ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIETY
Socially Constructed Environmental Degradation
When we look at resource use in America, the views of a social constructionist offer valuable perspective and understanding. In order to help people understand how their daily lives and activities in a socially constructed society impacts the environmental condition of the planet, scholars employ conceptual tools such as discourse and signifying practices. These analytical and conceptual tools allow people to better understand the causes and effects of the environmental degradation that social institutions produce in America.
Understanding signifying practices is an effective way to understanding the causes of environmental degradation through resource-use in America. It is a key conceptual tool that institutions employ in order to construct the relationship between environment and society and the world we live in. Simultaneously, those institutions are maximizing the environmental degradation in America. It is performed through the modes and methods of representation, from governments, schools, and media outlets, to Americans who have access to these social institutions. At a glance, this seems desirable because Americans, with access to thousands of these institutions, are being informed of how different resources are degrading Americas environment as well as how those resources are benefiting Americas environment. The truth is that America, with a heavy institutional presence, will be taken advantage of. These manipulations manifest themselves in many meaningful ways. Discourse is one such example.
Discourse is a conceptual and analytical tool that is implemented in order to embrace particular combinations of signifying practices, and than puts those elements together into powerful, coherent, mutually supporting frameworks that are persuasive. It connects the human relationship to environmental degradation and resource use on a very managerial level. An example of this is in Paul Wylie’s book, Hemp Conspiracy: A True Story of State Corruption and Individual Corruption, this is the very obstacles faced by Americans in social institutions. Americans are targeted by the institutions that implement signifying practices. This is so because the American people are in constant involvement with institutions so that they are educated and informed. When they are constantly involved in social institutions so that they can succeed in society, they are embracing the ideologies and concepts of the institution that are degrading the environment they live in. In this way, governments, schools, and media outlets are manipulating the American people and coercing them into using resources that are killing their lived environment.
Therefore, there is a strong bond between the resources Americans and America uses and the environmental condition they live in. This interconnected relationship becomes more evident when the the social constructionist perspective and approach are taken into account. In the case of the American people in Hemp Conspiracy, the signifying practices that educated them on resource use also contributed to their lived environment deteriorating and the overall environmental degradation that is taking place in America.
While I provided just one example, there are many other types of socially constructed environmental injustices that occur in America everyday.