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US Environmental History Class at CSW
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#Post#: 24--------------------------------------------------
Reading #2: Cronon and Merchant
DIR By: TeacherRachel
Date: January 8, 2019, 5:18 pm
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Please actively read "Using Environmental History" by William
Cronon and "Interpreting Environmental History" by Carolyn
Merchant (pp.7-12). Also look through the list of quotes from
class today.
Please post about these readings. You may post about whatever in
the readings calls to you, but also please connect or contrast
one of the quotes with the readings thus far and explain why and
how you draw these ties.
Make sure to do the whole assignment tonight. We will revisit
elements of it tomorrow night, too.
#Post#: 25--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading #2: Cronon and Merchant
DIR By: kellyf
Date: January 8, 2019, 6:47 pm
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--- Quote ---
> It is in the midst of this compromised and complex situation
-- the reciprocal influences of a changing nature and a changing
society -- that environmental history must find its home. -
Richard White
--- End Quote ---
This quote, while connected to both Cronon and Merchant, lends
itself perfectly to Cronon's second environmental history
'moral.' Cronon says, "Neither nature nor culture is static," or
in other words, "CHANGING nature and a CHANGING society."
(White) Thus, environmental history does find its home in such
change, as nature and society have always changed. In fact, they
change because of each other, as nature adapts (and continues to
adapt) to extreme waste from humans, and humans society has
reacted (and will continue to react) due to the changes in
climate. Though all this is pretty straight forward. A deeper
look into this quote and Cronon's moral of change becomes quite
meta. How will environmental history change because of "a
changing nature and changing society"? Is that change even
important to notice? What do you think?
Another question, less connected - Do you believe Cronon's third
moral: All environmental knowledge is culturally constructed and
historically contingent - including our own. ? Are there no
ultimate facts of the environment that are fixed?
#Post#: 26--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading #2: Cronon and Merchant
DIR By: Kasey
Date: January 8, 2019, 7:20 pm
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I took an interest in Cronon's approach to the study of
environmental history. Cronon stated that even though we are
attracted to equilibrium and cycles of time, environmentalist
historians are studying the change, “the linear time and
disequilibrium” (17 Cronon). Of this statement, I understand
that Cronon is taking an approach of studying the adjustments
within nature as direct and continuous, rather than cycling back
to what was exactly once there before. At first, I struggled to
understand how he was explaining this belief, and I came to
realize that he is not stating that similar situations will not
occur again but that time is a continuous line. One may never go
back to that exact time, and it is now marked as history. With
this idea of the linear time, historians may continue to analyze
past human and environment interactions to grow a better
understanding of human life and the environment. With this being
said, I wanted to highlight a quote that connects to Cronon’s
explanation: “Environmental history unites the oldest themes
with the newest in contemporary historiography: the evolution of
epidemics and climate, those two factors being integral parts of
the human ecosystem; the series of natural calamities aggravated
by a lack of foresight” (Ladurie). The same idea is presented
that environmental history takes the all events whether old or
new to understand the interactions between humans and nature;
however, there will always be an unknown future because time is
linear and change is always occurring.
#Post#: 27--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading #2: Cronon and Merchant
DIR By: ccogswell
Date: January 8, 2019, 7:26 pm
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I think many people are “depressed” by environmentalism in
general not because it is “hopeless”, but because it suggests
imminent and massive change. It’s not news that the threat of an
enormous change to our lives as humans on this planet,
regardless of who we are and where we are geographically, is
frightening to most people. I think this idea is especially
unsettling because environmental change topples all the little
social structures we’ve created, all the laws and rules we’ve
made… nature doesn’t care how much money you make, or what job
you have, or what you believe you, as a hardworking American,
are entitled to in life. Not to be a cynic, but I think when
people learn just how much is at stake when it comes to things
like climate change, their fear and sadness is not out of love
for nature or care for the Earth, but out of fear of someday
soon living in a world completely unlike what they (and all of
humanity) have ever known or imagined, a world where they can’t,
say, eat seafood or something because fish literally don’t exist
anymore.
As far as all human history (so just history…) having a natural
context, this more or less sums up what we’ve discussed and
synthesized in class. The idea of comparative dynamics over
statistics I think is a bit more new. It’s super interesting,
though - I never before gave much thought to the idea that
nature and culture, mostly when combined, are capable of
“destructive” or “inappropriate” behaviour by, well, nature.
A question: If nature was thought to be masculine as opposed to
feminine (Father Earth?), would this change gender roles in
relation to the environment? Why/why not?
Another question: A specific group of people within a culture
can alter an environment, but if they are doing so in accordance
with what the culture demands they do, are they still
responsible?
#Post#: 28--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading #2: Cronon and Merchant
DIR By: liamf
Date: January 8, 2019, 7:30 pm
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The quote that I think really resonates with Cronon’s passage
titled “Using Environmental History”, is one by Donald Worster:
"We may be entering a new phase of history, a time when we begin
to rediscover.. the traditional teaching that power must entail
restraint and responsibility, the ancient awareness that we are
interdependent with all of nature and that our sense of
community must take in the whole of creation."
In the passage, Cronon talks about how his students were
depressed by his teachings at the end of his course. Cronon
claims that his students felt like the “American environment had
gone from good to bad in a unrelentingly depressing story”,
which he didn’t expect. As a result, he gave a final lecture
about how valuable lessons that he had learned through his
studies of environmental history. The main points of the
lecture, which he summarized in his piece, which I think ties in
nicely with the quote above, led me to one main takeaway: Our
environment doesn't have to, and shouldn't have to conuinte on a
path from “good to bad”. There’s still hope that we can change
the world around us to reduce the detrimental impact on the
environment, and learning about the history of our environment
arms us with the knowledge and responsibility needed to make
change.
#Post#: 29--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading #2: Cronon and Merchant
DIR By: ccogswell
Date: January 8, 2019, 7:34 pm
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--- Quote from: kellyf link ---
>
> [quote] It is in the midst of this compromised and complex
situation -- the reciprocal influences of a changing nature and
a changing society -- that environmental history must find its
home. - Richard White
--- End Quote ---
This quote, while connected to both Cronon and Merchant, lends
itself perfectly to Cronon's second environmental history
'moral.' Cronon says, "Neither nature nor culture is static," or
in other words, "CHANGING nature and a CHANGING society."
(White) Thus, environmental history does find its home in such
change, as nature and society have always changed. In fact, they
change because of each other, as nature adapts (and continues to
adapt) to extreme waste from humans, and humans society has
reacted (and will continue to react) due to the changes in
climate. Though all this is pretty straight forward. A deeper
look into this quote and Cronon's moral of change becomes quite
meta. How will environmental history change because of "a
changing nature and changing society"? Is that change even
important to notice? What do you think?
Another question, less connected - Do you believe Cronon's third
moral: All environmental knowledge is culturally constructed and
historically contingent - including our own. ? Are there no
ultimate facts of the environment that are fixed?
[/quote]
In response to your first question, I believe looking forward as
culture and environment continue to change and change each
other, environmental history won't change in meaning or
practice, but will become substantially more recognized as
important.
#Post#: 30--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading #2: Cronon and Merchant
DIR By: jterry2020
Date: January 8, 2019, 7:39 pm
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I understood that the main aspects of the William Conron essay
were: there are and have always been political inclinations
behind environmental history (agreeing with Worster), human
history is incomplete without a parallel context of nature as
the two are inseparable and in constant contact, there has never
been a period of complete stability between humans and nature as
neither is static, one has too avoid absolutes that subtract
from the complexity of humans and nature, and history can only
provide educated guesses without certainty about the future
rather than fully accurate predictions. I was interested in the
point about a static nature or humanity because it relates to
our discussion of societal advancements as a rapidly advancing
society could not be in full stability with nature due to
technological advancements that affect nature. I think this
connects well with the environmental history quote: “In the
midst of this compromised and and complex situation--the
reciprocal influences of a changing nature and a changing
society--that environmental history must find its home. This
quote connects to the reading as they both seem to make the
point of a goal of environmental history is to document and
explain the changes in the relationship between humans and
nature, rather than it's stability.
#Post#: 31--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading #2: Cronon and Merchant
DIR By: jterry2020
Date: January 8, 2019, 7:39 pm
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In terms of the essay by Carolyn Merchant, it nicely gave more
information to what we talked about in class regarding
revisionist history and the different filters that can be
present when looking at history. A historians experience or
identity could influence which aspects (race, gender, class,
etc.) they choose to include or focus on in their recounting of
a history. Another historian could leave out these aspects if
they didn’t think or know them to be a factor in environmental
or cultural changes. I found an interesting connection between
Diamond and Merchant’s essays in that Diamond explained how
different environments lead to differences in advancement and
power between groups and Merchant described a situation in which
a group in power (who came to power through the environmental
advantages Diamond explained) used their power to give
themselves an environmental advantage over a group who were
oppressed through the initial environmental disadvantages (and
advantages of the other group) Diamond explained. The scenario
described African Americans bearing “the brunt of early forms of
environmental pollution and disease as whites fled urban areas
to the new streetcar suburbs. The situation contains European
settlers (who Diamond says were able to expand and conquer
because of their initial environmental advantage) and African
Americans (who were brought to America because the Europeans had
advantages rendering them more able to conquer).
#Post#: 32--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading #2: Cronon and Merchant
DIR By: renee
Date: January 8, 2019, 7:41 pm
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Carolyn Merchant’s reading about race, gender, and class in
environmental history was very interesting to me. When reading
through the quotes again tonight, the quote that Kelly wrote
about from Richard White also stood out to me in conjunction
with Merchant’s argument. White said, “It is in the midst of
this compromised and complex situation -- the reciprocal
influences of a changing nature and a changing society -- that
environmental history must find its home.” U.S. environmental
history was largely impacted by the complex relationship between
Native Americans, Europeans settlers, and slaves. The Europeans
completely changed the structure of society when they “tamed”
the wilderness and its natives. Europeans then used African
Americans as free labor while they took in all the wealth.
Native Americans and African Americans both contributed,
unwillingly and powerless, to create a rich environment for
European settlers. With environmental change, these races
drastically differed in power. Later on in American
environmental history, race continues to act as a division.
Merchant describes how whites left urban areas due to pollution
while the cities became toxic for the mostly black people still
living there. Changing nature has led to many changes in
society, dividing people by race and class. Those working the
land are the most vulnerable to any environmental disasters
while the upper-class blindly adds to pollution by consuming
resources from the lower-class.
#Post#: 33--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading #2: Cronon and Merchant
DIR By: Cale is not me.
Date: January 8, 2019, 7:43 pm
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On page 8 Cronon brings up the point / argument that nature and
history are forces inherently at odds with each other: “Implicit
in this opposition is the belief that ideal nature is
essentially without history as we know it...” This brand of
environmentalism sees humans and history as the reason that
nature is having problems which I would agree with but
separating environmentalism from history is in no way the
solution. Instead, by attempting to separate nature and history,
they are failing to truly account for the fact that in our
modern world humans and nature are inseparably linked and need
to be examined as such.
Something about Cronon’s section of the reading that really
changed how I thought about both history and environmentalism
was the point that our understanding of the environment as
people comes from our culture. Again this adds heavily to the
point that environmentalists shouldn’t leave out history as our
and the future's perspective on nature is so heavily connected
in our history. Nature can be straightforward in terms of
definitions but the way we look at that is both important and
based on history. This adds to the point about them not being
static as our changing cultures could change how we see these
things.
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