SOC101Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Egalitarianism, Ulrich Beck, Social Constructionism
Document Summary
Human- exceptionalism paradigm: ideals of steadily growing social progress, increasing prosperity and material comfort, and class mobility for all segments of society. The environment can function as a contextual, an independent, or a dependent variable that is, as background, cause or effect. Environmentalists support a different value orientation, one that advocates a more passive, less manipulative approach to nature. Dominant paradigm: moral imperative of material-wealth creation and the moral conviction that humans have the inalienable right to dominate nature and harness the environment to that end. Alternative environmental paradigm values the natural environment for its own sake, thus questioning the human right to domination. Earth"s resources, they claim, are limited and must therefore be conserved. Society should adopt small-scale decentralized economic and political structures that are in harmony with nature. Those who hope that new technologies, such as capturing and storing carbon, will provide a viable solution. Those who seek a fundamental reconstruction of the humans live.
