Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2012 11:08 pm Post subject: #1: Cronon and Diamond
Assignment 1 (due Wednesday, 1/4): Cronon and Diamond Readings
U.S. Environmental History - HIST 316 - 2 (A)
Assigned: Tuesday, January 3 | Due: Wednesday, January 4
Please read (actively) Donald Worster's "Doing Environmental History" and Jared Diamond's, "Predicting Environmental History" (pp.1-7 in your packets). Post as required. Good luck.
Post your responses, reactions, connections, arguments
The first essay, “Doing Environmental History” brought up an interesting point about the “new” vs. “old” history. The fact that in the days of old, history meant rich and powerful men criticizing the important politics and economies of the last century, whereas now it means looking into “the lives and thoughts of ordinary people, and [to try] to re-conceive history ‘from the bottom up’” (page 1). And the essay also pointed out that the concept of studying the environment’s impact on human life and vice versa is no doubt a modern type of history.
One problem I had with the essay though was when the author claimed that damage to the ecosystems of the world is less obvious than damage to individual humans or populations. “But most changes are less catastrophic, and the degree of damage has no easy method of measurement…” (page 3). I either don’t entirely understand what the author means by this or I just simply disagree, because I think that damage to an ecosystem or an environment is no less obvious than damage to the human being (in mass or individually), but that damage to the environment has been thought of as less of a problem than damage to human beings in the past, and now. I don’t think to say, that when early medieval europeans cut down trees to make houses, they were not realizing that they were destroying the environment, but that they either didn’t care at the time or saw it as a necessary evil to make a house.
Another problem I had with this essay was that the author seemed to contradict them self on page 4. At the beginning of one of the paragraphs, it read: “For the historian, the main object must be to discover how a whole culture, rather than the exceptional individuals in it, perceived and valued nature.” It later says that it is not right to speak in terms of cultural views because that makes it seems like everyone in one culture is narrow-minded with the same ideas. So if that’s the case and you can’t generalize about a culture, then I would think it would be really hard to discover “how a whole culture rather than the exceptional individuals in it” see and treat nature, as the author says is what a historian is supposed to do earlier in the paragraph.
Isaiah mentioned of human’s damage to the environmental and the author’s attitude of neglecting it as insignificant event. In right side of the page 3, which fascinated me the most, the author explains of human technology. Since the nature offered the limited resources, human developed technology to adopt into the nature. The author uses ‘exploiting’ to describe the effect of human technology. But he added, since the nature’s limitation caused the advent of the technology, the technology IS part of the nature. From here, we can simply draw this conclusion; exploiting IS part of nature that nature led human to develop. Human’s damage to the nature is ‘nonhuman’ activity (mentioned in left side of pg2), not ‘human’ activity.
This makes the barrier of human and nonhuman vague...
…and I cannot get the intention of the author, mentioning that nature is the creation of the human mind. “Nature is an order and a process…and web of meanings.”(left column of page 4, Perception, Ideology, and Value) makes me feels like a dog chasing its own tail.
Environmental history is a rather new subject comparing to a lot of other things historians have already been studying for a long time. In the first section of the first essay, it mentions how scholars began to go deeper and “down” through class, gender, race and caste and all the way to earth itself (p.1). According to Worster, the idea of environmental history first appeared in 1970, and while the problems got more complex and couldn't be solved easily, more people paid attention to it and more scholars started to get interested in this field (p.1). This is interesting because when we think about it, what people talk about in everyday life are a lot of the topics that are thought interesting, mysterious or unsolvable. Which means that certain complication is what makes a subject attracting. (sorry I just went off topic >_<)
Going back to what Isaiah said about the whether the damage to the environment is less obvious than it is to humans or not, I think what the author is trying to say is that it is harder to measure the damage to nature than it is to human society. Because most countries have annual census, or at least every few years, which makes it easier to measure the growth or decline in population, caused by many possible reasons like diseases or droughts or flood. But I don't think many countries count the amount of trees they have, or the amount of sparrows or water. Also it’s harder to put these things into categories. For example, the data may show that five kids, a teenager and two adults died in a plane crash. But as for damages to environment, one can’t really say that a baby squirrel, four teenage squirrels and an old squirrel died because it’s hard to tell the differences between these squirrels, plus we don’t have a measurement for that. So I guess what the author is trying to say it that the damage to environment and ecosystem is not as obvious because we don’t have a certain measurement for that, or it’s harder to come up with a generally accepted one. We may think that the damages our ancestors did to the planet is obvious, but it is because it is already on a pretty serious level and evne so we just started to notice within this century or so.
The second essay is basically talking about why the world was divided into “Old World” and “New World”. Diamond gives some factors which are the use of ships, guns and metal tools, the formation of political organizations, writing skills, the spread of germs and the domestication of animals, which I think fall into two categories: development of new skills and natural conditions. Diamond believes that nature plays a good part in the process. Domestication of animals catalyses the process, but domesticating the animals requires the alrady existed wild animals and food for them. Food comes from crops, which depends on how many wild vegetation there originally was. So that means the more civilized one is, the even more civilized one gets, which falls into a cycle. This makes sense to me but still, I believe there must be some other reasons too besides natural conditions and it seems Diamond doesn’t mention the other factors in the essay that much.
I agree with your dilema, Isaiah, (hope I spelled that right) and I also noticed that Worcester’s essay offered several definitions for what a historian’s job is along with the purpose of environmental history. I think they each hold some significance but perhaps are just different modes of perception, such as through theology or ecology or anthropology, etc.
I was especially intrigued by the role of power when examining human interaction with nature. “So impressed have [environmental historians] been by the enduring, pervasive power of ideas....as far back as the Genesis and the ancient Hebraic ehtos asserting doninion over the eath; or the Greco-Roman determination to master the environment through reason; or the still more archaic drive among patriarchial males to lord it over nature (the “feminine” principle) as well as women.” (page 4) I found it interesting that in our effort to understand nature, we feel we must control or conquer it as these historical examples show. Nature is defined as the “non-human world...world in which we have not in any primary sense created...” (2) and yet we strive to take ownership of nature even though it would continue to “exist despite us”. But I’m looking at nature as a separate entity, when on page 4 he goes on to explain that “Nature is an order that we did not create...all the same, nature is a creation of our minds too...and we are to a considerable extent trapped in te prison of our own consciousness and a web of meanings.”(4)
What do you guys/gals think about effort to control nature as a separate force, or it’s connection to us as an idea born from our perspectives?
I also found the technology and "modes of production" (3) really fascinating, goh2012. The act of adapting to nature and changing environments was apparent when in the second essay, Jared Diamond explained why the American Indians/Aborignal Aus/Africans were not able to survive without the technologies (such as the domestication of wild plants and animals, immunities to disease...) that their oppresors were armed with.
Ikrieger made some very good points about tonight’s reading. I do in some sense agree with his statement about Donald Worster writing some conflicting messages.
In “Doing Environmental History,” I saw some underlying themes that I marked up in my active reading. I believe that Donald Worster is trying to bring awareness to his readers and give a new perspective and a different outlook on the environment based on historical facts. He states “Its principal goal because one of deepening out understanding of how humans have been affected by their natural environment through time and conversely, how they have affected that environment and with what results…” In my mind, if people are aware about how the environment has affected the human race and visa versa, this awareness can help lead to the changing of the future. Because of the interdependency between humans and the environment, awareness of the history of the environment will bring to the surface the delicateness of this dependency. I really like the metaphor Donald uses to compare the ecosystems to machines. The idea of an ecosystem being very complex and constantly making minute adjustments to maintain an equilibrium was a good way for me to see how small things can affect the environment. These so called minute changes can throw off the whole machine and have drastic affects. As for “Predicting Environmental History,” I really enjoyed reading it because I learned about how things like soil, the domestication of animals, and the tools and technology people had in an area played a crucial part in the shaping of the environment. After reading this article in particular, I am curious as to what other advances (like the domestication of animals) have played a role in our history and how the choices we presently make will affect the future of the planet.
Emily was having some tech troubles, so I'm posting her thoughts for her...
"Doing Environmental History" began with the bold statement, "Everyone knew that the only important subject was politics and the only important terrain was the nation-state." (page 1) found right after the first quote Isaiah mentioned. I admittedly judged the author, Donald Worster, instantly. If you weren't there, how could you possibly assume that *everyone* knew something. Although I found Worster to be presumptuous and slightly abrasive (or maybe just the way he presents information or opinions), I found a few of his points to be interesting. One of my favorite quotes was "...environmental history is about the rate and place of nature in human life." (page 4) This is like the condensed version of the summary of the synopsis of environmental history, and easy to understand. I also liked how he talked about the three groups it addresses:
1. understanding basic nature (organic + inorganic)
2. socioeconomic
3. mental + intellectual (ethics, etc.)
I found "Predicting Environmental History" to be a bit challenging to follow. There were a lot of things that vaguely related to the thesis, but not as directly as I would've liked. The question was "Why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents...?" A few of the reasons were writing, resources and their availability, political organization, domestication and living proximity to domesticated animals, and population density. All of those effect one another. Then he started talking about the requirements of domestication, which I didn't think was particularly relevant or supportive of the main focus. Did anyone understand where that was going?
Firstly, I would like to agree with Eli on the point that he took from Worster's writing. Humans do indeed greatly affect the ever-changing environment that we live in, and it is our duty to be aware and understand the power we have to change how the world looks and operates. It is definitely important to see how the world has changed from the past and to make decisions that will benefit the future world.
I was interested by the "Perception, Ideology, and Value" writing on page 4 that branched off of the question "what is nature?". In the first paragraph it says, "Nature is an order and a process that we did not create, and in our absence it will continue to exist..." (p.4). I agree with the points made in the reading that it is important to understand how people view nature. Different people have their own ideas and views on changing/preserving nature, and I believe that it is not only important to understand how opinions on nature among different cultures/groups of people vary, but what we are doing to ourselves in the long run by affecting something that we never started.
I was also intrigued by the beginning of the second reading. It helped me better understand the progress/struggles that humans have made through environmental development by seeing dates & events together. Humans became more powerful through the discovery of new and stronger materials for weapons (metal), yet we spread disease through the domestication of animals. As we use objects and animals put onto the earth without our power, humans both gain power and lose power, but always make new discoveries.
Zach is also having technical difficulties so here's his post:
It seems logical to start with the first text: Doing Environmental History by Donald Worster. Doing Environmental History first struck me as the source material of our class. The short piece takes strides to differentiate the modern connotation of the environment as another word for nature from the complexity the history of any given environment holds. The text emphasizes the founding idea of our class when it states it's thesis. The colorful sentence reads, “Above all, It [environmental history] rejects the conventional assumption that human experience has been exempt from natural constraints, that people are separate and 'supernatural' species, that the ecological consequences of their past deeds can be ignored.” Although our class covers much more than the above statement I believe Donal Worster puts forth our most basic and primary class idea. In essence yes, the environment matters in every aspect of human history. That's what I would like to see discussed first as I think it's incredibly important. Does environmental history effect human history? To the all encompassing degree Worster says it does? I certainly think so, but I can't say I'm entirely convinced.
First, I would like to disagree with people who argue that Worster neglects humans and their impact on the environment. On pg. 1 he states: "Environmental history.. rejects the conventional assumption that human experience has been exempt from natural constraints, that people are a separate and "supernatural" species, that the ecological consequences of their past deeds can be ignored." Based on this statement, I find that he is able to question society and our actions. However, his essay allowed me to think about where environmental history lies within our education system. While people focused on laws, nationalism, and politics in the old history, I see that same agenda being pushed today. As history texts books often exclude how the environment shaped history i.e. Diamond's Essay, it is our job as a society to decide where the environment fits within America's history or whether or not we should ignore its presence.
It is without question that we see a radical change in the way humans look to the past, and make new understandings on how the environment and people have affected one another, after environmental history has developed into a reputable history. But in doing so, can it even be defined as a history, or exclusively ecology?
Additionally, I found it interesting on the spontaneity of science as a factor in how humans effect their environment. Though we we look back at history we find that the technological advancements of that of the Europeans were far superior to that of more primitive civilizations when it came to warfare (The Americas); as science and mathematics become militarized, and being critical in defining human accomplishment and superiority.
I struggled with Worster’s view on people and ecology’s inherent synthesis. “Humans have been inextricably been part of the earth’s ecological order” I would the contrary; due to the fact that science cannot account for by how it happened, whereas we know why (had cane not been wiped out by people of European dissent in Kentucky) and that they’ve . The history tough interpreted differently can be defined has how humans changed the qualities and/or traits of environments; but environmental history directly looks at how altering the natural world within it’s respective environment have benefited one group of people, or civilizations over another.
Easily the biggest eyeopening quote was that of Diamond, when he made the argument that "history's broadest pattern has nothing to do with differences among people themselves, but instead lies in differences among the biological and geographical environments in which different peoples found themselves. (p. 5)" Even 50 years ago, this would have been refuted by that ruling class history once been defined by great men/status quo. This history defines all humans, and their interaction with the natural world. He also stressed that domesticated animals cannot be fully domesticated unless they held a set of intrinsic traits, such as humans supplying foods to their diet. Geographical location also became a factor in how one civilization was more prosperous over another.
Perhaps one of the biggest problems arised from the text when translating ecology into history even though their inherently different. My question is if/when science is brought into history, is the discipline of each distorted? My biggest question is is environmental history has existed for centuries (in terms of graphs, charts, numbers) and it had been matriculated over time, why is it not being defined within a discipline? I also found that the past always has an impact on the future direction of science...
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