Product Description

Ecologies of the Heart offers a highly readable new look at the range of approaches we use in thinking about environmental management. In answering the questions of why people hold beliefs about the environment that are `counterfactual' - against the facts - to modern scientists, often making ecological choices on emotional grounds, the book shows that these beliefs are understandable and have an empirical basis in solving the world ecological crisis. Eugene Anderson argues that although no one person is going to solve the world ecological crisis single-handedly, it will never be solved unless we recognize the problem presented by beliefs that are plausible but inadequate.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1101246 in Books
• Published on: 1996-06-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Synopsis
Ecologies of the Heart offers a highly readable new look at the range of approaches we use in thinking about environmental management. In answering the questions of why people hold beliefs about the environment that are 'counterfactual' - against the facts - to modern scientists, often making ecological choices on emotional grounds, the book shows that these beliefs are understandable and have an empirical basis in solving the world ecological crisis. Eugene Anderson argues that although no one person is going to solve the world ecological crisis single-handedly, it will never be solved unless we recognize the problem presented by beliefs that are plausible but inadequate.

About the Author
Eugene N. Anderson is Professor of the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside, and has worked in the field of resource management for more than 30 years.

Customer Reviews

Must for how to create a sustainable human society & culture
This book is a must read for anyone interested in how we can create a sustainable human society and culture. His key question that he sets out to answer is how particular beliefs about resources become accepted as canonical in particular cultures.

His solution involves the creation of an ethic that is specific about the basics but dispenses with sectarian dogma. A bare minimum, or at least a beginning, would include the following: 1. Mobilising active love for plants and animals and the environment. 2. Representing this love by a morality of caring for and cherishing living things, and acting with social responsibility toward them. 3. Wanting to learn more about living things and keep informed about their situation.

The conclusions he draws are perhaps obvious, but they are supported by sound research, there are 19 pages of references! "The first most important conclusion is that ecological problems are due to human choice - not to blind forces of technology, and not to value judgements such as greed or population explosion. The second is that human choice is often made on the basis of strong emotion such as strong emotion, such as love and hate, as well as more dispassionate cost-benefit calculations. The roots of economic action are not unimpassioned. The third is that human choice, being necessarily made on the basis of what people know, is subject to all the problems of human information processing. People make mistakes. They also set priorities that may be far from those that would guarantee long-term self-interest. Fourth is that society must therefore view environmental management as necessarily involving an ethical and moral code backed up by emotional force, but society must also create an economic system that makes ecological sanity economically attractive. This middle ground seems rarely taken. Most analyses of our environmental problems seem almost wholly moral or moralistic or almost wholly economic or technical."

Anyone interested in convincing people to manage the environment in any particular way would be well advised to embed it in a rich texture of emotional experience, such as nature walks and workshops. The media should then supplement this. Love alone is not sufficient, his example is the many off-road users who genuinely like the outdoors, but thoughtlessly damage fragile environments.

As a model he looks at traditional religion, and how feasts and festivals first engage children who would not be interested in theology. He sees religion as having been a necessary counterbalance to positive illusions, people tend to think the world is the way they want it to be. People doing the most harm to the environment are often the most optimistic people. His first example is how feng shui encoded observed facts in a form that was popularly acceptable and served to preserve the Chinese landscape without recourse to planning authorities and enforcers; people directly affected by "bad" development were sufficiently informed, motivated and empowered to stop it. "The decline of religion may not make people bad, but it does deny them one way of organising the good. The loss of ceremonies does not destroy the conservationist worldview outright. It works its devastation ... through undermining the education of the young ... and the community's ability to force it's will on cheaters."

Humans are imperfect planners. They value very small but immediate returns over much greater, but more distant or chancy returns. Humans often solve a problem by attacking or repressing other people rather than working for more creative and constructive solutions. Failures follow from people getting caught up emotionally in scapegoating or withdrawal. These are predictable coping mechanisms when a society fails to manage its resources well and fairly, and a few get rich but most get poorer. Eventually the society is not seen as worth preserving and collapses.

The style is readable, if a bit US-centric, references to the founding fathers and the Constitution pass me by. There are also key one-liners, eg "Conservation is basically about people, not about resources." "Conservation is simply a form of mutual caring respect." "the world environmental problem is not an environment problem. It is a problem with human emotions."

Overall I found the book very informative and it draws clear, positive and useful conclusions from that information.