Ideology and Environment Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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The word ideology was first used by the French philosopher Antoine-Louis-Claude Destutt de Tracy during the French Revolution; he called it his “science of ideas” and intended that his study of ideas would transform France into a scientific and rational society.

While Destutt de Tracy enjoyed initial years of popularity, he was eventually scorned by Napoleon, who blamed his military defeats in part on intellectuals and the ideologues. The history and subject of ideology has since been controversial and the word may be used both formally or informally, positively or pejoratively.

Modern philosophy generally describes ideology in both positive and pejorative terms. In a positive sense, ideology is a system of values, beliefs, and ideas, unconscious or conscious, which organize and shape understandings and perceptions of the political and social world. It acts to justify, recommend, and implement collective action aimed at influencing public thought or political and institutional social structures. It is a set of ideas used to address truth and conduct, and that speaks for a class, nation, or other body of believers.

Anthropologists commonly describe ideology as a set of explanatory cultural beliefs that serve to unify morals, goals, and social relations and without which civilization would be impossible. Ideology is an ordered set of linguistic and cultural symbols through which people interpret and make meaning of the world. Every society has an ideology, and it forms common sense and public opinion. In this view, ideologies are beliefs that are consciously held. They enable groups of people in society to act in unison to direct societal and political change.

In a more subtle sense, anthropologists and sociologists describe how ideology and the sense of normalcy remain invisible to most people in society. They are unquestioned and taken for granted in our norms and assumptions. Seeing past this invisible and internalized logic requires an active process of analysis.

Ideology and Power Relationships

From a more critical position, the word ideology can be used as a pejorative whereby adherents are described as distorted, uncritical, and suffering under a delusion in something akin to superstition. In this view, ideology serves as much to conceal and mislead as to reveal and coordinate. Karl Marx adopts this view of ideology, concluding that ideology serves to conceal, and thus, identification of ideology is the first important step toward overcoming oppression.

Most ideologies emphasize social order and power relations as well. However formal or informal, ideology is concerned with intellectual and social order, rationality, power, conflict, coercion, and the subsequent authorized use of force. In modern times wars are rationalized by “isms.” The balance of power is commonly fought amongst communism, socialism, capitalism, authoritarianism, anarchism, fascism, Nazism, and terrorism. Most ideologies contain an element that strives to recruit members to their perspective and gain commitment. The comprehensive nature of ideology frequently leads to extremism and violence.

Ideological systems contain the assumption that now that this (natural) state of affairs has been reached, things should be that way forever (externalization). For example: “Technological development is the system that can best address an environmental crisis; human history and evolution is a history of human technological developments; if enough resources are provided for new technological developments crisis will be avoided.” We assume that technology is the best response to environmental crisis; we interpret history as one of technological development; we assume that more technology will solve an environmental crisis. These assumptions are ideological.

Analysis and Political Ideology

An ideological analysis of a text asks the following questions: What are the presumptions about what is right, just, and natural? What harmful elements are ignored? What do these assumptions conceal and distort? How is power and tradition made to appear good, normal, and unexamined? How is rhetoric like “good us” and “evil them” used and what is devalued? What experiences, classes, people, and values are silent? Who profits from this ideology?

A purely or rigidly ideological mind often alienating and distrusts, attacks, and questions other centers of power. It is totalistic in its aim to influence entire social systems, and it is futuristic in its belief that it is working toward a possible utopian ordering in which a “good” society will result. However, uncomfortable dissonance results when there is a discrepancy between what one believes through an ideology and what science or experience establishes as real. A common way to avoid uncomfortable dissonance is to selectively ignore those things that do not agree with the ideology, emphasize some aspects more than others, and frame questions and analysis so that discrepancies in the ideological system remain hidden. For example, the pro-technology ideology substantially exaggerates the contribution of technology while underplaying and ignoring the many technological disasters and challenges of the nuclear age.

Environmental Movements

Environmentally oriented ideologies include environmentalism, green politics, and bioregionalism. They are ideologies in that they represent unique valuing schemes with coherent systems of thought that organize and unite persons toward a common vision while offering consistent critique of other systems.

Environmentalists and environmental sociologists describe the culture of the Western world and the sources of U.S. environmental problems in both cultural and structural terms. Environmentalists see the structural sources of U.S. environmental problems in the laissez-faire capitalist economy, the polity of unrepresentative government that has an amicable relationship with large industrial polluters, and the system of social stratification that lends itself to environmental racism. They describe basic ideological cultural elements as a cornucopia view of nature, faith in technology, a growth ethic, materialism, and a belief in individualism together with an anthropocentric perspective.

Environmentalism is a social movement that uses education, activism, lobbying, and protest to influence the political process to protect the environment. While there is tremendous diversity within the environmental movement and related green politics, common positions include stances against nuclear waste, solid waste, water and air pollution, chemical pollution, population growth, genetically engineered foods, ozone depletion, the creation of greenhouse gasses, global warming, degradation of the land, deforestation, and unsustainability.

An environmentalist adheres to the goals of environmentalism and is frequently cautious about new technology because of concerns about how it will affect the environment. Environmentalists commonly adhere to the precautionary principle, which maintains that if the results of an action are unknown, but are judged to potentially have irreversible negative consequences, then it is best to avoid that action.

Politically active environmentalists commonly have strong views about the environment and identify themselves as greens, meaning they have green politics and may formally be members of a Green Party. The term may also be used to describe environmental scientists with a conservationist’s view, a view that advocates for enhancement, restoration, or protection of the environment.

Green Politics

Green politics is a body of ideas within the environmental movement that strives to make sustainability a political goal. Green politics actively critiques what it sees as unsustainable practices. Green political thinkers also generally want an end to the war on drugs, which is seen to have a negative environmental impact and to be a violation of civil liberties and a waste of resources. They want an end to corporate welfare and subsidies to dirty industries. They are critical of pro-business, voluntary approaches to solving environmental problems. They think that environmental problems are not confined within political borders and that bad environmental policy leads to negative international implications and ultimately wars over precious resources. Many greens are also involved in the antiglobalization movement because they feel globalization is antienvironmental in that it is energy-intensive, creates social stratification, empowers global capital, weakens environmental and labor laws, works against bioregionalism, and rides roughshod over local environmental concerns.

Bioregionalism (or bioregional democracy) is the belief that social organization and environmental policies should be based on the bioregion rather than on a political or economic region. It is a group of reform movements intended to strengthen the political process to better protect the environment and sustainability on a local level. There should be local control over natural commons and resources; resources should not be controlled in the name of globalization.

Many of the positions supported by environmentalists are also commonly associated with feminism, pacifism, social justice movements, and liberal religious groups. Environmentalists with green politics commonly value and advocate for grassroots democracy, conservation, a green tax shift, increased consumption taxes, strong environmental protection and labor laws, moral purchasing decisions, full cost accounting, measuring well-being in quality-of-life terms instead of Gross National Product (GNP) or the consumer price index, heavy investments in human capital, investments in mass transit instead of highways, investments in cities instead of urban sprawl and land speculation, accounting reforms that would advantage small business and environmentally friendly industries, long-term vision, bioregionalism, and a biocentric perspective. The perspective of environmentalists is powerful, contains comprehensive theory, a defined set of values, and is supported by much empiricism. Environmentalism is thought by many to hold the prescription for a better and sustainable world.

As with any ideology, however, where environmentalism as a helpful, organizing intellectual tool leaves off and where bias and muddy minds begin has been a riddle of modern sociological thought. In heated discussion between individuals with different ideologies, one person’s carefully thought-out empirical system is another person’s naivete, uncritical delusion, and indoctrination. Ideology can organize empirical inquiries but cannot be a substitute for empiricism.

Bibliography:

Ian Adams, Political Ideology Today (Manchester University Press, 2002);
Clifford Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures (Basic Books, 2000);
Alvin W. Gouldner, The Dialectic of Ideology and Technology (Oxford University Press, 1982);
Andrew Gyorgy and George D. Blackwood, Ideologies in World Affairs (John Wiley & Sons, 1975);
Graham Kinloch, Ideology and Contemporary Sociological Theory (Prentice-Hall, 1981);
George Lichtheim, The Concept of Ideology (Random House, 1967);
Donald Gunn MacRae, Ideology and Society (Heinemann, 1961);
Martin Seliger, Ideology and Politics (Free Press, 1976).