Environmental sociology and the Frankfurt School 2: ideology, techno-science, reconciliation

Abstract

In a two-article project, I demonstrate that the first-generation Frankfurt School’s critical theory can conceptually inform sociological examinations of societal–environmental relations. This second article clarifies and systematizes the theories of Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse in the context of current debates and issues in environmental sociology: (1) the constructionism/realism debate and its relation to the critique of ideology; (2) the role of science and technology in human–nature relations; and (3) how society might bring itself into a sustainable and ethical relationship with the environment. I argue the Frankfurt School’s metatheory can help environmental sociologists denaturalize human–nature relations that appear fixed; explain how their theories of science and technology transcend the debate of whether science and technology are harmful to or helpful for the environment; and show that the underpinning normative goal of early critical theory was to reconcile human–nature relations. In addition to explicating these broader contributions, I provide a concrete example of how their views can inform sociological studies of environmental disasters.

Keywords:

• critical theory
• social construction of nature
• realism
• science and technology studies
• sustainability

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Profs. Thomas Dietz, Linda Kalof, Diana Stuart, and Kyle Whyte for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article and the two anonymous Environmental Sociology reviewers for criticisms and suggestions. All mistakes are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Critical theory is a term used to refer to a wide range of normative theories that are not examined in this essay. For convenience, the terms ‘Frankfurt School’ and ‘critical theory/theorists’ only signify the theorists and theories developed by the ‘first-generation,’ specifically of three major theoreticians: Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse.

2. The implications of this work alone for epistemological issues in studying human–nature relations have been examined in an excellent reading of Adorno by Cook (2006).

3. It should be noted that the concepts ‘first’ and ‘second’ nature are used in human geography. Both Cronon (1991) and Smith (1984), like Adorno, describe the process of first nature becoming second nature, particularly through the labor process.

4. As Adorno famously wrote to Benjamin: ‘all reification is forgetting’ (Adorno in Adorno and Benjamin [1994] 1999, 321).

5. Adorno’s thesis may sound exaggerated but many influential scientific assertions reflect this general claim: The theory that human society has become a global geophysical force (‘Anthropocene’) (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000), the realization that there is not a single ‘pristine’ ecosystem (i.e., unaffected by humans) (Gallagher and Carpenter 1997), the claim that there are more ‘anthromes’ (human-dominated biomes) than biomes proper covering Earth’s surface (Ellis and Ramankutty 2008), or research that documents the increasing intensity and reach of interactions between human and natural systems (e.g., Liu et al. 2007).

6. This is Vogel’s (1996) primary thesis and he has elaborated upon it far more impeccably than I can here. However, I do not fully agree with Vogel’s interpretation and revisions. In his attempt to show the benefits of a constructionist framework, he eliminates the healthy tension the first generation left between realism and constructionism and first and second nature.

7. Neither constructionism nor a systematic critique of science fuels those who are hostile toward environmental science. Instead, the deliberate distortion and rejection of climate science, for example, is politically motivated (e.g., McCright and Dunlap 2010), as the Frankfurt School would predict (see next section).

8. The central role and influence of Bacon’s philosophy in legitimizing and solidifying the idea that the mastery over nature via scientific progress should be the primary means to regain humanity’s rightful dominion over nature after the Fall has been discussed at length elsewhere (Leiss 1974; Merchant 1980).

9. Animals held a distinctive place in the Frankfurt School’s proto-environmental sociology that cannot be adequately summarized in the confines of this essay (see Gunderson 2014).

10. A relevant point, though one that cannot be elaborated upon here, argues that the pessimism of Horkheimer and Adorno and pre-late 1960s Marcuse was a justifiable and honest, though paradoxical, attempt to preserve hope for a better future, including future human–nature relations (see Gunderson 2015).

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Ryan Gunderson

Ryan Gunderson will be joining the Department of Sociology and Gerontology at Miami University as an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Social Justice Studies in August, 2015. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Michigan State University in 2014. His research interests include environmental sociology, social theory, political economy, animal studies, the sociology of consumption, and the sociology of technology.