CHAPTER 6

The ldeology of

Environmental Domination

No one
to be

seerns to

know how useful it is

useless.

-Chuang

Tzu, third century B.c.E.

When two people look out on a scene, a scene of any kind, they are unlikely to appreciate it in just the same way. Faced with the same material
circumstances, we each see something different. Where my brother Jon saw the beauty of wild

he view from Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park is one of the world's most famous. From this overlook you can see a sweeping panorama of Yosemite, which many have called the most beautiful valley in America. A number of years ago, mybrother and sister-inlaw, Jon and Steph, were visiting her relatives in California, and they decided to take Stephs grandmother to see Yosemite, where she had never been. An elderly woman, she did not walk well, so they took her only to sites you can get to by car. You can drive right up to Glacier Point, and they did. As Jon later recounted the story to me, they helped Stephs grandmother up to the edge and stood there for a few minutes taking it all in. Then Jon turned and asked her, somewhat hopefull "Well, what do you think?" She considered the question carefull and

replied, "AIl that forest. What a waste. There should be people and houses down there."

nature in that view from Glacier Point, Stephs grandmother saw wasted resources. Such differences are a part of our individuality. They also reflect social differences in the apparatus of understanding that we use to organize our experience. There are larger social and historical patterns in the distinctive mental apparatuses we each bring to bear on the world around us. In a word, there is ideology at work. In this second part of the book, we take ideal factors as the point of entry into the ecological dialogue. As we saw in Part I, the other side of the dialogue is always close at hand, and we willfind that here too. Investigation of ideal factors inevitably leads back to material questions. But the emphasis in Chapters 6 through 9 will be on the form the environment takes in our minds. The independent power of ideas in our lives is well illustrated by the history of environmental ideas. The material conditions we now regard as

127

128

THE IDEAL

Figure 6.1

Nightfalls on New Haven harbor in Connecticut. The human domination of the environment is particularly characteristic of the waterfronts of industrial port cities.

environmental problems have long historical precedents, yet few people in the fust half of the twentieth century questioned the increasing per capita appetite for resources, the spread of the automobile and its sprawling land use, the invention of yet another chemical or mechanical weapon for every instance of the environment's resistance to our desires. Ear article s in National Geographic, for example, extolled the industrial might that spawned marvel after marvel, as their titles implied: "Synthetic Products: Chemists Make a New World," "Coal: Prodigious Worker for Man," "The Fire of Heaven: Electricity Revolutionizes the Modern World," "The Automobile

Industry: An American Art That Has Revolutionized Methods in Manufacturing and Tiansformed Transportation." (See Figure 6.1.) In the decades from 1960 on, though, the ideological situation changed dramatically in country after countr as Chapter 7 discusses.r National Geogrphic, to continue with that

barometer of Western cultural values, began running articles with titles like these: "Our Ecological Crisis;" "African Witdlife: Man's Threatened I-egacyi' "Nature's Dwindling Tieasures," "Pollution: Threat to Man's Only Home," "The Tallgrass Prairie: Can It Be Saved?" 4 different ideology had taken more general hold, at least

The ldeology of Environmental Domination

129

among the writers and editors (and, we can presume) many of the readers) of this perennially popular magazine. Scholars have studied the role of ideology in the ecological dialogue in wo broad ways, largely drawing on historical evidence. First, they have considered the ideological circumstances that make domination of the environment thinkable
and tolerable, focusing on understanding Western cultural attitudes that support such a relationship

purely materialist terms. Ideas of consumption'

work, leisure, social status, and community infuse the economy as much as the economy
infuses those ideas. A major source of those ideas in the West is Christianity. As Max Weber argued in a famous 1905 book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Cpitalism, Christian ideas-and, more specificall Protestant ideas-form one of the great

wellsprings of capitalist thought.

It is more than

to the environment. Second, scholars have considered the ideological circumstances that make such

accidental, said Weber, that the

conditions and such domination increasingly unthinkable and intolerable, focusing on the
social origins of the environmental movement'

Protestant Reformation of the late sixteenth century immediatelypreceded the development of modern capitalism and the expansion of European economies all over the globe in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and ninetenth centuries. Capitalism is, in a wa a secular version of Protestantism'

This chapter considers that first role of ideology; Chapter 7 the second. In this chapter, then, I examine the ideological origins of the view that human beings can and should transform the environment for their own purposes. Scholars argue that three Western intellectual traditionsChristianity, individualism, and patriarchy-have in large part provided the ideological rationale for environmental domination. These ideologies of environmental domination are by no means exclusively Western, but they are certainly heavily present in the West, which may help account for the central role of Western institutions in the industrial transformation of the Earth. As well, all three of these ideologies of environmental domination have close links with ideas about hierarchy and inequality, suggesting an ideological connection between environmental domination and
social domination,
as

The Moral Parallels of Protestantism and CaPitalism

'A man does not'by nature'wish to earn more and more money," Weber wtote, n the gendered
phrasing of an earlier time, "but simply to live as he is accustomed to live and to earn as much as is nec-

for that purpose."2 So why do we work so hard to make more money than we need? A desire
essary

to maintain a place on the treadmills of consumption and production is part of it. But to leave the matter there does not answer the question of why
we are on these treadmills to begin with. The answer, suggested Weber, lies in the moral anxiety that early Protestantism inculcated in its followers. Medieval Catholicism was more forgiving, encouraging repentance and allowing last-

we shall

see.

Christianity and Environmental Domination

A common explanation for the modern urge to transform the Earth is the rise of the industrial economy. But the next question to ask is, Where did the industrial economy come from? As I suggested at various points in Part I of this book, the development of economics should not be seen in

minute, deathbed declarations of faith. If you were rich enough, you could litera buy your way into heaven by funding priests to say prayers for you and by purchasing "indulgences" from the church. But early Protestantism emphasized a kind of final weighing up of all the good and bad that a person had done in 1ife, which made it harder to overcome one's misdeeds and made entrance into heaven less ideologically certain.

130

THE IDEAL

Figure 6,2

John Calvin, 1509-1 564. Some scholars argue that Calvin's ascetic vision of protestantism was one of the principal wellsprings of the capitalist spirit and its tendencies toward environmental

domination.

A lot of the anxiety stemmed from the idea of predestination-the idea that one is preordained either to go to hell or to be one of the "elect" who goes on to heaven. Predestination was a common

doctrine of early Protestants, particularly ear Calvinists, and it ratcheted up moral anxiety by several notches. On the face of it, predestination seems a lousy way to motivate people, for it suggests that how you act in life doesn't matter. you are still going to go where it has been preordained that you will go. So why not lead a carefree life of sin, laziness, and gluttony? But the trick about predestination was that no one knew for sure who had grace-who was one of the elect and who was not-except through a person's worldly deeds. Those who were good,

moral, upright, and successful in this life must be the elect of the next life, early Protestant creeds such as Calvinism taught. Thus, in order to convince themselves and the community that they were among the elect, ear Calvinists became ascetics, denying themselves bodily pleasures like laziness and working incredibly hard to achieve the signs of success in this life. Artd they began to rationalize the work process, making work more order and efficient, in order to maximize their worldly signs of moral worth. Basicall said Weber, ear Calvinism was a competitive cult of work, denial, and rationalization. These same ideas still infuse capitalist eco-

nomic life toda albeit without the religious framework (at least not explicitly). What has

The ldeology of Environmental

Domination

131

happened, Weber argued, is that we have secularized the idea that hard work and denial, rationally applied, are outward signs of how good and deserving one is, It remains one of the most basic assumptions of modern life that those who work hard are the most deserving, the most morally worthy of our admiration and of high salaries. Hard workers are the elect of the heaven of social esteem. It is they who have race. And now we have little choice but to be hardworking rational ascetics ourselves, even if (as is likely the case) we do not follow the religious tenets of early Calvinism. The anxiety of early Protestants produced huge accumulations of wealth. (If you work reallyhard and denyyourself, you are indeed more likely to be able to fillyour wallet fuller. More like: There is no fum correlation between hard work and wealth, as any coal miner or factory worker knows.) They reinvested this wealth, which led to even more wealth' And as each dedicated Protestant sought to increase his or her comparative success, the trend toward work, r ationalizaton, and pro duction accelerated. The treadmills of capitalism began turning ever faster. Soon one had to work hard, deny oneself, and rationalize one's life in order to attain any kind of economic foothold, for that was what everyone else was doing. Increasingl people came to accept the idea that those who worked hard deserved to get more and to gain everyone's respect' Likewise they came to accept its corollary: that those who had less must not have worked so hard, and therefore deserved their fate. The Protestant ethic had become the spirit of capitalism. The history of capitalist development provides some support for Weber's thesis' Modern capitalism arose first in the dominantly Protestant countries: England, Scotland, the United States, and Germany. Within Europe even toda the least wealt and least industrialized countries remain the least Protestant: the dominant Catholic countries of Portugal and Spain, and the dominantly Christian Orthodox countries of Greece and much of Eastern Europe. France and Italy fit less well into this pattern; both are

dominantly Catholic but are heavily industrialized and infused with an ascetic work ethic. However, they both industrialized comparatively recentl and are still not among Western Europe's

wealthiest countries.3 Ireland, another dominantly Catholic country, is now one of the wealthiest in the world, but again this is a recent
change.

Now modern capitalism is spreading well beyond the confines of dominant Protestant countries, and even beyond the dominantly
Christian countries. Religion is no longer the driving force. The capitalist spirit steadily enfolds country after country into its secularized ethic of ascetic rationalism. Economic structures have taken over from Martin Luther and John Calvin in spreading this spirit, even as this spirit dialogically propels the structures, as in the way hard

work

the treadmill faster and faster. Ascetic rationalism has become what Weber termed "an iron cagei'a As Weber put it,
speeds
This order is nowbound to the technical and

economic conditions of machine production which today determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt.s

In a wa we're all Calvinists now.

The Moral Parallels of Christianity, Science, and Technology

Weber is not the only scholar who has traced a connection between Western religion and social developments that greatly impact the environment. In 1967 ,the historian Lynn \Nhite published a short
essay

that remains one of the most influential and

widely read analyses of the environmental predicament: "The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisisl'

White's basic argument was that environmental

132

THE IDEAL

problems cannot be understood apart from the Western origins of modern science and tech_ nology, which in turn derive from,distinctive atti_ tudes toward nature that are deeply grounded in Christian dogma."6 Not oniy does the economy of the West have religious origins, then, but Western
science and technology do as well.

encompassing both unlettered farmers and scientific intellectuals, was so specific to one region that its origins must lie in a broad intel_ lectual trend, White argued. The likely trend was one of the great intellectual revolutions of the Western tradition: the Christian ethic. For at roughly the same time that northern farmers were developing the moldboard plow to handle their heavy soils, White noted, they were also giving up paganism for Christianity.

Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, and other medieval scientists were accompanied by rapid advances in Western technology. White placed particular

emphasis on the development of powered machines: the weight-driven clock, windmills,

water-powered sawmills, and blast furnaces.
Eyen more significant, though, was the devel_

and we are part of it. Ealy Christianity, on the other hand, building on Judaic philosoph saw

time as linear and nonrepeating, and it saw the

environment as dead and inanimate, as separate from people. For ear Christianity, the spirit w rld of God and the saints was not immanent in

opment

of the moldboard plow in

northern

tury (see Figure 6.3). The moldboard plow dra_ maticaily changed human attitudes toward the

Europe during the latter part of the seventh cen_

nature-that is, suffused throughout nature, mak_ ing nature a direct embodiment of spirits_but
rather transcendentabove nature. Moreover, early Christian doctrine taught that God gave the worid to human beings to exploit, to change and recreate, much as God himself

could do (which is why only human beings are made in God's image, many Christians believe).

all the Mosaic religions-Judaism, Islam,

on the other hand, required a stronger plow The moldboard was invented to cut more deeply into the ground,loosening up the heavynorth.in soilr.

Changing nature was no longer a sacrilege. Indeed,

and

Christianity-counseled that it was God,s will that we do so. In the words of Genesis,

The difcult work of the moldboard plow nor_ mally took the pull of eight oxen) as opposed to the one or two used by earlier plows. Thus the moldboard plow was essentially a
powered machine. In White,s words,,,Mant relation

And God said: Let us make man in our

image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over

the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. (Genesis 1:26)
Mosaic teachings thus gave us moral license to change the world as we see fit,'vVhite argued, a license gladly accepted and spread fa, urr *ide

standing above it, at least potentially.

neering attitude toward the environment,

Why this change? This exploitative and domi_

it, "Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion the world has ever seen.,,e

in Europe by Christianity. As White put

The ldeology

of Environmental Domination

133

Figure 6.3

A medieval illustration of an ox-drawn moldboard plow According to historian Lynn White, the invention of the moldboard plow in about the seventh i"ntrry radicaily alterej European sensibilities toward environmental transformation

The Greener Sde of Christianity

But we cannot conclude that Christianity

unambiguously promotes science, technological

The coincidence

of the development

of

medieval technology and science alongside the spread of Christianity is intriguing and suggestive. The biblical license to dominate the Earth

likely at least facilitated the development of technology and science. The association of the Protestant Reformation with the subsequent rise of modern capitalism and the striking parallels
between contemporary secular morals and the

of early Protestantism also suggest an important influence of religious ideas

ascetic rationalism

on our material conditions.

of the environment. For one thing, Christianity has often been at odds with science. Consider the conflict between medieval scientists and the established church. The inquisition of Galileo for heresy is only the most well-known example. Far from welcoming science as a way of proving that, yes, God is indeed transcendent and that nature is an inanimate machine driven forward through linear time, the church found its authority threatened by the development of scientific thought. Even though almost all ear scientists,

progress) and capitalism at the expense

134

THE IDEAL

including Galileo, presented their work

as

theological efforts to understand the true meaning of God, church authorities only grudgingly
accepted the argument that science was about faith. And toda many Christian religious leaders

object to a range of scientific techniques, such as genetic engineering. "Dolly," the sheep that Scottish scientists announced in 1997 had been

living creature that is with you." And when the covenant is restated half a sentence later, human beings are not even specifically mentioned. The covenant is "between Me and the earth." (And indeed, many contemporary readers of the Bible take these lines in this more ecologically inclusive
way.)10

successfully cloned, was greeted by many Christians as a blasphemy. Aother sign of Christianity's ambivalent views about environmental transformation is certain biblical passages. For example, right before the famous line in the Bible in which God tells Noah and his family to leave the ark and says, "Be ye fruitful, and multiply,'which sounds rather domineering, there is a more ecological passage:
And God spoke unto Noah, saying, Go forth from the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons'wives with thee. Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee of all flesh, both fowl, and cattle, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may swarm in the earth,
and be fruitful and (Genesis B:15-17)

Another problem with viewing Christianity as the unambiguous source of our faith in
science, technology, and progress is that Christians

multiplyupon the earth.

Note that in this passage, the animals too are

given the right to "be fruitful and multiply"-in fact, even before people are given that right-and Noah is ordered to help make it happen. There is an even more ecological passage later on when

are not the only readers of the Bible, nor the first. The connection that White saw between Christianity and technology is based on the Old Testament, a work that is revered by Iews and Muslims too. Thus White should have been able to find a similar connection between technological advance and the spread of the Old Testament among the peoples of those faiths. Yet he made no such argument, and it is not immediately apparent that he could have. Moreover, Christianity is itself a geographically and ideologically diverse tradition. The Eastern Christianity of Constantinople, for example, was not linked to the development of science and technology to the degree that the Latin Christianity of Western Europe was. Why not? Surely Eastern Christians had environmental constraints of their own to contend with and therefore had equal incentive to develop science, technology, and a domineering attitude toward the environment. Thus White's focus on Christianity may have been somewhat misplaced. The environmental ideas he discusses-linear time, an inanimate

God promises to establish a covenant both with Noah and with "every living creature," promising not to bring on another flood:

world, the dichotomy between people and nature, anthropocentrism-are certainly not explicit aspects of the Bible. They do not appeal
in the Ten Commandments, nor the Sermon on the Mount, for example. And the Mosaic faiths, as we have seen, are neither exclusively Western nor unified in their teachings. We might more accurately describe these ideas that support the domination and transformation of the environment as an underingphi_ losophy of the West, rather than of Christianity alone. This does not mean that religion has no role here, though. As the principal religious

And God said: This is the token of

the

covenant which I make between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a token of a covenant between Me and the earth. (Genesis 9:I2-I3)

This

passage

could be read as suggesting

that humans are not the only beneficiaries in the rainbow covenant. The covenant includes "every

The ldeology

of Environmental Domination 135

tradition of the West, Christianity must be amenable to such ideas if they are to remain
widespread. Indeed, any religious tradition capable of gathering such a wide range of cultures

Is to get lost in water.

All man needs is to get lost In Tao,"12

Such a moral certainly does not appear to provide much license for transforming the Earth to suit human concerns. Rather, Taoism counsels us to forget human concerns so as to avoid the inevitable sorrow of materialism. When one "tries to extend his power over objects, those objects gain control of him," observes the ChuangTzu.t3 Yet as the geographer Yi-Fu Tiran observed, China has long been one of the regions of the

under its tent must be amenable to a similarly wide range of interpretations. The origin of modern ideas about the relationship between humans and the environment is therefore likely more than merely religious.

Non-Western Philosophies and the Environment

Non-Western philosophic and religious traditions, however, do generally give recommenda-

world most transformed by human action,

tions for how humans ought to act toward the environment that are strikingly different from much Western thought. These traditions often promote a more egalitarian relationship with the Earth as well as an acceptance of the environment as it is. Taoism, for example, advises wu-wei, or "nonaction," as the route to contentment. Nonaction does not mean non-doing. It is working with nature, instead of against it, by attempting to act without deliberate effort. (Translating Taoist ideas into Western terms is difficult, but "nature" is certainly close to what is meant here.)lr Here is an explanation of wu-wei from one the great Taoist classics, The Way of Chung Tzu, which dates from the third century B.c.E.:
Fishes are born in water Man is born in Tao.

despite the influence of Taoism and Buddhism. The ancient Chinese canal system, the extensive clearing of the land for cultivation, the formal gardening style of Chinese park land-all these represent considerable alteration of the environment. Such transformations continue today in huge projects such as the Seven Gorges Dam, accelerating urbanization, the mechanization of Chinese agriculture, and the ready adoption of a consumer lifesryle by many of China's 1.3 billion inhabitants. Nor are asceticism and rationalism new to non-Western cultures. Rationalism built ancient China's canals, agricultural system, formal gardens, cities, centralized government, and com-

plex philosophical systems. Ascetic denial has long been a part of the training of ]apanese samurai warriors as well as an important moral ideal in Japanese life.la The asceticism and rationalism of early Protestantism was not unique to
the West.

If fishes, born in water,

Seek the deep shadow

None of this proves Weber and White funda-

Of pond and pool,

All their needs

Are satisfied.

mentally wrong. It just reins them in a bit. Medieval Christianity likely did play an important role in promoting our contemporary acceptance of environmental transformation and
exploitation, at least in the West. Early Protestantism similarly helped promote the train of reasoning that led to the rise of modern capitalism
and the secular ideas of hard work and rationality

If man, born in Tao,

Sinks into the deep shadow

Of non-action
To forget aggression and concern,

He lacks nothing His life is secure. Moral: "All the fish needs

now common throughout the West. But religion

was not the only path that led to these increasingly global sensibilities.

136

THE IDEAL

lndividualism and Environmental Domination

Another path that has also led to environmental transformation js individualism, the emphasis on the self over the wider community that has long been a central dimension of the Western tradi_ tion. Individualism does not mentally prepare us

Gargantua and

his son

pantagruel, both

fabulously obese giants. (The English word gr_ gntuan derives from Rabelaist novels.) The two giants lead an outrageous life centered on feast_ ing, drinking, excreting, copulating, giving birth,
and other earthy acts. Woven through the stories are references to the political figures of the da

who usually appear in unseemly and ridiculous to recognize how interconnected we all are with situations. our wider surroundings, both social and envi_ Rabelais's novels, published together nowa_ ronmental. With an individualistic frame of days under the title Gargntua and pantagruel, mind, we tend to ignore the consequences of our caused quite a stir when they first appeared. actions for those wider surroundings and there_ Rabelais was often in political trouble because of fore, because of our interconnections, sometimes them. But he also found widespread favor, even for ourselves as well. Moreover, we in the West among many of the political figures he lam_ have understood that emphasis on the self in pooned, because even the king and his courtiers competitive and hierarchical ways. Thus we pur_ found the novels downright funny. Still, it was sue our individualistic ambitions not just with controversial stuff. "invisible elbows" that jostle others accidenta The political references in Rabelais,s novels no but with elbows deliberately braced for bumping longer mean much to readers. His writings and shoving aside whomever, and whatever, remain controversial, though-but for a different stands in our way. reason than caused Rabelais so much personal trouble: the style of the books, a sryle that many modern readers find distasteful.and obscene.lT lndividualism, the Body, and Ecology Bakhtin sought to understand why it is the style of Rabelais's humor, rather than the subject of his One of the many scholars who has connected humor, that is now so offensive. our Western sense of hierarchical individualism Like Rabelais's novels, Bakhtin,s answe with environmental domination is Mikhail caused quite a stir. His book on the subject, Bakhtin, a Russian social theorist. Bakhtin pointed Rabelais and His World, could not be published out that individualism deeply influences the way untii 1965, 25 years after it was written.rs Writing we regard the main medium by which we are during the height of Stalinist repression, Bakhtin connected to the environment: our bodies. too was often in trouble with the authorities. He Individualism encourages us to see ou bodies as was denied employment and eventually forced sealed offfrom others and from the natural world, into exile in Kazakhstan during the 1930s. After with a host of consequences for what we regard as World War II, he was able to regain the teaching dirty, as repulsive, as polite, as scary, and as job he had briefly held earlier at an obscure humorous. All of these cultural responses to how thought our bodies interact with the world have important graduate environmental implications, as we shall see.rs Bakhtin based his argument on an unusual him. Now that starin was gone, nou"tortilltI, source: the quality of humor in the writings of Wo rl d w as fi nally published, and Bakhtin,s earlier the ear French Renaissance writer, Franois works were reread and brought back into print. Rabelais.l6 The novels of Rabeiais are infamous By the time Bakhtin died in l915,his works were for their scatological satire of French politics of being read all over the world. the sixteenth century. They recount, in graphic I tell the story of Bakhtin,s caree because it detail, the outlandish and vulgar careers of highlights the strong reactions that people often

Y
The ldeology

of Environmental Domination 137

our own bodies perform the same basic functions as any other animal's body. \tVhy should it be that references to the body and all its everyday-and biologically essential-activities should be considered dirty and indecent? \tVhat could be more commonplace than the body and its needs? So why is it usually considered a rude topic? Bakhtin argued that people did not always react in this way. We moderns are offended because of a historical shift in our conceptions of the bod from what Bakhtin termed the "carnivalesque body" to the
have to reminders that "classical body."

unless carried out under the strict linguistic supervision of 'olite" language, such as I am using here. Emphasis is on the bodyt upper stratum. And the body's means of ecological connection
become shameful. The Carnivalesque Body. Balr}rtin drew the term carniv al e s que fr om the annual pre -Lenten festival

The crnivalesque body is a body of interconnections and exchanges with the social and natural environment. It is a body of openings and

protrusions that connect us with other bodies and with the world around us: the mouth, the nose, the anus, the genitals, the stomach. Through these organs of connection, we exchange substances, some made by the body and some brought into the body from other bodies and from the surrounding world: air, smells, food, saliva, nasal mucus, urine, excrement, the various genital fluids, sweat, tears, mother's milk. It is also a body that relishes bodily acts and desires: eating, drinking, laziness, sleeping, snoring, sneezing, excreting, copulating, giving birth, nursing, kissing, hugging. The emphasis of the carnivalesque body is on what Bakhtin described as the body's "lower stratum." The carnivalesque body is also an ecological bod abodythat is forever interacting and exchanging with naturai systems. The classicalbody, on the other hand, is a body of separation from society and nature. Most of its orifices are hidden from view. Those that are not hidden are carefirlly controlled through rituals that de-emphasize their openness. Food is carefully introduced into the mouth with a fork, and the mouth is quickly closed again. The nose is blown into a Kleenex or handkerchief, and the mucus is carefully kept out of sight. The classical body does not belch, pass wind, cough or sneeze on others, eat with an open mouth, sweat, cry) o experience sexual desire. Excretory acts are kept strictly private. Openly discussing any of these activities is considered rude and immature,

of crnival, once one of the most important dates on the medieval calendar but which survives today in only a few places. Carnival traditionally was the people's holida often lasting for days. It was a time of merriment, feasting, parades, dancing, music, and generai indulgence. It was a time for the outrageous. But most important, carnival was a time of connection. In carnival, the community became all one flesh. (The carnin crnivalmeans "flesh.") Everyone, high status and low, joined together in celebration. It was a time of social "uncrowning," as Bakhtin termed it, a time when the high and mighty were brought back down to earth, the people's earth. By dancing together, by celebrating the Earth s abundance with feasting and indulgence, and by joking together, often through references to the lower stratum of the body and to the substances that pass from and move through that lower stratum, people celebrated their connections with each other and the world. Through these constant references to the bodily connections we all share-the joy of food, the pleasures of leisure, the desires of the flesh, the necessity of excretion-even the famous and highly esteemed were brought down to a common level. (See Figure 6.4.) These carnivalesque pleasures are what we find described in Rabelais's novels, said Bakhtin. Bakhtin makes a crucial distinction between the carnivalesque and bodily references that are merely gross and degrading, however. In carnivalesque humor, the subject of the joke is not brought beneath the tellers of the joke. Rather, it is egalitarian humor that seeks to unite everyone on the same earth bodil social plane. We laugh not just at the subject of the joke but at ourselves too. Carnivalesque humor is not mere mocking. It is, as BalJrtin put it, "also directed at those who laugh."1e It is

138

THE IDEAL

'-tl
j--'
.- ---: n-

F
bE4
-+^ r';_.:

Figure 6.4

This painting from 1498-Piero di Cosimo's The Discovery of Honey-celebrates the festive and open-mouthed character of what theorist Mikhail Bakhtin called the "carnivalesque body." As in di Cosimo's painting, such a body relishes exchanges and interactions wth society and the natural world, rather then presenting itself as a sealed-off monad.

laughter that joins us all together in the joke, renew-

ing community. Degrading jokes, on the other

hand, create hierarchy and separation. They seek to lower others without bringing them into the same

because of its politics (what offended some early

common earthy commun of bodily life. Baltin wrote in defense of the carnivalesque.

But he worried that bodily humor had become "nothing but senseless abuse. . . . Laughter [has been] cut do'urn to cold humor, iron sarcasm. It
[has] ceased to be a joyfirl and triumphant hilarityi'20

but because of its affront to bodily individualism (what virtually all early Renaissance readers found deliciously funny). Todaywe find individualism a lot harder to laugh at. We are ashamed at references to our bodily connections with the world. Nature itself has
Renaissance readers) become offensive.

in modern

This change is evident not only in humor but codes of politeness, cleanliness, and

He also wrote to make a historical point.

Why do we moderns have such trouble distinguishing between the carnivalesque and the merely gross? Why do we so often find any references to the body to be offensive and shameful? Because, Bakhtin argues, social mores have changed from medieval and early Renaissance times, in tandem with the modern rise of hierarchical individualism.
The Classical Body. Thus, a work like Grgantu

and Pantagruel

is generally offensive today not

privacy. Today we eat with cutlery, particularly in formal situations. Medieval people ate with their fingers. Today we find it impolite to eat with an open mouth or with slurping noises. Medieval people were not so troubled. We have historically astonishing standards of cleanliness for our homes and bodies. We confine most bodily acts to the privacy of the bedroom and bathroom. In fact, the bathroom has become a kind of modern shrine to the individual, and expensive modern homes often include one for every member of the famil plus one for any guests-four- and

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five-bathroom homes have become standard in exclusive housing developments. Ald we medicalize birth, death, and all the stages in between of the body's growth and interactions with life. We keep the environment as much at a distance from our bodies as we can. Again, medieval people were not so troubled. Why do we do all these things? Because, Bakhtin argues, they are symbols of social hierarchy. In order to be elite, you need to separate yourself from the common people. Separation from nature and bodily functioning is a particularly convincing way to make that distinction. As Thorstein Veblen noted, elites try to remove themselves from environmental concerns in part because doing so indicates social power. Bakhtin would add that such environmental separation also entails showing oneself to be above bodily concerns. It requires what Weber would recognize as a kind of asceticism, a denial of bodily
existence.

Balancing the Ecological Self and the Ecological Communty

As often happens when someone hits upon
a

new idea, Bakhtin probably overstated his case. His portrayal of medieval and early Renaissance
life seems filtered through a romantic mist.2t This period was not a golden age of unending feasting, merrymaking, and communalism. There was much hierarc then too, as well as grinding poverty, poor sanitation, and disease. Bodily connections with society and with the environment can be fata7, a point that surely was significant to medieval people. (But so too can be attempts to deny such connections.) Thus we cannot pass off the modern interest in sanitation and medical intervention as merely the product of raging individualism. (But overcleanliness can also be hazardous, and indeed is suspected by some researchers as being a factor in the dramatic rise in the incidence of allergies and asthma in the wealthy countries.) We also need to be cautious about seeing the rise of a classical conception of the body and its implication of ecological separation as a purely Western phenomenon. Rather, it is characteristic of elites the world over, Nearly all elites adopt refined lifesryles that insulate them from the

Having servants and machines to handle dirt, trash, and bodily excretions; being able to get through the day wearing the most impractical of clothes; traveling by means other than one's own bodily locomotion; maintaining impeccable standards of cleanliness for one's home and body; having a house and workplace big enough for separate rooms for private acts, and separate kinds of rooms for each kind of act-to acquire these forms of ecological and social separation requires power. It requires money and status. Such separation is far harder for those without money and power, thus clearly establishing who is on top and who is on the bottom.

dirty, sweat smelly consequences of being a human animal. Bakhtin would have readily accepted this point, in fact. And he would have
added that common people have long responded

to the pretensions of the world's elites with carnivalesque humor. In Bakhtin s words, "Every act of world history was accompanied by a laughing
chorus."22

Our desires for social distinction are thus intimately connected with our desire to distance ourselves from the bod from the Earth, and from ecological reality. We cannot admit that we are connected to the Earth, for doing so would undermine the very feeling of separation and distinction that modern life seeks. Seeking to live the life of the high-status individual, we model ourselves after the classical image of the body and find references to carnivalesque connection dirty and threatening. We pretend that we have no need to heed nature's call.

Finall we need to keep a sense of baiance with respect to the carnivalesque and the classical. I for one am not prepared to lead a life of the purely carnivalesque. Besides, even during medieval times carnival was not an everyday
occurrence, although the spirit of carnival was no doubt a more regular presence in the lives of medieval people. Probably it ought to be in ours. But neither should we give up all forms of bodily

individuality. A sense of our own difference is, after all, essential to a feeling of connection, for

l-

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THE IDEAL

there must be something to connect. It's another dialogue.

Yet we also need to balance a classical concep-

tion of our selves and our bodies with a carnivalesque understanding that we are part of nature. Evidence suggests that we maybe coming around to this point of view. The West has substantially changed its attitudes about the body in the 50 years since Bakhtin wrote Rabelis and His World. Thanks in large measure to the social changes and social movements of the 1960s, we are no longer so ashamed to speak of the body (although there are signs that such shame may be on the rise again). Hippie culture and the women's movement both emphasized the importance of being open about the bod its needs, its functions, and its realities. Hippies emphasized a more natural body sryle, breaking the taboos of long hair for men and leg hair and underarm hair for women, for example. Feminists helped break down the misconceptions and sense of shame long associated with women's bodies, perhaps most notably through the publication of the revolutionary book Our Bodies Ourselyes. These social changes suggest a connection between environmental awareness and bodily awareness. It may be no accident that the 1960s saw both an environmental movement and a body awareness moyement. In other words, accepting the importance of environmental interactions may depend in part upon accepting a more ecological-and thus less hierarchical and more democratic-conception of the body.

commanders assess the "lay of the land." Mariners saii on the "bosom of the deep." The environment in general is "Mother Nature." We speak of abuse of the environment as "raping the land," and we speak of civilization as the "conquest of nature." The sex of the environment in these examples, sometimes implied, sometimes overtly
stated, is female.

In light of the violence of some of the imagery-the "breaking," "clearing," "rape," and "conquest" of female nature-these are disturbing metaphors. They suggest, along with a range of other evidence, that there is an ideological link
between the domination of nature and the domination of women. If patriarchal ideas pervade our thinking about society, then they iikely influence our thinking about the environment as well, for we use the same mind, the same culture, to

understand both.

The Ecology of Patriarchy

Note the common Western tendenry to consider women as being closer to nature than men. Not only is nature female, but females are moe natural, our traditions often suggest. We tend to associate women with reproduction, broadly

understood-with the natural necessities of giving birth, raising children, preparing food,
healing the sick, cleaning, attending to emotional

Gender and

Environmental Domination
Aother source of our domineering attitudes toward the environment is gender relations. Consider, for example, the common metaphors we in the West use to describe the environment
and our interactions with it, metaphors that are

strikingly sexual and militaristic. The pioneers in North America "broke virgin land" and cleared "virgin forest." Farmers have long spoken of the "fertility" of the soil, and suveyors and military

with the domestic sphere, the realm of the reproductive and the private. In contrast, we have conventionally associated men with production-with transforming nature so that it does what we want it to-and with the public sphere, the realm of rationality, civrlization, government, and business. These gendered associations imply a clear hierarch with men on top. Western thinkers have often considered women inferior because of their alleged animalistic closeness to nature and men as superior because of their allegedly greater skills in the allegedly higher aspects of human life. Edmund Burke, the late eighteenth-century
as

ssd5-s well

English philosopher, wrote that "a woman is but an animal and an animal not of the highest

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The ldeology of Environmental

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141

order." Hegel felt that "women are certainly

capable of learning, but they are not made for the

higher forms of science, such as philosophy and certain types of creative activities." Sigmund Freud mused that "women represent the interests of the fami and sexual life; the work of civlization has become more and more men's business."23 And here is Henry James, Sr.-father of the philosopher William fames and novelist Henry ]ames, and himself a prolific author-writing in 1853 on the subject of "Woman and the'Womant Movement"': Woman is "by nature inferior to man. She is inferior in passion, his inferior in intellect, and his inferior in physical strengthJ'As he put it another essay, discussing "The Marriage Question," a wife is her husband's "patient and unrepining drudge, his beast of burden, his toilsome ox) his dejected ass, his cook, his tailor, his own cheerfirl nurse and the sleepless guardian of his children."2a These characteristics of women and their lives were not social inventions open to interrogation and change. For these men, and many others of their time, these were the writ of nature. The social implications of such patriarchal presumptions are quite troubling, most would today agree. Many writers also argue so too are the environmental implications. By demeaning women for their stereotypical association with reproduction and with nature, we encourage both the domination of women and the domination of the environment.
Ecofeminism. The work of these writers comes out

greater tendency toward violence and sexual Iicentiousness. And women have often been relegated to the realm of nature and its reproductive
requirements, as opposed to reason and civilization.

It seems that when we think social hierarch we think natural hierarchy-and probably vice versa, too. As the prominent ecofeminist Val
Plumwood has written, the "human domination of nature wears a garment cut from the same
one the others, has a specific form which, like each of and shape of its own."26 Environmental activists themselves have sometimes promoted the association of women with nature, for example by using the image of

cloth as intra-human domination, but

"Mother Earth." An ever-popular environmental slogan is "Love your mother," referring to the Earth. In this case, nature is positively valued, and the activists who use the expression probably feel that it therefore positively values women as well, reversing the traditiona negative connotation of being associated with nature. This is an ideologically dangerous strateg say some ecofeminists. Listen to this statement from Charles Sitter, senior vice president of E>oron, who used the image of Mother Earth to minimize the significance of the infamous 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Aiaska's Prince William Sound: "I want to point out that water in the Sound
replaces itself every twenty days. The Sound flushes

itself out every twenty days. Mother Nature

cleans up and does quite a cleaning job!'27

This "Mom will pick up after us" vision of the

of a relativelynewtradition of scholar and philosophical inquiry ecofeminism, which oiplores the links between the domination of women and the domination of the environment and argues that the domination of the environment originates together with social domination of all kindsacross not oniy gender but also race, ethnicit, class, age, and other forms of social difFerence treated as hierarchies.2s It is common for socially dominated groups to be linked with nature, ecofeminists observe. People of color have often been associated with savagery. Lower classes have often been seen as primitive and as having inadequate control over their emotions,leading to a

environment, as |oni Seager and Linda Weltner have termed it, is both ecologica problematic and sexist. As Weltner writes,

Men are the ones who imagine that clean

laundry into their drawers as if by magic, that muddy footprints evaporate into thin
gets air, that toilet bowls are self-cleaning. It's these

overindulged and over-aged boys who operate on the assumptions that disorder-

debrisis someone else's worr whether that someone else is their mothet their wife, or
spilled oil, radioactive wastes, plastic

Mother Earth herself.2s

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THE IDEAL

system of domination, ecofeminists such as Plumwood argue: culture versus nature, reason versus nature, male versus female, mind versus scholars, ae concerned about our patriarchal bod machine versus bod master versus slave, system of social organization, which is enacted by reason versus emotion, public versus private, self both men and women but results in the domina- versus other.3r In each dichotom the first tion of women. What domination of women, you member of each pair dominates over the second. might say? Aren't we past all that, at ieast in the The core dichotom Plumwood writes, "is the rich countries? Not yet, agree virtually all sociol- ideology of the control of reason over nature."32 ogists. Even in the rich countries, women are still The dominating side in each pair is culturally paid some 25 percent less than men, both linked to reason, and the dominated side is because they are more likely to be consigned to culturally linked to nature. lower-wage jobs and to receive less even when This tendency to separate the world into they hold the same job as men. Many jobs and antagonistic pairs, Plumwood suggests, is a academic felds remain highly gender segregated. legacy of a Western us-versus-them togic of Women are far less likely to hold political office, domination. Ecofeminists like Plumwood advoespecially at the highest levels. Women still do the cate a different form oflogic, one that recognizes bulk of reproductive labor. Women still do the gray areas and interdependence, and one that majority of all labor, paid and unpaid. But these recognizes difference without making hierarpersistent patterns of inequality are not men,s chies. They want us to be able to make categorifault alone. They are everyone's fault. We all enact cal distinctions that respect the diversity and them. interactiveness of the world and that do not rely Ecofeminists add to feminist scholarship the on absolutist, mechanical, and hierarchical notion that the domination of nature is linked to boundaries. patriarchy and other forms of social domination, TheWestern logic of domination is not just an and vice versa. But ecofeminists observe that intellectual problem, argue ecofeminists. It has women too have been active agents in the domiall-too-real material outcomes. Under Western nation of nature. Plumwood points out that rationalit the dominated and naturalized "other" does not receive fair environmental treatWestern women may not have been in the ment. Women, people of color, people in lower forefront of the attack on nature, driving the socioeconomic groups, nonhuman animals, the bulldozers and operating the chainsaws, but land itself-all these groups tend to experience a many of them have been the support troops, lack of environmental justice because our culor have been participants, often unwitting tural orientation is to regard them as generally but still enthusiastic, in a modern consumer less important and less deserving. Women, for culture of which they are the main symbols, example, are less likely than men to receive and which assaults nature in myriad direct an even share of environmental goods. Worldand indirect ways daily.3o wide, poverty rates are significantly higher for women-making women more susceptible to Patriarchal Dulisms.A key tenet of ecofeminism environmental bads as well. is that our cultural climate of domination has But patriarchy also leads to the environmental been built on dualisms-morally charged, oppooppression of men, even those from favored sitional categories with little gray area in social groups. The patriarchal vision of masbetween-that deny the dependency of each culinity leads men to take foolish risks with upon the other. Thus, man is man and woman is machines, chemicals, weather, and the land. Men woman. Nature is nature and culture is culture. often die as a result, or become maimed and disOur dualisms interlock into a larger cultural eased, which is some of the reason why men on

The point of ecofeminism is not to blame men for environmental problems. Nor are all ecofeminists women.2e Ecofeminists, like other feminist

The ldeology of Environmental

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143

the whole do not live social order.

as

long

as

of us have an interest in changing the current

women. Thus, all

told a story about a family cat that helped raise two ducklings, extending nurturing feelings even across the divide of predator and prey. She tells the story best, so here it is in her words:

Gender Differences in the Experience of Nature

The dualisms of patriarchal reasoning also affect the way women and men experience the environment. Although, on the whole Western
women and men experience the environment quite similarl some significant differences sug_
gest that we have indeed internalized some of the patriarchal stereotres. In the late 19g0s I con_ ducted an ethnographic study of the experience

of And this particular time I went to Harchester, and there were two little duck_ lings in a pet shop window. Ard like a fool I thought, well, the kids will like them. And I brought them home, didn t I? And Suzy
cats.
became a mother and she got kittens, at this particular time. And of course she took the two little ducklings over, didn,t she? So wherever she went with the kittens, the ducklings followed. And they used to sleep together in this cardboard box. The cat and the ducklings! . . . It's completely true. She would wash and cuddle the ducklings, just like they were her own. It's the mothering instinct, I suppose. . . . 3s

We had a cat [Suzy]. We always had lots

of nature in an English exurban village. Although

similarities far outweighed differences, village men described their natural experiences to me using significant moe aggressive, militaristic, and violent imagery. Village women emphasized a more domestic environmental vision based on their experience of nurturing in nature.33 For example, men spoke of the pleasures of releasing their pent-up aggressive feelings through clear_ ing brush and engaging in visceral rural sports such as "skirmish," a mock war game played in the woods with guns that shoot paint balls. As one village man described the game,

I think when we were made, we were made with instincts to defend our tribe. . . . These instincts never get an airing. We sit in our office desks [isolated] from that danger, save-the-family

type situation....But

when you go out there playing this game . . . it's like a dog that's been cooped up forever and then one day itt taken for a walk in the

This is an incredible story, one that even got the family's picture in the paper, along with the cat and the ducklings. But significantl this was a story that a woman told me. Her husband, whom I knew well, never mentioned it. This was her story, not his. Rather, he told me stories about rough weather and other hard environmental conditions and his feats of physical prowess and. mental toughness in the face of these conditions. Perhaps village men and women told these dif_ ferent types ofstories to conform to their expec_ tations of what a male researcher should be toid, and not to express their true feelings. Even so, it is significant that their expectations ran along
such gendered lines. I must emphasize once again, however, that the similarities between mens and women,s sto_

it sniffs it and all its primitive instincts come alive. . . . It's quite exciting when a ton of people are
coming at you with a gun.r4

woods and it sees a rabbit.

ries far outweighed the differences. I must also emphasize that it is not helpful to blame men for experiencing nature in ways that I suspect most

No village woman described such pleasures. Nor did any vtTlage man relate stories of nurtur_ ing in nature such as those told to me by several
village women. One village woman) for example,

readers-both male and female-would regard as less laudable. The point of an ecofeminist perspective, as Ioni Seager explains, ,,is not [to] reduc[e] environmental understanding to sim_ plistic categories of 'wonderful women, and ,evil

144

THE IDEAL

men."'36 Rather,

the point is to highlight the

environmental consequences for both women and men of patriarchal social structures and patterns of thinking, which both women and men bring into being.

science, and should not be confused as such. So it is important that the spir_ itual strands of some ecofeminism be kept care_

of faith, not social

fully

separate

from its social scientific

claims.

The Controversy over Ecofemnsm

Ecofeminism remains a controversial view_ point. Much of the debate has surrounded the attempt by some ecofeminist writers, mainly in ecofeminism's early days, to subvert Western patriarc by reversing its moral polarity. These writers propose that women and their asso_ ciations with nature should be celebrated. Reproduction, nurturing, sensitivity to emotions,
closeness to nature and the body-all these things are inherent good, the argument goes. Women should embrace these qualities that one ecofemi_ nist praised as the "feminine principle,,'not reject

Many observers object that this separation has not always been maintained. Another criticism is that a perspective like Plumwood's implies that the "logic of domina_ tion" is mainly a feature of Western thought. Are Eastern cultures less patriarchal than Western
ones? The evidence suggests not. Also, Eastern cul_ tures have shown themselves to be quite capable of

dominating nature. Either the "logic of domination" that infuses both our social and our environmental actions must not be exclusivelyWestern, or the East must have its own logic of domination. Also, in their effort to make clear the sexism

that underlies some of our outlooks on the environment, ecofeminists have sometimes
offered oversimplified arguments. For example,

them.37 lt's the other side of patriarchy,s dualisms-reason, civilization, machines-that has made such a mess of things.38 Critics both inside and outside of ecofeminism object that such a position reifies the very social order that needs to be changed. It perpetuates the dichotomy between men and women as well as the negative stereoq4)es of women as irrational, as controlled by their bodies, and as best suited for the domestic realm.3e Critics also argue that this reification is alienating and fatalistic because it implies that biological differences between men and women are at the root of patriarchy. Such a position, suggests Deborah Slicer, is best termed "ecofeminine" and not "ecofeminist.,,a0 There is also a spiritual and religious dimension to some ecofeminism, associated with,,goddess spiritualit" Wicca, and Neopaganism. Spirituality and religiosity are, of course, important dimensions of human experience, and are not in themselves problematic. Nor is their any reason in pluralistic societies to complain about the beliefs and practices of religions and spiritual perspectives that may differ from one's own. However, spirituality and religiosity are matters

the patriarchal character of dualisms is not

always so clear-cut. Consider the cultural associ-

ation of women with nature and men with cul_ ture. In fact, the dualism often goes the other wa aligning women with culture and men with nature. Since Victorian times, one common stereotype of women has been that they are the bearers of culture and refinement and that they have responsibility for inculcating,.civilization,, in the next generation-and in men. One com_ mon current stereoty?e of men is that they are wild beasts driven by lust and vioient passion, which women must tame for their own sake and for the sake of their children. Also, many of the spirits that various Western (and non-Western) traditions have sensed in the physical environ_ ment are characterized as male: Father S the Greek sun god Apollo and ocean god poseidon, the notion of a "fatherland." Indeed, it is an important feature of ecofemi_ nist thought that we must recognize the gray areas and the interactiveness and interdependence of our categories. Unless we continuallyremind our_ selves of the dialogics of categories, of the dia_ logue of difference and. sameness) we easily slip into one-sided, deterministic, and hierarchical

The ldeology

of Environmental Domination

"145

And as ecofeminism also stresses, when you survey the world with a one-sided,
arguments. deterministic, and hierarchical frame of mind to begin with, you are even more likely to slip in this way.ar But ecofeminism has not always followed
its own advice here as well as it might have. In light of these controversial features of the

ecofeminist debate, some social scientists have sought to find a different term to refer to explo-

rations of the role of gender and patriarchy in social and environmental interrelations. "Environmental feminism" is what Michael Goldman and Rachel Schurman have suggested.a2 "Ecological feminism" is a similar phrase one increasingly encounters in social scientific literature. "Ecogender studies" is the term Damayanti Banerjee has offered.a3 Time will tell if these terms prove anaically helpful. In any event, our environmental complaint with patriarchy should not be that it is wrong to create categories and draw distinctions. We need categories to recognize difference and thereby to build our theoretical and moral understanding of the world. (After all, ecofeminism itself represents a category-a category of thought.) But we also need better categories than the hierarchical, socially unjust, and environmentally destructive ones ofpatriarchy.

ideological roots. This is another dialogue. Material factors structure our lives in unequal ways,leading to hierarchical visions of the world, just as ideological factors allow the material structures of inequality to develop and to persist. Another common theme of this chapter is that, thus far, scholars have relied too much on the Western experience in formulating theories of the human transformation of the environment. Some of this neglect of the East has likely been due to a romantic view of the environmental sensitivity of that part of the world. But largescale transformation

of the environment in the

East goes back thousands ofyears, just as it does

in the West. Although this romantic view is

flattering in some ways, it is also a back-handed insult, for it implies that the scientific and technological mind was beyond the ideoiogical capabilities of the East. The view that the East was ecologically sensitive (until corrupted by the West) may thus perpetuate negative stereotlpes of irrationality and baclaardness. Placing more emphasis on economic factors
may help us understand how the ideology of trans-

formation arose (recalling, with Weber, that any economic pattern is as much an ideological matter as a material one). The global spread of capitalism

of production and consumption, bringing with it

has been propelled by the accelerating treadmills

social structures and ways of thinking that increase

The Difference

our orientation toward transforming the Earth.

That ldeology Makes

These various theories of the environmental significance of religion, individualism, and patri-

arc all have a common theme: the central roles of inequality and hierarchy in the way we think about
the environment. Whether we are talking about the

competitive desire to achieve grace through wor

the notion that people and their God are above nature, the achievement of individual distinction through bodily distance from the world, or the dualistic thinking of patriarch social inequality influences our environmental relations. I hope this chapter also makes it clear that social inequality has not only material but also

But still the explanation is not complete. Environmental transformation was going on before capitalism arrived in both the East and West. Also, and perhaps even more important, we need to remember that the socialist economies of the former Soviet bloc and East Asia showed just as much tendency as capitalist economies to transform and dominate the Earth. We cannot point our analic finger at capitalism alone. In short, we do not yet fully understand the ideological origins of the transformation and domination of the Earth. And it maybe that even after we take into account both material and ideal factors, we still will not fully understand these origins. One implication of a dialogical view of

1_

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THE IDEAL

causality is that complete explanations are rarel if ever, possible. The spontaneous creativ that comes out of social interaction has effects that
can never be completely predicted.

is vitally important that we try to understand the material and ideal factors that dialogically shape, if not completely predict, our actions

Nevertheless, we shoutd still pursue the analysis of social and environmental change. It

regarding the environment-particularly if we hope to guide those actions in a different

direction.