VIEWPOINTS AND COMMENTS
'Environment' in Sociological Theory
Indra Munshi
Introduction
It has been observed that 'contemporary forms of environmental
degradation present one of the most, if not the most, complex and
catastrophic dilemmas of modernity' (Goldblatt 1996: Preface). There is
a general agreement that the economic expansion of a century and half
has had alarming consequences for the global environment. Depletion of
the ozone layer, air pollution, loss of forests and bio-diversity, extinction
of plant and animal species, loss of marine life, soil and water pollution
have occurred at an alarming rate. Especially in post-war years, release
of toxic matters into the environment, world-wide expansion of nuclear
energy, acid rains, new chemical pesticides, non-biodegradable plastics
and other harmful chemicals have come to pose a threat to life itself. In
the recent decades, however, we have witnessed the growth of
environmental movements/conflicts, of environmental politics, which
may play an important role in checking the deterioration of our
environment at the local and global levels.
The seriousness of the situation has led scholars to predict that the
21st century will be characterised by a massively endangered natural
environment if the present trends of ecological devastation continue.
Further, it is predicted that this aspect will become increasingly dominant
in all fields-politics, foreign affairs, development policy, education,
technology and research. In what Weizsacker calls the Century of the
Environment, the ecological imperative will determine law and
administration, city planning and agriculture, arts and religion,
technology and economy. Intervention for a radical transformation in the
contemporary situation, which he terms Earth Politics, alone can salvage
the future (Weizsacker 1994:10).
In this context, two important issues emerge: the causes and
consequences of environmental degradation in modern societies, and the
Indra Munshi is on the faculty of the Department of Sociology, University of Mumbai,
Mumbai.
SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN, 49 (2), September 2000
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Sociological Bulletin
role environmental politics can play to curb environmental degradation.
Scholars have pointed to the limitations of the theoretical legacy of
classical social theory of Marx, Weber and Durkheim for examining the
issues mentioned above.
Weber's work shows the least engagement with the natural world.
Even Marx and Durkheim, Goldblatt argues, who saw the relation
between human societies and the natural world as central to historical
change, did not pay much attention to the impact of economic and
demographic processes on ecosystems. In fact, classical social theory
was concerned more with how pre-modern societies had been
constrained by their natural environments than with how industry in
modern society led to environmental degradation. Nor could it see at the
time that capitalism would prove to be environmentally problematic in a
fundamental sense.
Others like Ted Benton do, however, argue that there is much in the
corpus of Marxian historical materialism which is compatible with an
ecological perspective(Benton 1989:63). According to them, Marx and
Engels did recognise the historical necessity of human dependence upon
external conditions in nature and limits to their social activity. Textual
evidence suggests that Marx quite explicitly advocated ecological
sustainability as a 'regulating law' which would govern socialist
agriculture as different from its capitalist form {Ibid: 83). It is often
pointed out that one of Engels' earliest works The Condition of the
Working Class in England was a denunciation of the environmental
consequences of capitalist industrialisation'.
David Pepper's view is that Man-Nature dialectic is central to
Marxism. Man (read human being) transforms nature by means of
labour. Because this process of transformation is a social one, human
beings shape their own society and their relations with their fellow-
beings by shaping nature. In the process of knowing nature in order to
transform it, human beings transform themselves to a higher intellectual
plane (Pepper 1986:163). Social development, observes Pepper, with its
changes in the relations of production, is closely bound up with the social
action of transforming nature in organised labour, 'acting upon socially-
derived knowledge of nature's laws, and upon socially-based perceptions
of what is needed from nature and what nature can offer' {Ibid: 163).
The time element, therefore, Pepper argues, cannot be left out of
Marxist discussion on human-nature relationship. 'Different forms of
perception and modification of nature correspond to specific historical
stages of human development. This, then, is what is meant by the term
historicity of nature, and we see today a nature that almost entirely bears
testimony to the intimacy of the man-nature relationship over time: a
'Environment' in Sociological Theory
255
historically-produced nature....( Ibid: 163). In the dialectic between
nature and humans, according to Pepper, there is no separation between
the subject or the object, they exist in an 'organic intimacy of constant
interaction;(Ibid: 163).
Nevertheless, it is this limited legacy in social theory of an
inadequate conceptual framework to understand the complex interaction
between societies and environment and to recognise the negative impact
of the interaction on the environment, that is considered partially
responsible for the neglect of environmental concerns in mainstream
sociological theory. Redclift argues that in the light of these intellectual
precedents, it is not surprising that ecological variables are not
incorporated in sociological analysis (1987:9).
Giddens, too, observes that although all three authors, Durkheim,
Marx and Weber saw the degrading consequences of industrial work
upon human beings, none foresaw that the furthering of the 'forces of
production' would have large-scale destructive potential in relation to the
material environment. 'Ecological concerns', he concludes, 'do not
brook large in the traditions of thought incorporated into sociology, and
it is not surprising that sociologists today find it hard to develop a
systematic appraisal of them' (Giddens 1990:8).
Murphy points out that the theme of the embeddedness of social
action in the processes of nature is still poorly integrated into mainstream
sociology. The research on this theme has not yet influenced general
sociological theory, which continues to proceed 'as if nature did not
matter' (Murphy 1997:19). Sociology, he observes, has correctly
emphasised the importance of the social, but this has been so exaggerated
that there is a blindness to the relationship between the processes of
nature and social action. The assumed dualism between social action and
the processes of nature, with sociology focusing solely on the former as
independent variable has resulted in sociology ignoring the dialectical
relationship between the two. This kind of sociology misses the crucial
distinguishing feature of our times which is the manipulation of nature
by means of science and technology in order to attain our material goals,
and thereby disrupting the equilibrium in nature which in turn reacts
upon and threatens human constructions {Ibid: 8-9).
In recent times, however, environmental concerns, both the origins
and nature of environmental deterioration, and the emergence of
environment centred politics have been articulated in sociological
writings. Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck, Clause Offe, Jurgen Habermas
and others have addressed themselves to these issues. After an overview
of the ideas developed by some of the thinkers, I will attempt to outline
the environmental concerns of social scientists in India, and end with
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some suggestions on how environment
sociology teaching and research in India.
Sociological Bulletin
could be incorporated in
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