排序方式: 共有9条查询结果,搜索用时 15 毫秒
1
1.
2.
The notion that social facts can be caused only by other social facts is obsolete. Human societies today are affected by biogeochemical change. "Developed" human societies so overuse the finite planet they share with "underdeveloped" societies that the future of all is threatened.
Medicine's prosthesis concept becomes useful for sociology when extended beyond referring to devices for replacing lost body parts or restoring impaired sensory powers. If we regard all modern tools and machines as prosthetic devices, we see them enabling humans to act as giants—giving us colossal resource appetites and huge environmental impacts.
Prosthetic apparatus (and familiar assumptions) previously useful are subject to obsolescence. But there is cultural lag. Conceptual habits restrict the way we see our world. The bubble of twentieth century experience obstructs our understanding of the future into which we giants are plummeting. To explain severe hardships ahead in the twenty-first century, sociologists need to break out of our discipline's traditional conceptual bubble. Twentieth century expectations have become misleading. The basis of past progress (a carrying capacity surplus) is gone, replaced by a carrying capacity deficit. Earth's diminished carrying capacity will sustain fewer (dinosaur-equivalent) Homo colossus than original Homo sapiens . 相似文献
Medicine's prosthesis concept becomes useful for sociology when extended beyond referring to devices for replacing lost body parts or restoring impaired sensory powers. If we regard all modern tools and machines as prosthetic devices, we see them enabling humans to act as giants—giving us colossal resource appetites and huge environmental impacts.
Prosthetic apparatus (and familiar assumptions) previously useful are subject to obsolescence. But there is cultural lag. Conceptual habits restrict the way we see our world. The bubble of twentieth century experience obstructs our understanding of the future into which we giants are plummeting. To explain severe hardships ahead in the twenty-first century, sociologists need to break out of our discipline's traditional conceptual bubble. Twentieth century expectations have become misleading. The basis of past progress (a carrying capacity surplus) is gone, replaced by a carrying capacity deficit. Earth's diminished carrying capacity will sustain fewer (dinosaur-equivalent) Homo colossus than original Homo sapiens . 相似文献
3.
Struggling with human exemptionalism: The rise,decline and revitalization of environmental sociology 总被引:4,自引:1,他引:3
The emergence of environmental sociology in the 1970s, the decline of interest it experienced in the the early 1980s, and
its revitalization since the late 1980s are described and linked to trends in societal interest in environmental problems.
We suggest that the status of the field has been heavily dependent upon societal attention to environmental problems, in part
due to the larger discipline’s ingrained assumption that the welfare of modern societies is no longer linked to the physical
environment. We also suggest that growing recognition of the reality of global environmental change (GEC) poses a fundamental
challenge to this “human exemptionalism paradigm,” and thus offers an opportunity for strengthening sociological interest
in the environment. Understanding the causes and consequences of GEC calls for examination of societal-environmental interactions,
the fundamental subject matter of environmental sociology. Unfortunately, early sociological work has largely ignored such
interactions in favor of analyses of the “social construction” of GEC, Consequently, limitations of a social constructivist
approach to GEC (and to environmental problems in general) are discussed, and a more inclusive research agenda is recommended.
Revision of a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Miami Beach, August 1993. 相似文献
4.
5.
William R. Catton Jr. 《Sociological spectrum》2013,33(2):121-147
Unceasing technological advance is culturally defined as advantageous, but sociologists need to see it in ecological terms. Duncan's P.O.E.T notation heightens contrast between Ogburn's view of technology as a new environment and Park's attention to technologically extended people. Technologically colossal humans more rapidly exhaust carrying capacity—the maximum load an environment can sustain without undergoing degradation. Load has two dimensions (population, and per capita impacts). Until the industrial revolution reversed the effect, technology enlarged carrying capacity. Now technology enlarges per capita impacts and resource appetites. Homo colossus—man equipped with voracious technology—has reverted to hunting and gathering ("exploration and development") and his machines have become his ecological competitors. The number of people a finite world can support indefinitely is thus decreasing instead of increasing. 相似文献
6.
7.
William R. Catton 《Sociological inquiry》1993,63(2):202-223
Issues associated with the phrase “sustainable development” are clarified by careful analysis of the meaning of carrying capacity. In their impressions of carrying capacity's effects, two explanations for the death of a memorable culture (Easter Island) differed fundamentally. One explanation was captive to a premature notion of a carrying capacity ceiling no population growth could ever penetrate. For the other, population was seen as having grown until it did exceed the maximum sustainable load, thus having inflicted environmental damage that reduced carrying capacity. The former view had to imagine a geological catastrophe to account for the culture's death. In the latter view, it was a case of excessive success proving fatal. A proponent of the latter view regarded Easter Island as a “preview in microcosm” of what may be happening globally. As such, the Easter Island experience would have important implications for industrial societies. Comparison of the two autopsies has implications for the social sciences. 相似文献
8.
William R. Catton Jr. 《Sociological focus》2013,46(1):89-98
Abstract This review article is based on Mineral Resources and the Environment, the main report of the Committee on Mineral Resources and the Environment of the Commission on Natural Resources, National Research Council. It is available from the National Academy of Sciences (LC 75–4176, ISBN 0-309-0243-2). Professor Catton, of Washington State University, is the author of From Animalistic to Naturalistic Sociology (McGraw-Hill, 1966), and is one of the founders of the section on environmental sociology of the American Sociological Association. [Eds.] 相似文献
9.
1