Sources ecosociology. Series: «Ecosociology». I. P. Kulyasov
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 systems10.
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.
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 20th 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 behavior12.
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
Clements F.E. Nature and structure of the climax // Journal of Ecology. 1936. Vol. 24. №1. p. 252—284.
Leopold A. A sand county almanach and sketches here and there. New York: Oxford University Press. 1949. Vol. 13. 240 p.
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.