Sources ecosociology. Series: «Ecosociology». I. P. Kulyasov

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ social sciences joined the debate.

      Herman Edward Daly, within the framework of the economic sciences, presented the theory of a steady state economy, thus making a scientific contribution to the sustainable development concept, and participated in establishing the “International Society for Environmental Economics”28.

      William Ophuls, in his political studies, called for a new ecological policy while denying the very possibility of sustainable development. This assumption was based on forecasts of quick depletion of the planetary reserves of fossil fuel. In the end, under the laws of thermodynamics and due to inexorable biological and geological constraints, civilization is doomed. In his opinion, this was already obvious, given the rising tide of socio-ecological, cultural and political problems29.

      Donald L. Hardesty, who specialized in ecological anthropology, a subject area of the anthropological science, studied miner’s communities, the history of their cultural change, public living conditions, gender strategies and so on. He monitored how these communities were transforming the natural landscape into a cultural one, pointing out the accompanying process of toxic waste generation30.

      Allan Schnaiberg (1939—2009), within the framework of the sociology of labor, opined that social inequality and production race (“the treadmill of production” theory) were the main causes of anthropogenic environmental issues. From the Neo-Marxist positions, he criticized all “bourgeois” authors who were showing at least some optimism regarding the possibility of peaceful resolution of the socio-ecological problems (other than through class struggle and a change in the social relations of production)31.

      John Zeisel, within the framework of the sociological theories of architecture, paid attention to important hands-on aspects relating to interaction of humans with the natural environment, believing that psychic, physical and psychosomatic peculiarities of people of different age require different architectural solutions32.

      Ecosociology now included the notions of an ecological complex and an ecosystem, considering the natural environment as a factor influencing the behavior of humans and society. One might say that ecosociology analyzes interaction between the physical (natural) environment and society. To perceive all forms of interaction between humans / society and the natural environment, it was proposed that organizational forms of human collectives, their cultural values and composition had to be taken into account.

      Therefore, the natural environment influences all stages of Park’s social evolution and elements of the ecological complex proposed by Duncan and Schnore – population, technology, culture, social system, and the individual. In this context, the basic questions posed by ecosociology were: How can different combinations of all the above elements influence the natural environment? And how can one ensure effective change in the natural environment when these elements are modified?

      Foreign authors of environmental theories

      An important issue in ecosociology related to rethinking of the notion “environment”. By this, traditional sociology meant the social environment while ecosociology primarily meant the natural or biophysical environment. This division took some time to be accepted by all sociologists.

      In addition, ecosociology made an attempt to go beyond the vision of a symbolic or cognitive interaction between the man and the environment. Ecosociologists were trying to prove that the surrounding natural conditions – such as air and water pollution, waste generation, erosion and depletion of soil, spillages of oil and so on – in addition to a symbolic effect, have a direct, non-symbolic impact on human life and social processes. This meant that, besides the impact made by polluted air and urbanized landscape on people’s perception of the same, one had to take into account the influence of this factor on physical human health when studying social mobility, and mental health – when studying deviant behavior.

      In the 1970s, according Franklin D. Wilson, the focus of attention of social ecology and ecosociology shifted to the following issues: interaction of humans and the artificial (“built”) environment; organizational, industrial, state responsibility for environmental issues; natural perils and catastrophes; assessment of environmental impact; impact from scarcity of natural resources; issues relating to deployment of scarce natural resources and carrying capacity of natural environment33.

      Ecosociologists also noted the increasing influence of that part of public movement, which was showing concern over the state of natural environment and propagated such values as an environmentally friendly lifestyle and shaping a new ecological awareness, on social processes and institutes. These people were somewhat different from the environmental movement due to a greater emphasis on developing an ecological behavior and inner human potential (deep ecology). This difference is explained by the fact that these people were participants of other public movements and adherents of new religions rather than of the ecological movement per se.

      Murray Bookchin (1921—2006), the main ideologist of ecoanarchism, studied social ecology-related issues, criticizing biocentric theories of deep ecologists and sociobiologists, as well as the followers of post-industrial ideas about the new epoch34. He and other authors believed that a socio-ecological crisis was inevitable wherever state authority existed. All forms of governance are violence of man against man and nature.

      In the opinion of ecoanarchists, a global ecological crisis could be prevented via decentralization of society and abandonment of large-scale industrial production. All people were to stop working for transnational corporations, move from metropolitan cities to small towns, rural municipalities, small communes and communities. Social relationships were to be regulated by methods of direct democracy and governed by direct right to life and natural resource use.

      In the late 1990s, Bookchin refused to call himself an ecoanarchist, probably after seeing the implementation of his ideas in rural ecoanarchist communities and assuring himself that these ideas were inviable due to the impossibility of collective action and self-sufficiency, breakup and reverse migration to the cities caused by inequality and violence.

      David Pepper, the ideologist of ecosocialism, and other authors were positive that the main causes of the socio-ecological crisis were the capitalist mode of production where society only exploited natural resources without producing them. In contrast with ecoanarchists, they suggested centralization of management (in the form of a state-controlled socialist economy), which was to help preserve nature as a universal human value35.

      In the 1980s, these ideas were still popular but radical socio-ecological reforms were no longer associated with major social change. Instead, they were associated with internal change in the individual and society, a change in the system of values and attitude to nature. They proposed to renounce anthropocentrism and replace it with biocentrism.

      Arne Dekke Eide Naess (1912—2009) and other authors promoted the idea of deep ecology, suggested distinctions between social and natural, holism instead of dualism, i.e., the unity of man and nature, society and the environment. Homo economicus was to make way for homo ecologicus, a bearer of ecological consciousness, which, in the transitional era of ecological crises and СКАЧАТЬ