Steven Vogel
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780262029100
- eISBN:
- 9780262326988
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029100.003.0002
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
To show something to be “socially constructed” is to show it not to be natural; in this sense there’s something paradoxical in the thesis that nature is itself socially constructed. The thesis might ...
More
To show something to be “socially constructed” is to show it not to be natural; in this sense there’s something paradoxical in the thesis that nature is itself socially constructed. The thesis might be understood as meaning that nothing is natural, and that the distinction between the “natural” and the “social” makes no sense. “Construction” has to be understood literally. As natural beings, humans are constantly in the process of transforming their environment: they build it. Our relation to the world is active; we come to know it, as the history of epistemology from empiricism through Kant and Hegel and Marx (and Heidegger) shows, through our social practices. Such practices are prior to any putative distinction between matter and thought, nature and culture, or object and subject.Less
To show something to be “socially constructed” is to show it not to be natural; in this sense there’s something paradoxical in the thesis that nature is itself socially constructed. The thesis might be understood as meaning that nothing is natural, and that the distinction between the “natural” and the “social” makes no sense. “Construction” has to be understood literally. As natural beings, humans are constantly in the process of transforming their environment: they build it. Our relation to the world is active; we come to know it, as the history of epistemology from empiricism through Kant and Hegel and Marx (and Heidegger) shows, through our social practices. Such practices are prior to any putative distinction between matter and thought, nature and culture, or object and subject.
Steven Vogel
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780262029100
- eISBN:
- 9780262326988
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029100.001.0001
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
Environmental theory would be better off if it eschewed the concept of “nature” entirely. The concept is too ambiguous and potentially politically dangerous, while as McKibben and others have argued, ...
More
Environmental theory would be better off if it eschewed the concept of “nature” entirely. The concept is too ambiguous and potentially politically dangerous, while as McKibben and others have argued, if “nature” means a world independent of human action it may no longer exist – and even if it did that’s not where environmental problems arise. The world that actually “environs” us is always a built one, and is “socially constructed” in the sense that humans literally construct it in their practices. We are not alienated from nature but rather from that (built) environment, in that we do not recognize, or take responsibility for, its builtness. “Thinking like a mall” means recognizing that the distinction between the “natural” and the “artificial” is untenable: artifacts are as material, and so as independent of humans, as anything else. Environmental questions are political questions, about what sort of environment we want to build: “nature” can’t answer them, only those beings capable of engaging in democratic political discourse can. But under capitalism such discourse is virtually impossible, and instead individuals can only engage in private market transactions with each other that when aggregated produce harmful “externalities” that no one intends. This is the source of environmental problems. Only by choosing our practices not as individuals but as democratically a community could such problems be overcome.Less
Environmental theory would be better off if it eschewed the concept of “nature” entirely. The concept is too ambiguous and potentially politically dangerous, while as McKibben and others have argued, if “nature” means a world independent of human action it may no longer exist – and even if it did that’s not where environmental problems arise. The world that actually “environs” us is always a built one, and is “socially constructed” in the sense that humans literally construct it in their practices. We are not alienated from nature but rather from that (built) environment, in that we do not recognize, or take responsibility for, its builtness. “Thinking like a mall” means recognizing that the distinction between the “natural” and the “artificial” is untenable: artifacts are as material, and so as independent of humans, as anything else. Environmental questions are political questions, about what sort of environment we want to build: “nature” can’t answer them, only those beings capable of engaging in democratic political discourse can. But under capitalism such discourse is virtually impossible, and instead individuals can only engage in private market transactions with each other that when aggregated produce harmful “externalities” that no one intends. This is the source of environmental problems. Only by choosing our practices not as individuals but as democratically a community could such problems be overcome.
