Ecosociology Sources. Series: «Ecosociology»

Considering social pathology, therapy and hygiene, he maintained that a society may be damaged by external influence or from within. The fabric of society may sustain a severe external damage penetrating through all the ways inside. And, vice versa, inner social diseases may leak outside. For example, bloodless parts of the fabric of society are rejected by means of mass migration. Another example would be a war, where contribution claimed by the winner can be compared with someone else’s blood transfused to the fabric of society and causing a disease. As a result, this brings suffering both to the winning and to the losing nations. The same would apply to industrial wars. Another phenomenon that is worth mentioning relates to parasitism when one society “piggy-backs” on another.

Public maladies can be treated by public medication, which, once used, may be called a public therapy. Using the healing forces of society’s nature is better than trying to heal the fabric of society. To prevent a disease, the rules of public hygiene should be complied with[3 - Worms R. De natura et methodo sociologiae. Lutetiae Parisiorum: V. Giard et E. Brière. 1896. 102 p.; Organisme et société. Paris: V. Giard et E. Brière. 1896. 412 p. (all in Latin)].

In the 1950—1970s, evolutionism developed into post-industrial theories, to be considered in more detail in the corresponding chapter. At the same time, evolutionism developed into neo-evolutionism (the socio-cultural evolution theory – an inter-disciplinary area across ethnology, anthropology, paleontology, archeology and historiography) and sociobiology (the sociobiological theory – an inter-disciplinary area across biology, sociology, zoology, archeology and genetics).

Post-industrial theories viewed social development as a single-line or universal evolution. Neo-evolutionists introduced an important aspect, viewing the development history of the global society as a multi-line evolution, with various communities and societies developing in different directions due to the need to adapt to different ecological environments (for example, climate zones or natural and cultural landscapes). The sociobiological theory of human behavior is based on the principle of genetic-cultural evolution, with natural selection going at the individual reproductive and group levels. Therefore, evolution applies both to the individual and to social forms.

Social Darwinism

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766—1834), the author of the book on human population, is considered the predecessor of social Darwinism. In the book, he made a futuristic prediction that uncontrolled growth of human population would lead to food shortages and hunger, saying that the poor would die out from hunger while the rich would survive[4 - Malthus T.R. Essay on the principle of population. 1798.].

Charles Robert Darwin (1809—1882) and his work about the origin of species made[5 - Darwin Ch. R. On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 1859.] a great influence on the emergence of social Darwinism. However, Darwin emphasized that people were influenced not only by biological laws and conditions of life but by their skills to invent new tools and create new conditions of life. He also said that biological evolution of humans was incomparably slower than the development of technology and culture. In contrast with social Darwinists, Darwin never applied his concept of natural selection to humans, cultures and countries. As for social Darwinists, they use the ideas of Malthus and Darwin to propagate the ideas of militarism, eugenics and racism, which are now universally convicted.

Spenser also made a significant contribution to the development of social Darwinism. He is the author of phrase “survival of the fittest” and published the book titled “Progress: Its law and cause”, where he argues on progress of the universe as a universal law for the stars, human intelligence, and biological organisms, and introduces the notion of social progress[6 - Spencer H. Progress: Its law and cause. Chapman’s Westminster Review. 1857.].

Social Darwinism became internationally known in the late 19

 – early 20

centuries. Its authors, while narrowing the patterns of social development down to objective laws of biological evolution, proclaimed the principles of natural selection, struggle for existence and survival of the fittest as the critical factor of social life. Social evolution justifies social inequality of individuals as well as of countries, cultures, peoples, races and so on.

Social Darwinism was further developed by authors who founded the geographical school in the 19

century. The geographic school ascribes the crucial role in the development of societies and peoples to their geographical location and natural conditions, including access to vital and strategically important natural resources.

For example, Henry Thomas Buckle (1821—1862), studying the history of England and its colonies, described the specifics of physical build, spiritual dimension and culture of various peoples and concluded that were interrelated with their geographical location, landscape, climate, soil and food[7 - Buckle H.T. History of civilization in England. 1857—1861.].

Ecologism

Before moving on to ecologism as a socio-ecological concept and ideology, we need to describe the conditions that promoted its emergence. The context related to the circumstance that, by the mid-19

century, the stock of free land in the United States had been exhausted, setting the limits of economic growth. This became a constraint for the American democracy, which was viewing natural abundancy as a self-evident condition of social development.

The American society, having reached the limits of its expansion as the borders of its state had stabilized, and facing the aggravated social consequences of its external and internal policy, had to appreciate the close link between the social and environmental factors. This motivated its transition from an agrarian to industrial society (industrial growth and urbanization) and predetermined the understanding of the need to move from extensive to intensive use of natural resources. New socio-economic and environmental conditions gave rise to four main social reformist orientations, namely economism, conservationism, environmental movement and ecologism.

The strongest American orientation – economism, an optimistic orientation that implied a natural, spontaneous resolution of ecological problems, was characterized by an anti-reformist mood and a wait-and-see attitude. The supporters of this orientation believed that the existing social institutes were strong enough to cope with the crisis without any serious reforms. In this view, the natural environment was to serve private interest and individual initiative, and satisfaction of individual interests meant satisfaction of collective interest.

Their transcendental argument was the idea that Americans were a God chosen people endowed with inexhaustible natural wealth, both on the domestic and on the planetary-cosmic scale. Therefore, economists were opposed to the reformist projects proposed by environmentalists, who made very different forecasts. Economists pointed out that it was unclear who is interested in and who would carry out the reforms in a society which characterized by pluralistic democracy and liberal capitalism. At that time, environmentalists had no common understanding of barriers, immediate and final goals, the means for achieving them, possible deliverables and drivers for the reforms. However, they did have an understanding that social projects and reforms were needed to preserve the quality of social and natural environment.

The other three main directions represent environmentalism per se. In 1900, some conservationists were appointed to Government and received an opportunity to implement their projects as nationwide reforms. Their legislative and institutional reforms were aimed rational and efficient natural resource use, satisfying the needs of the American people for a long period.

Conservationists formulated the main principles as ensuring constant economic growth, prevention of unreasonable costs as related to natural resource use and an egalitarian distribution of natural resources. They adopted laws which helped to control the United States economy by the federal government to rule out non-productive and short-term use of natural and social resources by private business. According the opinion of conservationists, this was the possibility to move the American society away from the chaos of free market in a liberal capitalist environment and resolve a number of urgent socio-ecological issues.

A typical example of the new ecological legislation would be the adoption of the Lacy law, named after its author, senator from state of Iowa. The law, passed in 1900, regulated protection and legalized import to the United States of birds for hunting, singing and insect-eating birds, introduction and reintroduction of species “useful” for agriculture, preventing introduction of “undesirable” alien species that displace local “useful” ones. In particular, it prohibited the importation from the Old World some species of fruit-eating bats and mongooses, the ordinary sparrow and other species declared “undesirable” by the Ministry of Agriculture United States America.

This law was to strengthen the national legislation as related to fauna protection; in particular, it was aiming to prevent illegal hunting of birds to obtain their plumage used for decoration of women’s bonnets. The law ensured that poachers, as violators of the United States environmental legislation, could be prosecuted nationwide irrespectively of the United States state or foreign country law and from where the fauna items were illegally obtained. Another crucial achievement of the law was the requirement to obtain proper approvals for fauna items (for trade at the interstate level or trade with foreign countries) and proper markings of cargos. So, the law restricted the rights of individual states in these matters, regarding national priorities as being of paramount importance.

Reconciliation between the free entrepreneurship of private business and centralized government control became possible when an intermediate version of the law was passed. The idea was that businessmen were themselves to subsidize the legislative reform proposed by the government, however, the laws were, on the one hand, universal and, on the other hand, they allowed business to make its own decisions, in coordination with the local communities, locally, including in other countries. Generally, conservationism was oriented to perfecting methods for managing the natural resource use rather than to propagation of environmental values and nature protection.

Subsequently, conservationists were blamed for a number of antihuman and antisocial ideas, for example, the idea proclaiming the need to stabilize the planet’s population and even decrease it to one billion or less. In the second half of the 20

century, the corresponding conservationist solutions, ranging from economic stimulation of birth control in China to forced sterilization in India, were made at the national states level. In the beginning of the 21

century, conservationist “greens” push for a ban on industrialization and technical development of third countries (construction of power plants and manufacturing enterprises) and a radical shut-down of the already operating enterprises in the developed countries, paying no attention to the economic conditions and social consequences of their proposals.

The environmental movement, a trend within biocentrism, defended preservation of wild nature, which, in their opinion, has a value of its own irrespectively of its utilitarian use. For example, in 1872, the United States biocentrists established the public organization Sierra Club[8 - In the early 2000s, Sierra Club and its local branches unite more than half a million members and enjoy the support of an even greater number of volunteers, the media, experts and lawyers, as well as of municipalities, the government and its bodies in charge of environment protection.]. Their views were based on a romantic understanding of nature. They introduce the social into Mother Nature, which is viewed as a perfect creation with spiritual qualities that encapsulates all things living and rational.

Biocentrists view the human life in nature as a certain mode of being and type of behavior, when protection of nature and rational use of natural resources may be just an external manifestation of in-depth motives and value-related orientations. Subsequently, the supporters of this ecological public movement have done a lot to preserve wilderness. Together with industry experts and the government, they developed a natural reserve concept, and such reserves were selected and formally established.

Today we can find a huge number of international, national, regional and local public organizations and civil initiatives for environment protection[9 - Kulyasov I.P. Environmental movement. Series “Ecosociology”. Russia: Publishing Solution. 2016. 286 p. (in Russian)]. Among themselves, they interact as networks or as partners in specific projects. Older large organizations retain a hierarchic structure. They are supported by local informers, who report violations of the environmental legislation or ecological emergencies. After that, the media and lawyers, responding to petitions filed by individuals or organizations. Where laws need to be amended, volunteers or social networks are used to gather a large number of signatures. At a “quiet” time, environment protection non-governmental organizations provide ecological trainings, raise public awareness, organize and conduct ecological holidays and festivals, various ecological events.

Worldwide and local activity of public environment protection organizations is quite significant and includes managing territories other than fit in administrative boundaries, for example, forests certification of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), wetlands and marshes of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), eco-regions of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), and virgin forests of Greenpeace.

Advocates of ecologism were typically represented by researchers who were building scientific models of interaction between society and the natural environment based on consistent patterns of natural sciences, i.e., on ecology. They were using an ecosystem approach implying that individuals, local communities and the humanity in general must be optimally fit into the ecosystem, look after its wealth, ensure an optimal functioning, and prevent crises and catastrophes, including those of a planetary scale.

In this view, the main role of the humanity on this planet is to preserve a dynamic balance of ecosystems and biological diversity. Ecologists combined features typical for the conservationism shown by the government bodies in charge of environment protection with the biocentrism of the environmental protection movement.

The purpose of the American Environmental Society, established in 1915, was studying ecosystems, including human communities. Another very important goal related to promotion of this knowledge and its inclusion in educational programs. The third goal was reforming the American society to turn it into a model of socio-ecological development.

Frederic Edward Clements (1874—1945) believed that the notion of culminating points was applicable not only to biological but also to social systems[10 - Clements F.E. Nature and structure of the climax // Journal of Ecology. 1936. Vol. 24. №1. p. 252—284.].

Aldo Leopold (1887—1948) proposed three main socio-ecological ideas that remain relevant until today. The first idea was the notion of an ecosystemic holism. Leopold believed that “…a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise”[11 - Leopold A. A sand county almanach and sketches here and there. New York: Oxford University Press. 1949. Vol. 13. 240 p.].

An ecosystem, which incorporates a social system, becomes emergent, developing new qualities characteristic of a socio-ecological system in addition to the sum of its earlier qualities. Given the contextual and unpredictable nature of the ecosystem, its vitalism cannot be fully cognizable. The social, where it correctly interacts with abiotic and biotic items, structures and communities, leads to an optimal result of evolutionary development – the culminating point of dynamic equilibrium. Disruption of an ecosystemic equilibrium can only lead to degradation of such system.

Ecosystemic holism advocated by ecologists is useful in analyzing the kind of impact on given species and population, general development trends of the natural environment rather than a specific action and its consequences. It has the criterion of human rationality and, hence, is not synonymous with the transcendental nature of biocentrists. At the same time, ecologists are not trying to evade the question: How can one reconcile ecosystemic holism with liberalism – the discretion to choose one’s path of development?

This issue is resolved in the ideas of biotic functionalism and a biotic moral community proposed by Leopold. He maintained that a biotic moral community expands application of moral rules and, afterwards, other social institutes to non-human elements of the global ecosystem. The possibility of linking the human and non-human elements is made possible as ecologists assume that the notions of a “symbiosis” and “model of conduct” are functionally equivalent.

As a result, ethics becomes ecological and is presented as a conscious restriction of freedom of action for the sake of life on planet Earth. An ecologically responsible social behavior also implies establishing social institutes for restricting those people who are not oriented to this type of behavior. The human is perceived as the creator of qualitatively new types of environment and biotic communities, therefore, individuals are granted the right of individualism, which the non-human species may enjoy only at the specie population or the entire specie level. This right is based on the human ability to respond to changes in the natural and social environment in a reasonable manner.

The idea of biotic functionalism, enhanced by the idea of changing the man’s role in the biotic moral community, does not assume that an ecosystem as a superorganism (a supersystem) absorbs society (a subsystem). Ecosystemic holism rejects this idea, always preserving the integrity of the socio-ecological system and its emergent quality, when human moral rules allow retaining equilibrium, harmony and productivity of the ecosystem.

In fact, the modern-day socio-ecological concepts advocated by sociologists-ecologists emphasize and maintain that social interaction and development do not occur in emptiness and not in the social environment alone but also occur in the natural environment. And, in the context of a local ecological catastrophe of an anthropogenic nature or when the global ecological crisis is looming ahead, it becomes the main factor that determines interaction and development of society. Therefore, the nature-related character of social atomism, which theoretically could be combined with the evolutionary character of social change, was identified as early as a century ago.

Chicago school of sociology

The postulates of ecologism were appreciated and reproduced in the 1920s in the classical socio-ecological concept of the Chicago school of sociology. Below we will consider this in more detail. At this point, it should be emphasized that the methodological framework for socio-ecological research of the Chicago school of Sociology was provided, aside from the European schools of thought, by the ideas of the Chicago school of philosophy, formed earlier on. This concept is characterized by pragmatism and instrumentalism that combine philosophical humanism, sociological naturalism, social evolutionism and reformist ecological activism, including that of an individual.

The ideas proposed by the Chicago school sociologists were based on the evolution of the social, psychic and moral nature of the human, who emerged at a certain level of development of organic life and who remains dependent on the character and results of his interaction with the surrounding natural and social environment. Relationships between society and the environment change (and are changeable) by efforts of humans and the natural environment. Therefore, the task of a sociologist is not only theorizing, once the general patterns of such relationships and links are instrumentally identified, describing their structures and mechanisms, but also identifying best cases and practices that harmonize the life of humans in the environment. This can provide an example for everyone to follow, and a social reform to create conditions for its implementation, could be proposed to the government and business.

George Herbert Mead (1863—1931), together with other philosophers of the Chicago school, developed the idea of pragmatism, which maintains that truth and sense found in the cognitive process must have a hands-on value. This approach, motivated by the processes of urbanization and migration, brought new social issues and posed a problem requiring practical resolution by scientists.

He proposed the idea of symbolic interactionism: people differently respond to the same act by other people depending on the symbols apportioned to such other people. In the urban context of Chicago in the early 20

century, this translated into a situation when migration, uncontrolled by the city, led to the emergence of national ghettos and to other social problems. However, Mead was able to prove that these social problems were also caused by the way how a person perceives another person through symbols rather than via behavior[12 - Mead G.H. Mind, self and society from the standpoint of a social behaviorist. 1934.; The philosophy of the act. Ed. C. Morris. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1938.].

This is a common mistake of cognition caused by the pragmatism of deceit and self-deceit. In the beginning, one generalizes the behavior of a social group, creating symbols, which are then apportioned to such group, whether males or females, peoples or countries, people of other faith or neighbors. After that, these symbols / assumptions are carried over to specific persons who have the identity or status of such group. The biggest problem is when spontaneous behavior of a specific person is not taken into account, when the desire to create social inequality, place oneself above this person and thus justify the suppression, violence or destruction being perpetrated, prevails. This situation was typical for uncivilized societies. In civilized societies, it is balanced by the legal system. While also being an instrument of violence that creates social inequality, court considers criminal acts of specific individuals.