Viewpoints and Comments ‘Environment’ in Sociological Theory

Environmental Concerns and Contemporary Social Theory

 

The question of causes and consequences of the present ecological crisis, 

a more recent concern, is significant to modern social theory. The 

modern society is seen to be characterised by large-scale environmental 

degradation. Through an extensive discussion on risk, for example, 

several scholars, including Giddens (1990) and Beck (1992), highlight 

the catastrophic character of the society. The  hitherto neglected area of 

the relation between human beings and nature and the deleterious effect 

of human action upon the latter, especially in the last century and a half, 

has emerged as a major issues. Another important issue in contemporary 

theory is  the growth of environmental politics/movements which offer a 

challenge to the modern industrial/capitalist mode of production and 

consumption which are essentially environmentally destructive. What 

follows is an elaboration of some of these issues.

 

In Giddens' view, the debate about whether capitalism or 

industrialism has been the prime mover in shaping the modern world, 

until relatively recently, ignored the destructive effects but modern 

production systems may have upon the environment (Giddens 1987: 49). 

Giddens argues that capitalism combined with industrialism is 

responsible for the environmental crisis. In his later works, in particular, 

he attributes environmental problems to the modern industrial societies 

and to the industrial sectors in the developing countries. Whatever the 

origins of the crisis, the modern industry, shaped by the combination of 

science and technology, he believes, is responsible for the greatest 

transformation of the world of nature than ever before (Giddens 1990: 

60).

 

Ulrich Beck distinguishes the modern society from the earlier ones 

as the risk society, characterised by its catastrophic potential resulting 

from environmental deterioration. In the pre-industrial societies, risks 

resulting from natural hazards occurred, and by their very character 

could not be attributed to voluntary decision-making. The nature of risk 

changed in the industrial societies. Industrial risks and accidents at work 

sites, or dangers of unemployment resulting from the changes in the 

economic cycles, could no longer be attributed to nature. These societies 

also developed institutions and methods to cope with the dangers and 

risks, in the form of insurance, compensation, safety etc. In fact, Beck 

sees the welfare state as 'a collective and institutionalised  response to the 

nature of industrialised risks...' The risk societies are characterised by

 

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increasing environmental degradation and environmental hazards. 'At the 

centre lies the risks and consequences of modernisation, which are 

revealed as irresistible threats to the life of plants, animals, and human 

beings. Unlike the factory related or occupational hazards of the 19th and 

first half of the 20th centuries, these can no longer be limited to certain 

localities or groups, but rather exhibit a tendency to globalisation...' 

(Beck 1992: 13).

 

At the same time these societies are also characterised by greater 

environmental laws and legislation. And yet, no individual or institution 

appears to be specifically accountable for what happens. Through various 

means, the elite is able to effectively conceal the causes as well as the 

consequences of hazards and risk of late industrialisation. Beck calls this 

'organised irresponsibility'. In the face of environmental risks and 

hazards of a qualitatively different kind, both real and potential, earlier 

modes of coping with them also break down. Yet when large-scale 

disasters like Chernobyl occur, protests do break out which challenge the 

legitimacy of the state and other institutions that appear powerless to 

manage the problems. In this context, a number of new forms of protests 

emerge, outside the conventional class politics and parliamentary 

institutions (Beck 1995).

 

Giddens offers two explanations for the emergence of environmental 

politics: as a response to the ecological threats and thus 'a politics 

mobilised by interests' in self-preservation and as a response to the 

normative emptiness of modern urbanism and thus as 'a politics 

mobilised by ideal values and moral  imperatives'. Ecological 

movements, he observes, compel us to confront those dimensions of 

modernity which have been hitherto neglected. Furthermore, they 

sensitise us to subtleties in the relation between nature and human beings 

that would otherwise remain unexplored (Giddens 1987:49). Habermas 

sees the ecology movements as a response of the life-world to its 

colonisation. Since they are an expression of the reification of the 

communicative order of the life-world, further economic development or 

technical improvements in the administrative apparatus of government 

cannot alleviate these tensions. The new conflicts/movements reflect 

problems that can only be resolved through a 'reconquest of the life-

world by communicative reason and by concomitant transmutations in  the 

normative order pf daily life'(Ibid:242-243). For Habermas, 

capitalism is the primary cause of environmental degradation.

 

All these social theorists emphasise the need for democratisation of 

state power and civil society. Giddens suggests that not just the impact, 

but the very logic of unchecked scientific and technological development 

would have to be confronted if further harm is to be avoided. He adds

 

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