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[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

https://natureecoevocommunity.nature.com/users/24738-michael-paul-nelson/posts/14041-the-long-reach-of-lynn-white-jr-s-the-historical-roots-of-our-ecologic-crisis


Behind the paper
<https://natureecoevocommunity.nature.com/channels/521-behind-the-paper>
The Long Reach of Lynn White Jr.’s “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic
Crisis”

Fifty years ago, historian Lynn White Jr. presented and published a highly
influential paper, explaining the intellectual and philosophical roots of
our environmental crisis. Current debates in conservation make White’s
paper as important now as it was in 1966.
Michael Paul Nelson
Dec 13, 2016

By Michael Paul Nelson, Oregon State University and Thomas J. Sauer, United
States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service

Fifty years ago this month, at the 133rd annual meeting of the AAAS held in
Washington DC, a fifty-nine-year old historian of medieval science and
technology dropped an intellectual bomb, sending jarring reverberations
still felt today. On the evening of December 26th, 1966, Lynn White Jr.
climbed the steps to the stage and took his place behind the podium. His
address was published as “The Historic Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis” in
March of 1967 (*1*). Within just a few years of its publication, the
article was already considered a ‘classic;’ and over time it would elicit
dozens of responses, be frequently reprinted in textbooks, and become
standard reading in a wide array of university environmental courses.

In his essay, and later in a follow up essay entitled “Continuing the
Conversation” (*2*), White conveyed a deceptively simple yet profound
message. Our current environmental crisis, he argued, is the result, not
simply of our technological ability to impact and degrade the environment.
Rather, our environmental crisis is first and foremost the product of our
Western worldview. That is, our problem is fundamentally philosophical or
ideological: we bring our ideas about the world into existence, ideas about
what humans are, what the world is, and how the human and the non-human
world ought to interact. To put it simply, and in White’s words, “What
people do about their ecology depends on what they think about themselves
in relation to things around them” (*1*). Until we “think about
fundamentals,” “clarify our thinking,” “rethink our axioms,” White said, we
will not adequately address our environmental crisis.

Though White focused his critique on our interpretation of the human/nature
relationship as manifest specifically in the Judeo-Christian tradition, his
point was more foundational. This was a challenging message in part because
it ran so contrary to what so many believed. If our problems are primarily
philosophical, they are not primarily scientific, or technological, or
political, or economic. Those societal structures are the secondary
artifacts of our deeper Western worldview, they do not touch or change it,
they only embody and reinforce it. Our problems are not going to be solved,
therefore, simply by the application of more science and technology. To
many scientists this assertion alone was blasphemy, as they reflexively
assume the starring role in problem-understanding and -solving. Our
problems are instead, White suggested, the expression of a specific
Western, post-Enlightenment worldview that both draws a hard and fast
boundary between humans and nature, and prioritized humans over nature at
all turns. A failure to alter that worldview is a failure to address the
roots of our environmental problems.

To be clear, it is not that technological innovation and scientific
understanding are unimportant, not at all. A culture maintaining an
appropriate relationship with nature will certainly create and evaluate
beautiful and novel technologies consistent with this novel worldview. A
society caring about and for the world will seek to understand the
conditions of that world as a way to express their care. But without the
tether of a new worldview, White agued, our technologies and sciences will
simply revolve around the worldview that gave rise to our environmental
crisis in the first place.

And here we are, half a century from that evening in Washington, DC. The
signals could not be more mixed. There are certainly many signs of an
emerging post-Modern worldview paralleling White’s own nomination of Saint
Francis’ non-anthropocentric teachings as a way forward. But the dance
toward a new worldview seems to be, at best, more two-step than waltz.

Recently, for example, some well known conservation leaders have referred
to discussions about the philosophical and ethical foundations of
conservation as “silly arguments that are diverting attention from the real
business” (*3*), the real business being “a stronger focus on synthesizing
and expanding the evidence base that can identify what works and what fails
in conservation so that we can move from philosophical debates to rigorous
assessments of the effectiveness of actions” (*4*). They speak as if “what
works and what fails” can be judged without reference to our fundamental
philosophies and ethics. Conservation leaders have ridiculed those who take
a principled non-anthropocentric stand, or anything other than a pragmatic
position (which always favors and therefore perpetuates the worldview *de
jour*). Dismissing some conservationists for their “moral certitude,” they
claim to “find it dispiriting…unproductive and ultimately self-defeating…to
have to argue with other conservation biologists over” ideological matters.
“The reality of conservation practice,” they assert, “is too complex and
nuanced for [such] moral conviction” (*5*).

We again flirt precariously and unabashedly with a renewed commitment to
anthropocentrism with our focus on ecosystems services (to humans) as a way
to articulate value in the natural world. Powerful voices still seem to
believe that we can leave intact the same worldview that created our
environmental problems and simply tinker around the edges, working to
invent new applications of technologies and politics built on new
justifications, but not altering our basic belief structure. As if
anticipating a future trend in a dangerous direction, White warned us
repeatedly that we are not going to simply technologize our way out of our
current environmental crisis. He wrote, “we shall continue to have a
worsening ecological crisis until we reject the [Western] axiom that nature
has no reason for existence save to serve [humans]” (*1*).

And there is White, telling us again and again, that though the “man-nature
dualism is deep-rooted in us…[u]ntil it is eradicated not only from our
minds but also from our emotions, we shall doubtless be unable to make
fundamental changes in our attitudes and actions affecting ecology.” What
we need, White argued, is instead a philosophy that is “a viable equivalent
to animism” (*2*), a philosophy and corresponding ethic affirming the
intrinsic value of nature, and rejecting the human/nature dualism that
permits hubris and anthropocentrism to emerge in the first place. White
steadfastly warned us away from assuming that an enlightened prudential
ethic – where we recognize that our well being is dependent upon nature –
is a suitable replacement for the new philosophy and ethics we so
desperately need in the future we face. Our old worldview created our
problems, only a fool would assume a simple reapplication of that same
worldview would also solve our problems.

In 1987, twenty years after the publication of his article, Lynn White, Jr.
died of heart failure. His message is now fifty years old. But we need to
hear it again, today, right now, more than ever. Humans, White pointed out,
“commit their lives to what they consider good” (*2*). When, and if, the
world in its entirety becomes good itself – not just good for us – we will
glimpse a new path forward.

References and Notes:

(*1*) L. White Jr., The historical roots of our ecologic crisis. *Science*.
155, 1203-1207 (1967).

(*2*) L. White Jr., “[Continuing the conversation]” in *Western Man and
Environmental Ethics*, I. Barbour, Ed. (Addison-Wesley, 1973), chap.5, pp.
55-64.

(*3*) D. Toomey, A scientist’s call for civility and diversity in
conservation, interview with Jane Lubchenco. Yale Env. 360. Nov. 13, 2014.
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/interview_jane_lubchenco_scientist_calls_for_diversity_and_civility_in_conservation/2826/

(*4*) H. Tallis, J. Lubchenco, Working together: a call for inclusive
conservation. *Nature*. 515, 27-28 (2014).

(*5*) M. Marvier, P. Kareiva, Extinction is a moral wrong but conservation
is complicated. *Biological Conservation*. 176, 281-282 (2014).