International Dimensions Of The Environmental Crisis

Richard N Barrett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780367019143
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429716188
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This volume is a collection of seventeen essays, offering in-depth and comparative studies of areas faced with environmental crisis. Arranged in five sections that include practical and philosophical problems; Latin America; Europe; Asia and Africa. With focus on the problems faced in the Sahara Desert, the Amazon, the Punjab and a comparative study of Ethiopia and Nigeria; highlighting the seriousness of certain environmental trends and the action of governments.

Part I
Practical and Philosophical Problems

DOI: 10.4324/9780429049002-1

1
Technology and Nature In Europe and America

DOI: 10.4324/9780429049002-2

Albert Borgmann

When we distinguish nature from other realms of the world, we think of it as the totality and unity of those things that exist and grow in their own right, without the intervention of man. Nature in this sense contrasts with culture, which in the modern world typically has the shape of technology. Nature is older than culture, and culture rests on nature. Today it is becoming doubtful if nature can continue to support culture. Modern technology sometimes seems like a parasite that is about to devour its host. This danger calls for reflection on the relation of nature and technology. The relation will turn out to be deeply ambivalent. To resolve the ambivalence, it is helpful to consider some of the aspects of the last pretechnological positions in Europe and America from which the relation developed into its contemporary form.

This approach may seem to be unable to contain the complexity of the issues in question. The problems of energy, the environment, and the economy seem to confound the best efforts of government; the flood of analyses and prescriptions seems only to aggravate the confusion. Where can one begin to sort out the problems? We must remember, however, that amidst the turmoil over policies, everyday life in the advanced industrial countries proceeds at a steady and disciplined pace. Just consider how many schedules and devices have to interact smoothly so that a seed can grow into a head of lettuce in California and the lettuce can reach a supermarket shelf in Montana. If we consider all the other lines of procurement that converge in the supermarket or on the television screen we get an impression of how strong and tight the network is of the technological universe in which we move with such ease and familiarity.

TECHNOLOGY AS AN APPROACH TO REALITY

This suggests that underneath the controversies and perplexities there is a firm common understanding of the structure of our world and a tacit agreement on how to sustain, advance, and utilize that world. Since the modern technological reality is unlike any other in history, it must be correlated with a distinctive approach to reality, and it is this approach that I want to call technology. Technology for present purposes is the characteristic way in which modern man has agreed to take up with reality. When such an agreement becomes firmly entrenched, it also becomes unspoken and invisible. It is understood in the sense of being taken for granted; it surfaces only in occasional reminders of the obvious. However, we can catch a glimpse of its distinctive features when we return to those statements at the beginning of the modern period where this approach was first articulated.

Both Bacon and Descartes, writing in the first half of the 17th century, saw themselves at the beginning and as initiators of a new era (Bacon, 1960:3-4; Descartes, 1956:4,39). It was to be distinguished by a radical scientific illumination of reality and by an equally fundamental improvement of the human lot on the basis of scientific insight. "...I am laboring," Bacon emphasized, "to lay the foundation, not of any sect or doctrine, but of human utility and power" (Bacon, 1960:16). And Descartes, speaking of his insights in physics, said: "...they have satisfied me that it is possible to reach knowledge that will be of much utility in this life; and instead of the speculative philosophy now taught in the schools we can find a practical one, by which, knowing the nature and behavior of fire, water, air, stars, the heavens, and all the other bodies which surround us, as well as we now understand the different skills of our workers, we can employ these entities for all the purposes for which they are suited, and so make ourselves masters and possessors of nature" (Descartes, 1956:40). The main goal of these efforts seems to be the domination of nature, but we must be more precise. The desire to dominate does not just spring from a lust for power or from sheer human imperialism. It is from the start connected with the aim of liberating man from disease, hunger, and toil, and to enrich his life with learning, art, and athletics. Descartes says further of his studies that they "would not only be desirable in bringing out about the invention of an infinity of devices to enable us to enjoy the fruits of agriculture and all the wealth of the earth without labor, but even more so in conserving health, the principle good and the basis of all other goods in this life" (Descartes, 1956: 40). And in Tonsmaso Campanella's City of the Sun of 1623, new machines and more efficient labor lead to a greatly enriched life where leisure is spent in "learning joyously, in debating, in reading, in reciting, in writing, in walking, in exercising the mind and body and with play" (Sibley, 1971:40). Bacon's New Atlantis represents the most influential picture of the liberated and enriched life in a society based on science and technology.

These visions preceded reality by more than a century. When in the second half of the 18th century the industrial revolution began to employ new machines and more efficient methods of production, it at first increased the common toil and misery. But even such a penetrating critic of these developments as Karl Marx held on to the promise of modern technology and looked forward to an advanced industrial and communist society where people "do this today and that tomorrow, who hunt in the morning, go fishing in the afternoon, raise cattle in the evening, are critics after dinner as they see fit, without for that matter ever becoming hunters, fishermen, sheperds, or critics" (Marx and Engels, 1959:33).

The splendor of the promise of technology appears bright even today when we remember how recently misery and deprivation shaped human life, especially in the newly settled areas of this country. In the older cemeteries of the American West, one can find tombstones from the early part of this century which record the deaths of siblings two, three, or four years old who died within a few winter weeks, weakened from poor food and shelter and taken away by contagious diseases. Granville Stuart speaks eloquently of how he and his brother "were famished for something to read" in the camp on Gold Creek, Montana, in the winter of 1860 (Stuart, 1925,1:159). They heard of a trunk of books in the Bitterroot Valley. "...we started for those books," Stuart wrote, "a hundred and fifty miles away, without a house, or anybody on the route, and with three big rivers to cross..." (Stuart, 1925,1:160). They spent half of all the money they had on five books. "...but then we had the blessed books," Stuart says, "which we packed carefully in our blankets, and joyfully started on our return ride of a hundred and fifty miles. Many were the happy hours we spent reading those books..." (Stuart, 1925, 1:161).

The argument that the conquest of nature has liberated us from toil and misery is strong and it covers, of course, many more aspects of life than have become apparent so far. Eugene Ferguson gives a more detailed view of the matter.

Relief became possible from the drudgery of threshing wheat, digging dirt, carrying water, breaking rocks, sawing wood, washing clothes, and indoors spinning and weaving and sewing; many of the laborious tasks of living were being made easier by the middle of the 19th century. Relief from toil does not necessarily mean a better, higher life; nevertheless, any attempt to get at the meaning of American technology must give a prominent place to machines that have lifted burdens from the shoulders of millions of individual human beings (Ferguson, 1979:16).

The liberating and disburdening character of certain phases and forms of technology is obvious and significant. Ferguson is a little more guarded but still confident as regards the enrichment that comes from technology. He says:

The democratic ideal of American technology shone brightly, too, as countless low-priced pictures, books, lamps, rugs, chairs, cookstoves, and musical instruments served to lift hearts and reduce boredom and despair. The mail-order catalogs that appeared at the end of the 19th century epitomize the democratization of the amenities that has marked the rise of American technology. Rail, if you will, at the decline of taste; but look first at the real alternatives of bare walls, dirt floors, and minds untouched by the imaginative works of writers, poets, painters, and sculptors (Ferguson, 1979:16).

THE FAILED PROMISE OF TECHNOLOGY

Today, however, the confidence in the promise of technology that speaks from these passages is no longer commonly shared.¹ The doubts about that promise are complex, however, and spring from two very different concerns. One is the question whether the promise of disburdenment and enrichment can be made good for all people and times. The other concern is more concealed and difficult and asks whether the promise is not altogether misconceived, too vaguely given at first and no longer sensible where technology is most advanced.

To clarify these doubts and the implications they have for our relation to nature, we must be more precise about the pattern which evolves as modern man proceeds to conquer nature in order to gain a free and rich life. Let us proceed concretely and look at a woodburning cookstove. It provides more constant fire and heat than an open fire; it rids us of smoke and soot and allows us to cook with many pots at once. Still, the intensity of the fire is not easily regulated, and there remains the daily chore of carrying wood and building a fire. An electric range frees us of those labors, but someone will still be slaving over the stove, perhaps for hours, stirring, turning, and watching the food. Finally, the microwave oven lifts those burdens from the cook's shoulder and meals are ready within minutes and at the touch of a button. But it is apparent now that liberation by way of disburdenment has given way to disengagement. With microwave cooking, all direct and bodily engagement with fire and flame, with the texture of food, with the processes of simmering, boiling, and frying has disappeared.

What happens to the promise of enrichment through technology? In time bridges were built across Montana's rivers, all-weather highways were constructed, and cars and libraries were built. Within hours and without danger to life and limb, anyone could borrow however many books at no cost. But did our reading become more substantial and happier than that of the Stuarts? They had chosen Shakespeare, Byron, Adam Smith, the Bible, and a history of Napoleon's army. How does this compare with our best seller lists? And how do our typical leisure activities stack up against Campanella's vision of artistic, intellectual, and athletic pursuits? Ironically, we become less confident of positive answers to such questions as we consider the progress of the technologies of enrichment and weigh the excessive contributions that radio, films, and television have in fact made to the richness of our lives. Enrichment, we must admit, has yielded to diversion and distraction.

Why this change from liberation to disengagement and from enrichment to distraction? There is no necessity in this development as though a law of history had decreed it. It is a fact, and to understand it is to see its salient features in light of our deepest concerns. We must remember that the conquest of nature was to proceed from fundamental, i.e., scientific, insights into the workings of nature. Such insights were to allow us to procure and secure "all the wealth of the earth" in a correspondingly fundamental way, i.e., once and for all, without an ever renewed struggle. Thus diptheria is not to be battled time and again at the child's bedside, but to be conquered once and for all through a vaccination. Water is not to be had through a daily walk to the fountain or spring, in heat or cold, and by carrying buckets. Rather a water supply system is installed once and water is then on tap at all times. Everything is made available so that it is present at once, wherever it may be wanted, without risk and need of skill or attention. But things are so commodiously present only if there is a technological device that procures them and so disburdens us. In disburdening us, these devices intervene between us and nature. Between us and the springs and wells, there is the utility and plumbing system. Between us and the wheat fields are agribusiness and supermarkets. Moreover the devices of technology also come between us and culture. For we are separated from the musicians by the recording studio and the high fidelity system and from the distant poet's voice by a translation and by print.

In a pretechnological setting we are engaged with the things of nature and culture through a tightly woven context of means and ends. Such a context takes account of local and historical conditions and puts us in touch with them. Technology however conquers and subdues the local context and reduces nature and culture to resources. On that resource base it provides us with whatever commodities wherever we live. It procures oranges for Montanans and skiing for Texans. It makes Lowenbrau available to Americans and hamburgers to Bavarians.

We can now see why technology is an international phenomenon. It gains entry into all cultures and nations through its promise of liberation and enrichment. But it fulfills its promise by dividing the fabric of a culture into resources and commodities. It is a global phenomenon because it levels down all local and historical idiosyncrasies. Rice is as much a resource as wheat, tacos as much as pizzas, baroque music as much as jazz.

Technology is obviously a global phenomenon in very unequal ways. Some countries have their resources ravaged without a corresponding benefit of commodities. Others have a surfeit of consumer goods. Some countries rightly and urgently seek liberation from hunger, disease, and...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures and Maps
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Contributors
• PART I - PRACTICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS
• PART II - LATIN AMERICA
• PART III - EUROPE
• PARI IV - ASIA
• PART V - AFRICA