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attachments_2016522.zipMiddle Class environmentalism.pptx
Middle Class Radicalism & Environmentalism
What Kind of environmentalist are you?
http://thegreenists.com/its-complicated/what-kind-of-environmentalist-are-you/ 7562
Questions
Are those who join environmental associations particularly aware of the problems?
Is it just about awareness? Are those who are more aware of environmental problems more likely to participate in environmental organizations?
What is the difference between environmentalists and non-environmentalists?
Is it just about awareness? Are those who are more aware of environmental problems more likely to participate in environmental organizations?
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Research
Questionnaire distributed to 3 groups.
1) Environmentalists 2)Industrialists (Business & Engineering 3) General Public
On some items, environmentalists and general public both agreed on damage to environment (Environmentalists agreement was stronger)
Awareness of environmental dangers can only account in part for membership in environmental groups
How do we then explain participation in Environmental groups?
Need to examine beliefs about environment in the context of wider systems of belief & action (We see bigger difference between environmentalists and others)
Environmentalists see environmental dangers to be much more serious.
Environmentalists: More likely to lack confidence in and even show hostility toward science and technology
Environmentalists: More opposed to institutions of industrial society
Belief Systems (Environmentalists)
Low support for material values (Maintaining high rate of economic growth, maintaining stable economy)
High support for post-material values (Progressing toward less impersonal, more humane society; Progressing toward a society where ideas are more important than money)
Environmentalists have a different worldview, meaning system, and value system than non-environmentalists.
Environmentalists Vs. General Public
What differentiates environmentalists from general public is not awareness of environmental dangers but use to which they put their environmental beliefs.
Universal trump cards: Time, money, God, Nature
Laws of nature are used to sanction moral codes (Hurricane Katrina happened b/c of abortion)
Environment is trump card used by environmentalists
Those on Left: Less confidence in science, higher scores on anti-industrial society scale, higher post-material scores, more opposed to economic individualism, more likely to rate environmental dangers as more serious.
Environmental Movement
Environmental movement: Vehicle for harnessing beliefs about environmental dangers to support attack on central values and beliefs of industrial capitalism -- the hegemony of economic goals and values. (Define good citizenship through consumerism)
In other words, Environmental movement is a way of acting out beliefs. Belief is that the world and society is not just about money, individualism, etc. A belief system that feels the environment is in serious danger due to the primacy of profit.
Society today: belief in experts, scientists, epistemology, scientific method, emphasis on quantification.
Environmentalists: Oppose dominant value attached to economic growth. Believe resources are finite. Give higher priority to realization of non-material values -- To social relationships and community, to increased participation and decisions that affect our lives.
Little confidence in science and technology -- can make things worse.
Environmental movement is a way of acting out beliefs. Belief is that the world and society is not just about money, individualism, etc. A belief system that feels the environment is in serious danger due to the primacy of profit.
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Occupations
High proportion of environmentalists work in non-productive service sector: doctors, social workers, teachers, creative arts.
They are on the periphery of industrial capitalist society -- political outsiders.
They are protesting against being alienated from decision making, protesting against usurpation of policy decisions by experts working within dominant economic values.
But their attack is not just rooted in their subordinate position. It is rooted in the relations to the core economic institutions of society.
Support for dominant social paradigm is strongest in industrialist sample. Industrialists occupied dominant positions in market sector.
Occupational Choice
Values are a major factor influencing occupational choice.
Personal service, intellectual, and artistic sectors constitute non-industrial enclaves within industrial societies and are the carriers of alternative non-economic values.
Competing Cultures & Meaning Systems
New politics has demands stemming from non-economic values.
Dominant social paradigm provides not only a set of beliefs about how society works, but functions as ideology legitimating dominant political institutions and processes.
Dominant social paradigm represses alternative viewpoints.
Environmentalists call into question the sanity of modern industrial societies being dominated by the value of technology, efficiency, organization, and growth.
Hegemony of values & beliefs of liberal capitalism blocks dialogue and communication.
