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Biocentrists view the human life in nature as a certain mode of being and type of behavior, when protection of nature and rational use of natural resources may be just an external manifestation of in-depth motives and value-related orientations. Subsequently, the supporters of this ecological public movement have done a lot to preserve wilderness. Together with industry experts and the government, they developed a natural reserve concept, and such reserves were selected and formally established.
Today we can find a huge number of international, national, regional and local public organizations and civil initiatives for environment protection9. Among themselves, they interact as networks or as partners in specific projects. Older large organizations retain a hierarchic structure. They are supported by local informers, who report violations of the environmental legislation or ecological emergencies. After that, the media and lawyers, responding to petitions filed by individuals or organizations. Where laws need to be amended, volunteers or social networks are used to gather a large number of signatures. At a “quiet” time, environment protection non-governmental organizations provide ecological trainings, raise public awareness, organize and conduct ecological holidays and festivals, various ecological events.
Worldwide and local activity of public environment protection organizations is quite significant and includes managing territories other than fit in administrative boundaries, for example, forests certification of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), wetlands and marshes of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), eco-regions of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), and virgin forests of Greenpeace.
Advocates of ecologism were typically represented by researchers who were building scientific models of interaction between society and the natural environment based on consistent patterns of natural sciences, i.e., on ecology. They were using an ecosystem approach implying that individuals, local communities and the humanity in general must be optimally fit into the ecosystem, look after its wealth, ensure an optimal functioning, and prevent crises and catastrophes, including those of a planetary scale.
In this view, the main role of the humanity on this planet is to preserve a dynamic balance of ecosystems and biological diversity. Ecologists combined features typical for the conservationism shown by the government bodies in charge of environment protection with the biocentrism of the environmental protection movement.
The purpose of the American Environmental Society, established in 1915, was studying ecosystems, including human communities. Another very important goal related to promotion of this knowledge and its inclusion in educational programs. The third goal was reforming the American society to turn it into a model of socio-ecological development.
Frederic Edward Clements (1874—1945) believed that the notion of culminating points was applicable not only to biological but also to social systems10.
Aldo Leopold (1887—1948) proposed three main socio-ecological ideas that remain relevant until today. The first idea was the notion of an ecosystemic holism. Leopold believed that “…a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise”11.
An ecosystem, which incorporates a social system, becomes emergent, developing new qualities characteristic of a socio-ecological system in addition to the sum of its earlier qualities. Given the contextual and unpredictable nature of the ecosystem, its vitalism cannot be fully cognizable. The social, where it correctly interacts with abiotic and biotic items, structures and communities, leads to an optimal result of evolutionary development – the culminating point of dynamic equilibrium. Disruption of an ecosystemic equilibrium can only lead to degradation of such system.
Ecosystemic holism advocated by ecologists is useful in analyzing the kind of impact on given species and population, general development trends of the natural environment rather than a specific action and its consequences. It has the criterion of human rationality and, hence, is not synonymous with the transcendental nature of biocentrists. At the same time, ecologists are not trying to evade the question: How can one reconcile ecosystemic holism with liberalism – the discretion to choose one’s path of development?
This issue is resolved in the ideas of biotic functionalism and a biotic moral community proposed by Leopold. He maintained that a biotic moral community expands application of moral rules and, afterwards, other social institutes to non-human elements of the global ecosystem. The possibility of linking the human and non-human elements is made possible as ecologists assume that the notions of a “symbiosis” and “model of conduct” are functionally equivalent.
As a result, ethics becomes ecological and is presented as a conscious restriction of freedom of action for the sake of life on planet Earth. An ecologically responsible social behavior also implies establishing social institutes for restricting those people who are not oriented to this type of behavior. The human is perceived as the creator of qualitatively new types of environment and biotic communities, therefore, individuals are granted the right of individualism, which the non-human species may enjoy only at the specie population or the entire specie level. This right is based on the human ability to respond to changes in the natural and social environment in a reasonable manner.
The idea of biotic functionalism, enhanced by the idea of changing the man’s role in the biotic moral community, does not assume that an ecosystem as a superorganism (a supersystem) absorbs society (a subsystem). Ecosystemic holism rejects this idea, always preserving the integrity of the socio-ecological system and its emergent quality, when human moral rules allow retaining equilibrium, harmony and productivity of the ecosystem.
In fact, the modern-day socio-ecological concepts advocated by sociologists-ecologists emphasize and maintain that social interaction and development do not occur in emptiness and not in the social environment alone but also occur in the natural environment. And, in the context of a local ecological catastrophe of an anthropogenic nature or when the global ecological crisis is looming ahead, it becomes the main factor that determines interaction and development of society. Therefore, the nature-related character of social atomism, which theoretically could be combined with the evolutionary character of social change, was identified as early as a century ago.
Chicago school of sociology
The postulates of ecologism were appreciated and reproduced in the 1920s in the classical socio-ecological concept of the Chicago school of sociology. Below we will consider this in more detail. At this point, it should be emphasized that the methodological framework for socio-ecological research of the Chicago school of Sociology was provided, aside from the European schools of thought, by the ideas of the Chicago school of philosophy, formed earlier on. This concept is characterized by pragmatism and instrumentalism that combine philosophical humanism, sociological naturalism, social evolutionism and reformist ecological activism, including that of an individual.
The ideas proposed by the Chicago school sociologists were based on the evolution of the social, psychic and moral nature of the human, who emerged at a certain level of development of organic life and who remains dependent on the character and results of his interaction with the surrounding natural and social environment. Relationships between society and the environment change (and are changeable) by efforts of humans and the natural environment. Therefore, the task of a sociologist is not only theorizing, once the general patterns of such relationships and links are instrumentally identified, describing their structures and mechanisms, but also identifying best cases and practices that harmonize the life of humans in the environment. This can provide an example for everyone to follow, and a social reform to create conditions for its implementation, could be proposed to the government and business.
George Herbert Mead (1863—1931), together with other philosophers of the Chicago school, developed the idea of pragmatism, which maintains that truth and sense found in the cognitive process must have a hands-on value. This approach, motivated by the processes of urbanization and migration, brought new social issues and posed a problem requiring practical resolution by scientists.
He proposed the idea of symbolic interactionism: people differently respond to the same act by other people depending on the symbols apportioned to such other people. In the urban context of Chicago in the early 20th century, this translated into a situation when migration, uncontrolled by the city, led to the emergence of national ghettos and to other social problems. However, Mead was able to prove that these social problems were also caused by the way how a person perceives another person through symbols rather than via behavior12.
This is a common mistake of cognition caused by the pragmatism of deceit and self-deceit. In the beginning, one generalizes the behavior of a social group, creating symbols, which are then apportioned to such group, whether males or females, peoples or countries, people of other faith or neighbors. After that, these symbols / assumptions are carried over to specific persons who have the identity or status of such group. The biggest problem is when spontaneous behavior of a specific person is not taken into account, when the desire to create social inequality, place oneself above this person and thus justify the suppression, violence or destruction being perpetrated, prevails. This situation was typical for uncivilized societies. In civilized societies, it is balanced by the legal system. While also being an instrument of violence that creates social inequality, court considers criminal acts of specific individuals.
If an ecosociologist, having summarized the results of a group research, the participants of which share the same identity or status, identifies a different behavior of a specific member of the group, he understands that this person realizes other identities and statuses that were unaccounted for by the sociologist, temporary situations, personal inclinations and so on.
John Dewey (1859—1952) made a significant influence on ecosociology as he developed the idea of instrumentalism within the framework of pragmatism. In his works, he maintained that the human nature combines biological and social components because they are functionally identical. This idea of biosocial parallelism implied that human instincts and social behavior are equivalent and need to be satisfied. After that, he only had to elaborate an instrumental base, i.e., methodologies of sociological research aimed at satisfaction of vitally important needs.
Where a need arises due to a disruption in the optimal functioning of the human organism in the ambient environment, its satisfaction is aimed at restoring equilibrium in interaction with the environment, and achieving the optimum. This implies a preliminary sociological study of a given situation, the interaction itself and its consequences for gathering of research materials. A sociologist may resort both to spontaneity and to experiment.
Individual experience is understood as integrity, interrelation, versatility, uniqueness and inseparability of things natural and social, organic and psychic, subjective and objective. This unity is a condition of freedom, expedience and responsibility, realization of all abilities inherent to human nature. This is the main task of a researcher – to develop empirical, including experimental techniques for distinguishing between moral and immoral behavior, help conduct political reforms aimed at transformation of qualities inherent to human nature.
Dewey regarded examples of interaction between individual actors (agents) in specific social formations (associations) as being the subject of empirical research. He viewed society as the process of association and communication when experiments, ideas, values become common for the participants. He was especially attracted to the ideal of creative democracy – a social organization with a minimized social control over individual manifestation of creative self-realization that rules out bureaucratic and hierarchical relationships.
At the same time, admitting that changing the human nature in order to achieve this ideal would be difficult, he was trying to address this issue as a pedagogue. Believing that only a useful knowledge is true and valuable, he developed school programs where, in the beginning, children were learning through play and afterwards – through teamwork and individual labor. For him, it was obvious that aside from biological restrictions, there exist social restrictions. Accordingly, another important aspect of education was to teach children the skills of adaptation to the ever-changing social and natural environment13.
These ideas formed the philosophy of action, where a person actor (homo actor) performing the social role delegated to him, turns into an activist (homo active) characterized by natural morality and consciously choosing between his physical actions. This demonstrates realism and naturalism of the individual stream of experience, which is opposed to “bare” mentalism. However, this philosophy does not provide for nature’s development outside human actions and shows no interest for natural conditions, which may lead to extinction of the human race. Conditions resulting from the actions of humans and which could also lead to extinction of the human race were not studied either. Understanding of this and specific socio-ecological problems encouraged the elaboration by the Chicago school of sociology of the classic social concept of human ecology.
Environmental sociology, as an area of sociological research and theorizing, took its final shape in the 1920s – 1930s and is associated with such names as Robert Ezra Park (1864—1944), Ernest Watson Burgess (1886—1966) and Roderick Duncan McKenzie (1885—1940). They studied specific urban issues using quantitative sociological methods including systematizing and formalization of data gathered, territorial zoning and group segregation. This allowed studying the processes of deviant behavior, migration and adaptation14.
At that time, Chicago as a social environment was a fascinating object of research. It demonstrated a complete set of situations and cases, which individually could be found in the other United States cities. Special attention was paid to labor strikes and demonstrations that often turned into mass civil unrest, migration processes and adaptation of ethnic communities, growth and organization of crime. As sociologists were eager to offer new ideas, they were expected to find ways for resolving these problems.
The socio-ecological concept proposed by the Chicago school of sociology was applied to a specific object / subject, relied upon an evolutionary approach to studying social change and the naturalistic approach to selecting methods of research. The Chicago school sociologists rejected Spencer’s theory of universal progress conceding to this notion only after generalization of specific research materials and admitting the possibility of progress in sociological cognition15.
They emphasized a natural origin of conflict and the consistency of its transformation into an optimal state of consensus. This concept viewed conflict and consensus as interrelated and mutually complementary aspects of a single process of evolution. This description of the process of social change, the use for analysis of a tool for elaboration of dual, dichotomous and paired interrelated opposites determined the subsequent fate of the socio-ecological theory that combined a diversity of approaches.
The socio-ecological concept was based on the idea that society (urban community) is a complex system, organism and a biological phenomenon. Accordingly, in addition to the socio-cultural level, it has a biotic quality, which underpins all social development and determines social organization of the urban community. Therefore, in Park’s opinion, society forms at the biotic level while the cultural level emerges in the process of social evolution.
Schema: Social evolution
The starting point for analysis became the most developed social phenomena. Social evolution moves from the biotic to the cultural level and is driven by competition, which takes various forms in the course of evolution and achieves an optimum – competitive cooperation – at the cultural level. Competition forms the structure and regulates the sequence of change and restoration of equilibrium in the development of the social organism.
Social change per se looks as a process consisting of several consecutive phases, each of them being the result of the preceding forms of competition. After that, Park systematized and structured analytical conclusions. These methods allowed obtaining new knowledge and seeing phases of evolution and links between the biotic and cultural levels.
Park identified four phases of the evolution process from the biotic to social level: the ecological, economic, political and cultural orders. Accordingly, there exist four forms of socialization, namely, competition – struggle for survival on the biotic level, conflict on the economic level, adaptation on the political level and assimilation – on the cultural level.
All four are represented in the modern society in different situations (specific cases) to a varying extent (quantitative parameters) but with the same characteristic features:
– Ecological order is the result of physical (space-temporal) interaction of individuals. This order is characterized by freedom of traveling.
– Economic order exists where there is production, trade and exchange and is characterized by free competition.
– Political order prevails where there is control, management, regulation and enforcement. It is characterized by political freedoms.
– Cultural order is characterized by the dominance of morals, ethics, traditions, habits and customs, which form social institutes and structures, and which in turn, specify restrictions for individuals and society. However, this restriction is taken for granted as it is based on consensus16.
Communication (interaction) capacity is inborn and makes a newly born baby a human. He is striving to communicate and this striving compels him to agree to curb his instincts, desires and aspirations. After that, social institutes and structures are reproduced as a result of collective action and consensus on a daily basis. Interactionism boils down to the postulate that individuals use communication to socialize and integrate. His process allows consecutive and coordinated action leading to a consensus-based or authoritative interaction, suppression of the minority by the majority, or majority of citizens by the elite representing a minority.
However, the anticipated interaction may not necessarily occur. Then interaction occurs in another situation in another form. This means that interaction is determined by the human nature. Interaction is based on movement, which characterizes the ecological level. This particular level is the subject examined by ecosociology, while the hierarchically structured superstructure – economic, political and cultural orders – are studied by economy, political science and anthropology.
Despite the attractiveness of studying the cultural level, the Chicago school ecosociologists, together with students, researched the urban environment fully using the structure suggested by Park. Naturally, they paid a lot of attention to the ecological level, which could be used for studying migration processes. Researchers acted on the assumption that a social organism consists of individuals capable of migration. Migration is a collective action and interaction typical specifically for the biotic (ecological) level. It is a basic freedom for all people irrespectively of the race and nationality.
Availability of higher-level freedoms (of conscience, political and economic freedom) is the subject matter of a new scientific discipline – cultural-anthropological ecology. The central concept of this science is “liberty” as a feature of modern society. The degree of freedom may increase or decrease on a case-by-case basis. For a human, the greatest external freedom is possible at the ecological level (in contrast with plants, humans have a freedom of movement), and inner freedom – at the cultural level (unlike animals, humans consciously choose their behavior).
On the one hand, all American reforms are supposed to be aimed at securing freedom for individuals and society and building a free American society. On the other hand, nobody ever plans or builds a free society; it emerges of its own accord where it does not oppress itself. And it emerges due to the biotic nature of humans – their ecological level. Therefore, the 19th-century wave of migration to the United States from China, Asia, India and Middle East indicates the switching of an in-depth mechanism that would change the existing institutes to build a qualitatively new society of free cooperation.
In the 1920s, the Chicago school ecosociologists received a few seats on the Committee for Local Community Studies. Participants of this inter-disciplinary research organization also included economists, philosophers, anthropologists, political experts and psychologists. They elaborated a common conceptual framework, conducted joint empirical research and theorized, developed recommendations for business and municipal authorities.
However, socio-economic crises and the subsequent Great American Depression of the 1930s formulated other national priorities. As a result, the socio-ecological concept of the Chicago school of sociology was used as a method without being developed into an independent discipline.
Attempts to rethink the socio-ecological theory made by Park’s followers were aiming to overcome the biosocial dualism of Park’s concept and make social-ecological theory more sociology sounding. Louis Wirth (1897—1952), having constructed a purely sociological theory of urban life, proposed to get rid of eclectics that allowed various interpretations of urban processes by scientists representing different disciplines. Interaction / communication continue to be the main characteristic of social processes and a driving force behind the development of local community.
To overcome the excessively broad theoretical orientation of the socio-ecological concept, he proposed a thesis that interaction becomes intensive with a large congestion of people on a constrained territory. He suggested a method for distinguishing between urban and rural communities:
– The first characteristic of urban population relates to its high density (the ratio of the territorial size to the number of residents).
– The second characteristic is the diversity of population (a large number of different social groups).
– The third is to prevailing social relationships (communal in a rural and social / mixed – in an urban community)17.
Therefore, the space-temporal aspect remained a characteristic of society, while ecosociology came to be perceived as a science that measures and describes the social environment.
To define the main ecosociological categories, McKenzie pointed out an ecological organization as a spatial body of the population in a local or the global community. He argued that ecological things dominate all other characteristics because they all are a result of space-temporal relationships. Accordingly, he gave priority to studying and theorizing on the phenomenon of the ecological community18.
The followers of the socio-ecological concept maintained and continue to maintain that all social processes are in fact ecological. This understanding was to be the foundation for all social sciences, as the social institutes and structures are built on a space-temporal foundation, emerge and exist in accordance with the changing natural conditions, and nothing exists beyond these conditions.