44
GERALD L. YOUNG
ambiguity of the approach taken in human ecology to man’s relationship to environment. To Mill, nature was either “the sum of all phenomena, together with the causes which produce them” or “those phenomena that take place without the agency . . . of man”. In the second
sense, “the very aim and object of action is to alter and improve Nature”
as it is used in the fist definition. Mill commanded man “not to follow
[nature] but to amend it”.
Aesthetics also has an ecological dimension, though it is difficult to
find in the current philosophical trend toward defining aesthetics strictly
as art criticism. But even here, the relationship is plain. Art has
traditionally been used not only to interpret nature but also to interpret
man’s relationship to nature. Nature has been idealized as the “aesthetic
norm” (Lovejoy, 1948), as the measure of man. Understanding of the
frequently changing bounds of aesthetics could contribute significantly
to an understanding of man’s relationship to environment.
Also central to humanistic ecology is the nature of work: a longstanding and presently accelerating evolutionary conflict between Homo
faber and Sisyphus. Boulding has aptly indicted this inherent human
conflict, a t least in terms of American society, as “suboptimization”:
how to find out the best way to do something which should not be done
at all. When Creative Man has moved through the Industrial Revolution
and faces the Cybernetic Era, the acceleration of such a fluctuating
conflict results in a loss of control over the process of building (creating)
environments. The product is “subenvironmentalization” : frantic
figuring how to create disconcerting discotheque (2) environments that
disorient, deindividualize, and dehumanize: the best way to build something that should not have been built at all.
D. THE B E G I N N I N G S O F A P P L I E D HUMAN ECOLOGY
The term applied attached to a word or a phrase implies going beyond
theoretical or methodological concerns, even beyond a conceptual
orientation, to the operational phase of a field of knowledge. Usually this
can be a unilinear progression, a natural result of work done on an
established base of knowledge. Complications arise, however, when
attempts are made to impose unilinear application within a multi-phasic
matrix of great complexity.
It may be debated perhaps endlessly as to whether or not any human
ecological concepts have been developed conceptually or methodologically to the point where they might actually be applied in solutions
of human problems (see Stapledon, 1964). But there are fields where the
main focus is manipulation of the human environment, whether or not
such manipulation is based on ecological knowledge. Whatever base is
GERALD L. YOUNG
ambiguity of the approach taken in human ecology to man’s relationship to environment. To Mill, nature was either “the sum of all phenomena, together with the causes which produce them” or “those phenomena that take place without the agency . . . of man”. In the second
sense, “the very aim and object of action is to alter and improve Nature”
as it is used in the fist definition. Mill commanded man “not to follow
[nature] but to amend it”.
Aesthetics also has an ecological dimension, though it is difficult to
find in the current philosophical trend toward defining aesthetics strictly
as art criticism. But even here, the relationship is plain. Art has
traditionally been used not only to interpret nature but also to interpret
man’s relationship to nature. Nature has been idealized as the “aesthetic
norm” (Lovejoy, 1948), as the measure of man. Understanding of the
frequently changing bounds of aesthetics could contribute significantly
to an understanding of man’s relationship to environment.
Also central to humanistic ecology is the nature of work: a longstanding and presently accelerating evolutionary conflict between Homo
faber and Sisyphus. Boulding has aptly indicted this inherent human
conflict, a t least in terms of American society, as “suboptimization”:
how to find out the best way to do something which should not be done
at all. When Creative Man has moved through the Industrial Revolution
and faces the Cybernetic Era, the acceleration of such a fluctuating
conflict results in a loss of control over the process of building (creating)
environments. The product is “subenvironmentalization” : frantic
figuring how to create disconcerting discotheque (2) environments that
disorient, deindividualize, and dehumanize: the best way to build something that should not have been built at all.
D. THE B E G I N N I N G S O F A P P L I E D HUMAN ECOLOGY
The term applied attached to a word or a phrase implies going beyond
theoretical or methodological concerns, even beyond a conceptual
orientation, to the operational phase of a field of knowledge. Usually this
can be a unilinear progression, a natural result of work done on an
established base of knowledge. Complications arise, however, when
attempts are made to impose unilinear application within a multi-phasic
matrix of great complexity.
It may be debated perhaps endlessly as to whether or not any human
ecological concepts have been developed conceptually or methodologically to the point where they might actually be applied in solutions
of human problems (see Stapledon, 1964). But there are fields where the
main focus is manipulation of the human environment, whether or not
such manipulation is based on ecological knowledge. Whatever base is