RECONSTRUCTING NATURE One of the main features of contemporary environmental crisis is that no— one has a clear picture of what is taking place. Environmental problems are real enough but they bring home the inadequacy of our knowledge. How does the natural world relate to the social world? Why do we continue to have such a poor understanding? How can ecological knowledge be made to relate to our understanding of human society? The book argues that the division of labour is a key but neglected factor underlying people’s inability to adequately understand and relate to the natural world. The argument extends Marx’s theory of alienation to account for inadequate knowledge and therefore inadequate concern for nature. Using recent developments in ‘critical realist’ philosophy, the book aims to find ways of reorganising knowledge in the light of ecological consciousness. It also corrects the emphasis of much environmental literature by focusing on production rather than consumption. Peter Dickens is Reader in Sociology at the University of Sussex. INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF SOCIOLOGY Founded by Karl Mannheim Editor: John Urry Lancaster University RECONSTRUCTING NATURE Alienation, emancipation and the division of labour Peter Dickens London and New York First published 1996 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. Routledge is an International Thomson Publishing company I T P ©1996 Peter Dickens All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Dickens, Peter, 1940– Reconstructing nature: alienation, emancipation, and the division of labour/Peter Dickens. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Human ecology—Philosophy. 2. Division of labor. 3. Marxian school of sociology. I. Title. GF21.D49 1996 304.2’ 01–dc20 ISBN 0-203-42075-6 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-72899-8 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-08921-2 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-08922-0 (pbk) To Tristram and Aldous with affection The idea of one basis for life and another for science is from the very outset a lie…. Natural science will in time subsume the science of man, just as the science of man will subsume natural science: there will be one science. K.Marx (1844), Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts As a consequence of a more advanced division of labour, each mind finds itself directed towards a different point on the horizon, reflects a different aspect of the world and as a result the content of men’s minds differ from one subject to another. One is thus proceeding to a state of affairs, now almost attained, in which the members of a single group no longer have anything in common other than their humanity. E.Durkheim (1898), ‘Individualism and the intellectuals’, La Revue Blanche CONTENTS List of illustrations ix Acknowledgements x Introduction 1 1 SOCIETY, NATURE AND THE BALKANISATION OF ABSTRACT KNOWLEDGE 18 Nature’s revenges or a crisis in understanding? On the fragmentation of abstract knowledge 21 Society—nature relations and the intellectual division of labour 29 Physics, thermodynamics and society 34 Society modelled on the life sciences? 37 The sociology of the environment: nature’s real powers excluded 39 Explaining the divisions of mental labour 44 Conclusion: capitalism, nature and modernity 49 2 UNDERSTANDING ALIENATION: FROM THE ABSTRACT TO THE CONCRETE 52 Criticising and developing existing work 52 Towards a general theory of alienation 56 From the abstract to the concrete 58 Types of knowledge, disciplines and politics 68 3 REALISM, SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM AND THE PROBLEM OF ‘NATURE’ 71 Constructionism versus realism: some recent debates 72 Social constructionism and realism: a false dichotomy? 73 On the dialectics between realism and strong social constructionism 76 Conclusion: strong social constructionism—why all the fuss? 82 4 WHO WOULD KNOW? SCIENCE, LAY KNOWLEDGE AND ALIENATION 85 Lay knowledge: a hostility to science? 85 vii CONTENT The Mass-Observation Archive study 87 The Mass-Observation Archive Environment and Nature Directive: results and discussion 88 Conclusion: another causal mechanism? 100 5 INDUSTRIALISING NATURE’S POWERS 102 Working on nature: a dialectical perspective 102 The fragmentation of nature 106 Labouring on internal nature 107 Biotechnology: working on external nature 111 Lay knowledge, tacit knowledge and the division of labour 116 The imposition of a reductionist abstract science 121 The new technologies: constraining or enabling? 123 Conclusion: alienation and the nature industry 128 6 CIVIL SOCIETY: THE RECOVERY OF WHOLENESS? 131 Aspects of the civil society debate 132 Civil society and the changing spatial division of labour 136 Civil society and the commodity ‘nature’ 138 Alienation, self-provisioning and cultures of nature 146 Civil society as struggle 153 7 KNOWLEDGE, STATE AUTHORITY AND THE DIVISION OF LABOUR 163 The state as alienated community 164 ‘What the hell are these blokes talking about?’ Knowledge and the state as alienated community 166 States and the contradictions of environmental knowledge 168 Re-thinking ‘New Social Movements’ 170 8 GREEN UTOPIAS AND THE DIVISION OF LABOUR 181 Green Utopias and the division of labour 182 Community and the problem of knowledge 189 ‘Self-government of the producers’: some innovations within modernity 191 Cyberculture as virtual community: emancipation at last? 196 EPILOGUE: HUMANISING NATURE, NATURALISING HUMANS 203 Bibliography 206 Index 218 viii ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURES I.1 Concepts of people and environment 6 1.1 Global warming:one of nature’s revenges? 22 1.2 Relations between the realms consisting of entities governed by the various sciences 31 1.3 The circuit of capital 43 2.1 The relations between abstract and concrete 59 2.2 The relations between abstract and concrete: factory farming and the Chipko movement 60 4.1 The connection between environmental and development problems 92 TABLES 1.1 Transformations of energy 35 4.1 The Earth Summit assumed that there are substantial environmental problems in the world. Do you agree? 89 4.2 Most important environmental problems, men 90 4.3 Most important environmental problems, women 90 4.4 Most important development problems, men 91 4.5 Most important development problems, women 91 4.6 Do future generations face the same problems? 93 4.7 Responses to Questions 4 and 5 by men 94 4.8 Responses to Questions 4 and 5 by women 94 4.9 How useful is modern science? Population as a whole 96 4.10 How useful is modern science? Breakdown by gender 99 ix