This week in Environmental Studies was focused on rethinking strains of thought infecting contemporary environmentalism—namely, the notion of a pure nature removed from humanity, and the utility of individual, lifestyle environmentalism. In “The Problem with Purity,” Richard White argued that any boundaries been nature and man were foolish constructions, and appealing to nature as a guide to purity as pointless, as “we have been for centuries so inextricably tangled in the natural world that traces of nature are everywhere in us and traces of us have infiltrated more and more of nature” (White, 216). He cited Bill Clinton’s denouncement of invasive species as an example of an unfounded appeal to purity, pointing out the ridiculousness of considering these ecological invasions as upsetting the natural landscape of cattle ranches in North America (White, 215-16). Christine Walley looked at the conception of nature through an anthropological study, conducting fieldwork on Mafia Island, off the coast of Tanzania, to investigate if notions of an inherent sacredness of nature and its distinction from the human world were held in this indigenous island. Despite the villagers depending on the natural world for their livelihoods, she found “there was nothing that could easily be equated with the symbolic concept of “nature” in English” in the village’s cultural life (Walley, 143).
A common theme throughout the remaining readings was a questioning of individual lifestyle choices as a serious path towards a more environmentally friendly future. Michael Maniates attacked the individualistic, consumer-centered strain of environmentalism that sees individual actions and consumer choices as paramount. He considered this view as “legitimating notions of consumer sovereignty and a self-balancing and autonomous market,” and thereby “divert[ing] attention from political arenas that matter” (Maniates, “Individualization,” 44). Though Maniates refrains from an explicit critique of the neoclassical economics underpinning much mainstream political thought, much of this article can be read as an argument against that pervasive worldview. He focuses on the inadequacy of the two actors within a neoclassical framework—producers maximizing profit and individuals maximizing utility through consumption—to address environmental problems. He states, “the technocratic, sanitary and individualized framing of environmentalism prevails” (Maniates, “Individualization,” 44) in conjunction with the market. He dismisses the idea that the free market alone will be able to create an ecologically sound future, considering the view that “corporations will build a better mousetrap, consumers will buy it, and society will be transformed for the better” as alarming and naïve (Maniates, “Individualization,” 41-42). The neoclassical framework, which recasts citizens as consumers, and considers any public action as meddling with economic equilibrium, “constrain[s] our imagination,” (Maniates, “Individualization,” 49) thus reinforcing the notion of green consumption as the only workable solution. Maniates’ vision of the change that is necessary requires, in his words, “challenging the dominant view,” (Maniates, “Individualization,” 50) and remaking institutions through “collective citizen action” (Maniates, “Individualization,” 50). Maniates references the importance of “political imagination” multiple times, and this seems to refer to a radical willingness to challenge global capitalism, at least its current form. The real shame of “green” consumption and lifestyle environmentalism, then, is not just that it is wildly out of scale with the ecological problems we face (Liboiron, “Solutions to Waste and the Problem of Solar Mismatches”) but that it allows the continuation of global, neoclassical capitalism, and directs ecological guilt away from polluting firms, towards the individual consumers.