verweij-et-al-2006.html

Verwiej, M., Mary Douglas, Richard Ellis, Christopher Engel, Frank Hendriks, Susanne Lohmann, Steven Ney, Steve Rayner and and Michael Thompson (2006). The Case for clumsiness. Clumsy Solutions for a Complex World. M. and. M. Thompson. Verwiej, Palgrave Mcmillan: 1 - 30.

"Our fourfold typology is strictly derived from two dimensions of sociality: what we call "grid" and "group". Grid measures the extent to which role differentiation constrains the behaviour of individuals. Group, by contrast, measure the extent to which an overriding commitment to a social unit constrains the thought and action of individuals."

group is low when "people negotiate their way through life on their own behalf as individuals"

high group-strength "people devout a lot of their available time interacting with other members of their unit"

pg 4 - "Grid is high whenever roles are distributed on the basis of explicit public social classifications" such as gender, age, color

grid is low when these distinctions are low

<!-- this is my summary table -->

	low grid	high grid
low group	INDIVIDUALISM	FATALISM
high group	EGALITARIANISM	HIERACHICAL

<!-- see other tables for summaries of these types-->

pg 6 - similarities to other typologies is interesting but "fortify our assumption that human relations tend to be organized in a restricted number of ways."

"Culture theory has several normative implications.

"people are arguing from different premises... they will never agree"

"Each way of organizing and perceiving distills certain elements of experience and wisdom that are missed by the others.

"Each one needs all the other to be sustainable."

pg 7 - "undiluted egalitarianism will have to be mixed with at least minimal doses of the other ways of organizing and perceiving"

<!-- notes for class on how these different world views would approach global climate change-->

pg 8 - climate change

each story has:

• a setting (basic assumptions)
• a villain (the policy problem)
• heroes (pushing the policy)
• a moral (solution)

each story contradicts the others

<!-- bold words are my notations not the authors, words or phrases that we have referred to in other contexts -->

EGALITARIAN

• profligate consumption of US and Europe as the fundamental cause
• setting
  • everything is intricately connected and nature is fragile
• villain
  • "the fundamentally inequitable structure of advanced industrial society. In particular, profit motive and obsession with economic growth...."
  • "advanced capitalism <!-- see Speth --> distributes the spoils of commerce inequitably"
  • since everything is connected, addressing one problem means addressing all problems
    • poverty
    • justice
    • etc.
• heroes
  • "organizations or individuals who have managed to see through the chimera of progress in advanced industrial society"
  • have to address all the global inequities
• moral
  • "adopt a strict version of the precautionary principle
  • "onus is on advanced capitalist states to take action" <!-- location of responsibility-->
  • change from a waste society to "the concept of a conserve society"
  • deep ecology

 

HIERARCHICAL

• a lack of global planning
  • studies have "proven" that there we will run out of resources but 30 years later we still have plenty of reserves and more are being found each year
  • long term planning with incremental steps will allow us to master this problem
  • individuals can only contribute small amounts to this problem, we need the big players, i.e. governments and industries to address this problem
• setting
  • it's essentially a tragedy of the commons problem
  • we are "slowly but surely crashing through the ecological limits established by experts"
• villains
  • "lack of global governance and planning that would rein in and steer global markets and protect the global commons"
  • policy villains are those people who are skeptical that we need objective scientist to inform management
• heroes
  • "dispassionate scientists, experts, civil servants" who are "quietly building the global bureaucratic structures that will rectify the short termism and greed of global markets, and usher in the non-carbon age in a carefully planned and gradual manner."
• moral
  • "the only conceivable remedy to climate-change is for all the governments and parliaments of the world to formally agree on the extent to which future emissions should be cut, which countries should do so, how and when."
  • key elements:
    • strong UN
    • global central bank
    • world environmental agency
    • other similar agencies

 

INDIVIDUALISTIC

• story
  • "climate-change and global warming is much ado about nothing - at most just another attempt at scare-mongering by naive idealists to erroneously the world can be made a better place, and by international bureaucrats looking to expand their own budgets and influence." <!-- i.e. by egalitarians and hierarchists -->
  • skeptical of climate-change, there have always been uncertainties that "if tackled boldly by a diversity of competing agents, can be transformed into opportunities from which all can benefit."
  • focus on gaps in current climate-change science
  • carbon richer atmosphere would promote more vegetation growth
  • individualistic institutions will spawn technological progress and "render today's fuss over climate-change irrelevant." <!-- cornucopian description -->
• setting
  • "a wonderfully robust and bountiful natural world"
• villains
  • "those individuals and organizations too wooly headed to grasp this simple fact, as well as those bureaucratic outfits that misrepresent matters in an attempt to increase their own clout." <!-- slamming egalitarians and hierarchists -->
• heroes
  • "decision-makers who brave public opposition and do not allow themselves to be intimidated by all this scare-mongering"
  • atmospheric scientist whistle blowers
• moral
  • "business and usual - innovative business as usual!"

 

FATALISTISTIC

• What ever will happen, will happen. It's not worth worrying or doing anything about it.
• <!-- don't get involved and are pretty much ignored by the other types -->
• <!-- like to see others fail on their own because it proves they were right -->
• <! -- language and actions are passive/aggressive -->