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/9780262029100.003.0005
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
The sad story is told of the City Center Mall in Columbus, Ohio, which was built in 1989 and was highly successful for more than a decade but then lost favor with the public, failed, and was ...
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The sad story is told of the City Center Mall in Columbus, Ohio, which was built in 1989 and was highly successful for more than a decade but then lost favor with the public, failed, and was demolished. Leopold said we should learn to think like a mountain, but thinking like a mall raises the question of why mountains or wolves seem morally considerable while buildings don’t. The mall had a life story, had goals, depended on natural forces for its existence, had a “good of its own.” It was independent of human intention – shown above all by the fact that it failed, which was surely not its builders’ intention. Environmental philosophers give too little respect to artifacts, whose very existence undercuts the distinction between humans and “nature.” We should acknowledge the artifactuality of the environment and our responsibility (causal and moral) for it, instead of calling it nature.Less
The sad story is told of the City Center Mall in Columbus, Ohio, which was built in 1989 and was highly successful for more than a decade but then lost favor with the public, failed, and was demolished. Leopold said we should learn to think like a mountain, but thinking like a mall raises the question of why mountains or wolves seem morally considerable while buildings don’t. The mall had a life story, had goals, depended on natural forces for its existence, had a “good of its own.” It was independent of human intention – shown above all by the fact that it failed, which was surely not its builders’ intention. Environmental philosophers give too little respect to artifacts, whose very existence undercuts the distinction between humans and “nature.” We should acknowledge the artifactuality of the environment and our responsibility (causal and moral) for it, instead of calling it nature.
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, ...
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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.
Ian Buchanan
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781474487887
- eISBN:
- 9781399509756
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474487887.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter uses Deleuze’s work on post World War Two cinema has a framework for understanding so-called postmodern space, that is the space of late capitalism, e.g., malls, freeways, motels, ...
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This chapter uses Deleuze’s work on post World War Two cinema has a framework for understanding so-called postmodern space, that is the space of late capitalism, e.g., malls, freeways, motels, airports, and so on. It argues that these spaces can be thought of as ‘any-space-whatevers’, a notion drawn from Deleuze’s account of cinema because they lack the feeling of distinctiveness we typically associate with place. These types of spaces rely on producing simulacras of real places and invite us to enjoy the non-real as though it were an improvement on the original.Less
This chapter uses Deleuze’s work on post World War Two cinema has a framework for understanding so-called postmodern space, that is the space of late capitalism, e.g., malls, freeways, motels, airports, and so on. It argues that these spaces can be thought of as ‘any-space-whatevers’, a notion drawn from Deleuze’s account of cinema because they lack the feeling of distinctiveness we typically associate with place. These types of spaces rely on producing simulacras of real places and invite us to enjoy the non-real as though it were an improvement on the original.
John Levack Drever
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719085055
- eISBN:
- 9781526109958
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719085055.003.0008
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
Hong Kong, Ochlophonic Study #3: Hong Kong is a study of the ‘auditory culture of crowds’ in Hong Kong that questions the sense we may make of language when it is absorbed into the sonic backdrop of ...
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Hong Kong, Ochlophonic Study #3: Hong Kong is a study of the ‘auditory culture of crowds’ in Hong Kong that questions the sense we may make of language when it is absorbed into the sonic backdrop of competing urban sounds. Through sonic composition, it aims at presenting an evocation of the sheer intensity of this most vociferous and yet diverse of places, where the roar of the urban crowd becomes a metaphor for a profound sense of otherness.Less
Hong Kong, Ochlophonic Study #3: Hong Kong is a study of the ‘auditory culture of crowds’ in Hong Kong that questions the sense we may make of language when it is absorbed into the sonic backdrop of competing urban sounds. Through sonic composition, it aims at presenting an evocation of the sheer intensity of this most vociferous and yet diverse of places, where the roar of the urban crowd becomes a metaphor for a profound sense of otherness.
