Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis

By: Lynn White Jr.

This article speaks upon the birth of technology. How Judeo-Christianism influenced how it was taught and understood for a very long time. The ideals that came along with Christianity were that the environment and nature's purpose is to serve man and nothing more we called this an example of anthropocentrism.White describes that "both modern technology and modern science are distinctively Occidental." Western technology absorbed elements from all different cultures. Therefore Western science is all the worlds ideas compiled together by what is called the western world. Of course it is no surprise that western society is becoming more and more common throughout the world.

The underlying cause is believed to have been rooted in the soil of Northern Europe. Agriculture was more difficult here because of the wet temperate climate which made the soil thick and sticky. But in the 7th century AD a new more efficient plow was created which required 8 oxen to pull it rather than 1. As no peasent owned only one animal the families compiled them together to utilize the power of the new machine. "Thus, distribution of land was based no longer on the needs of a family but on the capacity of a power machine to till the earth." White explains that this was a critical turning point in which man went from being a part of nature to an exploiter of nature, nowhere else in the world had this been done before. It was the decendents of the same farmer who would pave the way of modern technology.

Another element to this model was the Judeo-Christian faiths which fit under on the most extreme of anthropocentrism. While most Eastern religions on the opposite ends of the spectrum would be considered biocentric or ecocentric. This is apparent when considering the christian view of the beginning of time, god created all the earth the sky and all the physical world. Then god made man in his image who then "named all the animals, thus establishing his dominance over them." This meant that man came second only to god. All the rest of the natural world was a divine gift and a sign of the lords never ending love. Nature became an array of symbols in which god communicated with man. But then things started to change around the 13th century first in the latin west. As natural occurrences would be left to the judgment of those present the one thing everybody could agree was that the lord worked in mysterious ways. But then individuals began to take a closer look, to understand god's work. White states that scientists goal was "to thinks God's thoughts after him" this justified their work and it is human nature to be curious. "It was not until the 18th century that the hypothesis of God became uneccesary to many scientists." This is the case today today but Western Science was built on Christin theology which is apparent still today.

This is Lynn White Jr's opinion, that Judeo-Christianity is justifies the exploition of nature except for certain cases like St. Frances of Assisi. He says that science and technology alone will not will prevent the excelling negative environmental impact. Westerners must also shed the christian axioms that they hold.



" Sources-Environmental Studies: Section 6"