complexity
and power of ‘nature’ has to do in large part with the fact that it can be used to
unite (as well as separate) the human and the nonhuman. Here are some meanings
of nature:
Nature: ‘Nature comes from nature, OF [Old French] and natura, L [Latin],
from a root in the past participle of nasci, L [Latin] – to be born (from which
also derive nation, native, innate, etc.)’ (Williams, 1988: 219).
nature: ‘1. The essence of something . . . 2. Areas unaltered by human action,
i.e. nature as a realm external to humanity and society. 3. The physical world
in its entirety, perhaps including humans, i.e. nature as a universal realm of
which humans, as a species, are a part’ (Castree, forthcoming).
nature: ‘n. inborn or essential character or quality; temperament, disposition;
instinct; universe, especially of living things, collectively; unspoilt wild life,
scenery, and vegetation; the original unaltered or uncivilised state, especially
of man [sic] . . . [Latin. natura, from natus, past participle of nasci, to be born]’
(The Children’s Dictionary, 1969: 398).
These definitions point to the way in which ‘nature’ can refer to both human and
nonhuman issues, properties, processes and entities. Thus we can say that every
living thing (both human and nonhuman) has its particular ‘nature’, as in a more
or less determinate set of innate dispositions, characteristics and impulses. At
the same time, nature can also simply refer to the totality of the nonhuman world,
making it synonymous with the natural environment.
However, sometimes nature opposes environment. For example, one of the
enduring debates within social theory concerns the ‘natural’ or ‘innate’ causes
of human behaviour as opposed to its ‘environmental’ or ‘external’ causes. This
is the common ‘nature versus nurture’ debate one finds within social theory and
everyday discourse. Here ‘nature’ refers to ‘human nature’ understood as some
‘Nature’, ‘environment’ and social theory • 15
‘given’ or unalterable internal essence of human beings, while ‘environment’
refers to the external social environment within which humans are brought up and
socialised. This issue is dealt with in more detail in Chapter 8. Thus both
environment and nature are extremely complex, contested as well as very flexible
terms.
Social theorising and the environment
In common usage, the environment usually refers to the physical world which
environs or surrounds something. Most commonly of all, in modern parlance,
the environment is often thought of as synonymous with the ‘natural world’ or
‘nature’. That is, the environment is often thought of as something that is objective
rather than subjective. This is another way of understanding the fact/value
distinction in that to say the environment is objective means it is a factual reality
independent of our subjective value judgements. As objective reality, the environment just is. Closing one’s eyes or mind to one’s surroundings does not mean
that they disappear. This is something most of us learn as we grow older; young
children often believe that simply closing one’s eyes is sufficient to make their
environment (and all it contains, such as angry adults!) go away. Now while
I do not wish to suggest that the environment does not or cannot refer to ‘nature’
(meaning the nonhuman world and its processes and entities), a less restrictive
understanding of the environment is a more fruitful approach to take when
relating the environment to social theory. That is, thinking about the environment
as something that can and does mean more than the ‘natural world’ can both help
us in thinking about the natural world as well as revealing the complexity of social
theorising about the environment.
One of the problems in social theorising about the environment has been that
the latter has been viewed by the former as essentially something that is both
nonhuman and also beyond human society and culture. So, for example, the
environment has been understood as the ‘natural world’ or nonhuman nature,
something which surrounds us and is also beyond human culture. This is the view
of the environment which one gets from popular nature programmes on television, such as the excellent natural history programmes produced by the BBC
(e.g. David Attenborough’s ‘Life on Earth’ or ‘Planet Earth’ series). The point
is not to reject these understandings but to widen how we think about the
environment so as to incorporate these and other possible meanings. Using
the term ‘environment’ as simply another way of speaking about ‘nature’ or the
‘natural world’ within social theory is understandable, but one needs to be aware
of the danger of missing something important about the environment if we define
(and thus confine) it so narrowly.
16 • Environment and Social Theory
Particularly in modern everyday language and in modern social theory (Soper,
1995), there is a marked tendency simply to equate the environment with the
‘natural’. Often one finds the two terms used interchangeably. An example is
O’Brien and Cahn’s statement that ‘the study of nature, and the relationship
between human civilization and the environment, have always held a prominent
position in social and political inquiry. Humans have long been interested in
discovering our place in the hierarchy of nature’ (1996: 5). The point is not that
we should never equate the two concepts – indeed it is very difficult to consistently
distinguish ‘nature’ from ‘environment’ – but rather we should be aware that
distinguishing between them is required in critically analysing the concept of
environment within social theory. As in many forms of human inquiry (particularly in the humanities and social sciences) part of the process of theorising about
something involves making distinctions between different concepts, terms,
relations and processes.
One important distinction which may be drawn is between ‘nature’ as conveying
an abstract, almost neutral sense of the nonhuman world, and ‘environment’ as
associated with a more local or determinate sense of a nonhuman (or human)
milieu or surrounding. That is, ‘nature’ is often understood as referring to the
conditions of life (for both human and nonhuman species) and all that exists on
this planet as a whole, while ‘environment’ is often associated with a particular
subset of these conditions, a subset defined in relation to a particular organism
or entity. Thus we can speak of ‘nature’ without referring to any particular organism or entity, but ‘environment’ implies the environment of some particular
organism, species or set of these. As Ingold puts it, nature is the ‘reality of the
physical world of neutral objects apparent only to the detached, indifferent
observer’ while the environment is the ‘reality for the world constituted in relation
to the organism or person whose environment it is’ (1992: 44). Or as Cooper
expresses it, ‘an environment [is] a field of significance’ (1992: 170), that is,
significant for someone or something. Even when both nature and environment
are used in reference to the nonhuman world, ‘nature’ is often associated with
an abstract, universal sense of the nonhuman world, referring to the totality of the
latter. In contrast, ‘environment’ refers to a particular, less abstract and more local
and determinate part of the natural world.
Like many of our concepts and terms, environment and nature are formed in
contrast to their opposites. As well as consulting a dictionary or thesaurus, another
good way to get a sense of what terms mean is to seek out their opposites. At least
at an initial stage of inquiry, one can find out quite a lot about a concept by seeing
with what it is contrasted. This dualistic form of analytical inquiry simply means
that we compare a particular term with its opposite. It is important to point out
that this form of inquiry will not capture the full complexity of an issue, since
‘Nature’, ‘environment’ and social theory • 17
thinking about something cannot be reduced to simply specifying something and
then discussing its opposite, but it is a useful way to start. So to what do these
terms ‘non-environment’ and ‘non-natural’ refer? What do they mean?
Since a whole book could be taken up in exploring the full range of issues
involved in this task (see Soper, 1995), what I intend to do is highlight some of
the more obvious ways in which our understanding of these terms can be
advanced by comparing them with their antonyms. In the binary set of concepts
below, we can find out quite a lot about the meaning of the environment (qua
‘nature’).
environment/nature
nature/nonhuman
naturally occurring
nature
opposite of
opposite of
opposite of
opposite of
human society/culture
human
human-made/artificial
nurture
One of the first things we should note about ‘nature’ and ‘environment’ (when
used as referring to the nonhuman world or processes) is that they are viewed in
opposition to human society and culture. In this respect, whatever is environmental or natural is something which is separate from and independent of human
society. And in some respects this seems to be, at least intuitively, true. For
example, trees grow and ecosystems function independently of human society
and culture. At this very basic level nature or the ‘natural environment’ does
not depend on humanity. Indeed, the opposite would seem to be the case: that is,
humans in common with every other living species depend on their environment
to survive and flourish. So on this first analysis: the environment is something
that is separate from human society. However, this separation does not mean that
humans do not have a relation with their environment. Since they depend on their
environment, and exist within the environment, they are obviously related to
their environment. But to say that humans are related to and depend upon the
environment is not to say that they are the same as the environment. Like any other
species, humans exist in a condition of separation from but at the same time
a relationship to and with their environment.
Second, there is also another dimension to the relationship: that between ‘nature’
and the ‘natural environment’ as ‘nonhuman’ in contrast to ‘human’. ‘Nature’ as
‘nonhuman’ may thus be used to define what is ‘human’ or what is properly
human. In this way, nature as nonhuman is an extremely important concept, one
might say a foundational concept, in social theory, in that it defines what is the
human, or properly human.
Third, we see that the ‘environment’ can refer to that which naturally occurs,
in contrast to that which is human-made or artificial. Indeed, this final set of
18 • Environment and Social Theory
opposing concepts – between the ‘natural’ and the ‘artificial’ – is one of the most
central ways in which humans have and do think about the environment. We
commonly think of the environment as entities (rocks, rivers), species (bears,
lions, foxes) and processes (carbon cycles, hydrological cycles) which are
emphatically not the products of human society. Thus the environment here is
that which occurs without human intervention, and many natural processes and
entities pre-date humanity and human society. Here we have a notion of the
environment qua nature which is one of the oldest and most enduring conceptions
humans have of the environment. This particular conception of the environment
resonates with the idea of the environment as something nonhuman, the external
and eternal natural and naturally occurring surroundings which envelopes both
humans and nonhuman entities.
In some ways, it finds an echo in the Christian doctrine of the environment as
‘God’s Creation’, that is, the environment as something which is not of human
origin or design. One can also appreciate the distinction between the ‘natural’ and
the ‘artificial’ when one considers the difference people perceive between certain
foods and goods which are ‘natural’ and those that are ‘processed’. Added to a
factual distinction between what is ‘natural’ and what is ‘artificial’ are a whole
range of evaluative positions in which one or the other is seen as ‘superior’ or
‘better’ than the other. For example, Goodin (1992) suggests that a ‘green’ theory
of value rests on the claim that naturally occurring processes have a particular
value precisely because they are not the work of human hands. As he puts it, in
answer to his question ‘What is so especially valuable about something having
come about through natural rather than through artificial human processes?’ is
that ‘naturalness [is] a source of value’ (Goodin, 1992: 30). That something is
‘natural’, of nonhuman origin, and existing independently of human actions or
interests, is held by many people to be something of value. According to Goodin,
a ‘natural’ landscape is more valuable than a ‘humanised’ landscape, in the same
way as a ‘fake’ or reproduction is never as valuable as the original (Elliott, 1997).
Placing such stress and importance on the value of ‘natural’ and naturalness is a
distinctly ‘green’ position, though one which many non-greens may share.
However, on the other hand, there are those for whom the ‘artificial’ is superior
to the ‘natural’. Here we can think of arguments in which whatever is humanmade or produced is viewed as more valuable than whatever is naturally created.
An extreme example of this is what can be called the technocentric position
which holds that human creations are vastly superior to natural ones, so that it
can not only ask ‘What’s wrong with plastic trees?’ (Krieger, 2000), but answer
that there is nothing wrong with them, and indeed they are superior to natural
ones. One can see some of the origins of this view of the superiority of the human
over the natural in the ‘perfectionist’ justifications for human transformation
‘Nature’, ‘environment’ and social theory • 19
of the natural environment that were prevalent in pre-Enlightenment Western
Christianity, as discussed in Chapter 2.
However, it also needs to be remembered that there is a continuum between the
two poles of the ‘natural’ and the ‘artificial’; there are of course many intermediate positions between them. As will be seen throughout this book, this
distinction between the ‘natural’ and the ‘artificial’ and their relative evaluative
weightings (superior/inferior) is something that shadows much social theorising
about the environment and our relationship to it. One can trace many of the
origins of the debates about the relationship between society and the environment
through looking at how, at different times and places, different values are attached
to the ‘natural’ and the ‘artificial’. For example, whereas nowadays there is a
premium attached to things ‘natural’ (and not just for health reasons, as in organic
food), not so long ago, natural produce was regarded as ‘backward’, ‘uncivilised’
or not advanced; a sign of socio-economic and cultural inferiority. For example,
in the last century, to live ‘close to nature’ (either in hunter-gatherer communities
or rural-agricultural settings) or consume natural produce, meant one was not as
advanced or cultured as those who did not live close to nature (but in urban areas
and cities) and who enjoyed ‘artificial’ and ‘processed’ goods and services. Thus
there is no determinate or singular, agreed or fixed reading of the natural and the
artificial; they mean different things and are given different evaluations in
different social and cultural settings and in different historical periods. The point
of social theory is to make us aware of these evaluative distinctions, to try and
understand them, and if possible suggest explanations for them and to critically
interrogate and perhaps challenge them. In this way we can say that there are no
‘value-neutral’ readings of the environment as nonhuman nature. That is, when
one describes the environment as nonhuman nature, implicit in those descriptions
are certain value judgements and normative positions. This is partly because
‘nature’ and the ‘natural’ carry with them various meanings and express a variety
of evaluative judgements (ranging from the good/positive to the inferior/negative).
And as will be seen later on, in discussing the ‘reading-off ’ hypothesis, when
social theories ‘read’ the ‘environment’ they often project or map particular
ways of thinking and values on to the environment rather than simply offering a
‘neutral’ or ‘objective’ account.
At a very basic level one can intuitively grasp what it means to say that the
environment is socially constructed by noting how different societies, different
ways of thinking and social theorising display distinct ways of thinking about
and perceiving the environment. For example, while the environment for a
typical city-dweller may mean the houses, buildings, waste spaces, parks as well
as ‘nature’ (meaning the nonhuman natural world), for a country-dweller the
environment may mean fields, domestic and wild animals, hedgerows, stone walls
20 • Environment and Social Theory
and the seasons, as well as ‘nature’. Thus environments differ and depend upon
that to which one is relating the environment in question. At the same time, this
example shows that while there may be different conceptions of the environment,
they do not necessarily have to be contradictory. This is due in part to the
relational character of the environment – that is, the environment is that which
surrounds something, some entity or someone (including collections and groups).
My environment (however I construct this) does not necessarily have to contradict
your environment (however you construct it). The map (the representation),
after all, is not the territory (the physical reality), but a particular ‘reading’
or representation of the territory. As Foster notes, ‘“The environment” . . . is
something upon which very many frames of reference converge. But there is no
frame of reference which is as it were “naturally given”, and which does not have
to be contended for in environmental debate’ (1997: 10).
Alongside this discursive or conceptual sense of the ‘social construction’ of the
environment, there is a material dimension to the ‘construction’ of the environment which refers to the real, material, physical production and transformation
of the environment by the human species. Such transformations of the
environment by humans include agriculture, the creation of particular landscapes
by human practices different from the environment if left in its ‘natural’ (i.e.
untransformed) state, the creation of hybrid species of plants and animals as
a result of human intentional selection and cross-breeding (which includes
modern biotechnological techniques and the human manipulation of genetic
information).
The uses and abuses of the environment in social theory
Conceptions of the environment differ, sometimes dramatically. In some cultures,
or within particular worldviews (ways of thinking), the environment can include
the dead, one’s ancestors and/or other entities from the ‘supernatural’ realm, such
as gods, goddesses, spirits, angels, ghosts and so on. Thus the environment, as that
which environs, depends not only on something to environ, but what constitutes
the surrounding environment. Hence the environment does not necessarily refer
to the physical environment (whether natural or human-made).
The full complexity of the social construction of the environment can be seen if
we examine how we think about the environment. ‘The environment’ as a term
of social discourse (that is, as a part of human language, thinking and acting)
is of course a human concept. It is difficult to imagine that other species see or
construct their environment using the conceptual tools which humans do. Indeed,
the vast majority of other species do not ‘conceptualise’ their environment at all