10 A gradual shift from Determinism to Possibilism

Nisha Thapa

Contents:

    1.    Introduction

2.    Environmental Determinism

3.  Environmental Possibilism

4.  The Ecological perspective

5.    Summary

Learning Objectives:

After studying this module, students will be able to understand:

• The concept of possibilism and determinism.
• The relations between man and environment.
• How environment sets the culture of a man.
• How culture is influenced by the environment.

    Introduction

The differentiation and establishment of a new sub-discipline in social sciences can ultimately be traced back to already existing ideas and orientations. Changing relations between culture and environment as well as changes within a culture, give rise to new ways of looking at and conceptualizing the old truths.

Ecological anthropology is a holistic approach. It deals with the interaction between environment, cultures, and human beings. Culture is a primary source for adaptation to environment. An ecological analysis of how people lived in the past, and how they adapted. There is a dialectic relation between environment and culture and it has its cause and effect. The roots of ecological anthropology are to be found in several different traditions of environmental explanation, some of which are tightly woven into western thought. In this context, let us begin by examining these roots.

Apparently, in recent years, human ecology has been given greater attention by the scientists and social scientists. A number of different conceptual approaches have been employed in the study of human ecology. Anderson (1977) argues that the necessity to view man within the framework of his habit tended towards the adaptation of two fruitless positions that for long dominated the thoughts of social scientists. With some simplification these positions can be seen as extremes on a continuum, one pole being environmental determinism and the other cultural determinism. Their less extreme versions are known by the terms environmentalism and possibilism.

Vayda and Rappaport (1968) tend to separate man and his culture from environment, and behaviour from ecology. They tend to treat them as opposing entities. These views although much diluted, still have their adherents.

Fig 1. Ecological Anthropology studies the interactions between Human cultures and the Environment

Environmental Determinism

During the first quarter of the twentieth century many scientists adhered to the doctrine of environmental determinism. These scholars believed that the physical environment, especially the climate and terrain was the active force in shaping cultures, emphasizing that humans were essentially a passive product of the physical surroundings. As analyzed by Jordan and Rowntree (1990), the logic of the deterministic view considered humans equivalent to clay, to be moulded by nature. Similar physical environments were likely to produce similar cultures. Environmental determinists thus viewed human ecology as a ‘one way street’. Hussain (1994) and Jordan and Rowntree (1990) gave a number of examples of determinists’ beliefs. Determinists believed that people of the mountains were predestined by the rugged terrain to be simple, backward, conservative, and unimaginative and freedom loving. Dwellers of the desert were likely to believe in one God, but to live under the rule of tyrants. Temperate climates produced inventiveness, industriousness and democracy, whereas coastlands produced great navigators and fisherman (Gulia,2005).

Fig 2. Shows Environment determines the cultural factors

Perhaps the most pervasive theme is the belief that the physical environment plays the role of “prime mover” in human affairs. Personality, morality, politics and government, religion, material culture, biology- all of these and more have at one time or another have been subject to explanation by environmental determinism. The humour theory of Hippocrates was probably the single, most important foundation for environmental determinism until the nineteenth century. Hippocrates saw the human body as housing four kinds of “humours”- yellow bile, black bile, phlegm, and blood, representing fire, earth, water, and blood, respectively. The relative proportions of the four humours caused variation in individual physique and personality, as well as in sickness and health. Climate was believed to be responsible for the “balance” of the humours and, therefore, for geographic differences in physical form and personality. Thus, people living in hot climates were passionate, given to violence, lazy, short-lived, light and agile because of an excess of hot air and lack of water.

The effect of climate on personality and intelligence determined other human affairs, particularly, government and religion. Both Plato and Aristotle associated climate with government, viewing temperate Greece as the ideal climate for democratic government and for producing people fit to rule others. Despotic governments, on the other hand, were best suited for hot climates because the people lacked spirit and a love for liberty and were and given to passionate excesses. Cold climates had no real form of government because the people lacked skills and intelligence and were strongly given to a love of individual liberty. The eighteenth century Frenchman Montesquieu continued this line of reasoning and applied it to religion. Hot climate create lethargy, according this scholar, and are apt to be associated with passive religions. Buddhism in India was given as a classic example. By contrast, Montesquieu believed that religions in cold climates, , are dominated by aggressiveness to match the love for individual liberty and activity. (Christianity, Montesquieu’s religion, was elevated above environmental determinism because it was revealed). The geographer Ellsworth Huntington (1945) carried this thinking well into the twentieth century by arguing, in the Mainsprings of Civilization, that the highest forms of religion are found in temperate regions of the world. His basic argument was that temperate climates are more conducive to intellectual thinking.

The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries brought a decline in the popularity of humour theory but no less vigorous apologists for environmental determinism. There are several reasons for its persistence. The developing method of science was marked by the search for simple, linear, cause-and effect relationships; that is A causes B causes C, and so forth. There was no recognition of the complex interactions and feedback processes that make today’s science. Anthropologists and geographers searched for simple causes of the geographical distribution of cultural traits. Some proposed environment while others favoured diffusion. Both offered simple, straightforward explanations that were consistent with linear science. Therefore, it is not surprising to see the resurgence of environmental determinism at this time. The rise of “technological determinism”, as espoused by Marxist social philosophy, also contributed to the resurgence. Environmental determinism was a rebuttal to the anti -environmental position of Marxist writers. Finally, an explanatory model of this kind was the simple way to categorize and explain the mass of data on human diversity being accumulated as a result of world exploration, in much the same way that the “Three-Age system” helped classify ancient artefacts. The “culture area” concept was particularly suitable for this purpose, allowing diverse cultures within large geographical areas to be classified into a single type because some traits are held in common. Some early geographers and anthropologists quickly noted the general correspondence between culture areas and natural areas and argued that environment caused the occurrence of distinct cultural areas.

Material culture and technology were believed to be most affected by the environment. For example, in a discussion of the prehistory of the American South west, William H. Holmes, (1919) a turn-of the-century-anthropologists, states that: it is here made manifest that is not so much the capabilities and cultural heritage of the particular stock of people that determines the form of material culture as it is their local environment.

However, nonmaterial culture was also explained environmentally. F.W Hodge (1907) in his bookHandbook of American Indians North of Mexicoexplained with regard to the American South west, that the effects of this environment, were to influence social structure and functions, manners and customs, aesthetic products and motives, lore and symbolism, and, most of all, creed and cult, which were conditioned by the unending, ever-recurring longing for water.

Perhaps the most lucid proponent of environmental explanation for nonmaterial culture was J.W Fewkes, another turn-of-the-century American Anthropologist, who was particularly interested in the origins of ritual behaviour. However, unlike most of his contemporaries, Fewkes was aware of the complexities underlying the study of man-environmental interaction and did not assume a simple one-to-one relationship.

Today the theme of environmental determinism has been largely replaced by the emergence of man-environmental models that assign environment a “limiting” but uncreative role or that recognize complex mutual interaction. However, the explanation of biological diversity in humans continue to have a strong, deterministic orientation. Models of genetic change in human populations, for instance, are still dominated by the theory of natural selection, a theory that assigns to environment a strong and active role in shaping gene pools. Thus, the most popular explanation for the distribution of skin colour is based upon “selection” for pigment granules that help block out excessive ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Models of physiological adaptation to altitude and temperature are also marked by environmental determinism. On the other hand, a number of recent investigators have suggested models that greatly limit the role of environment as an agent of biological change. “Genetic drift”, that is, vagaries due to sampling errors in small populations, is an important part of most of these models. The role of natural selection is particularly being questioned because of the recognition that genes are not isolated entities subject to easy manipulation by environmental factors but are part of complex systems of interaction.

Environmental Possibilism

In place of environmental determinism a new theory called environmental possibilism was expounded by Forde (1934). The followers of this school asserted that the environment does not directly cause specific cultural developments, but the presence or absence of specific environmental factors placed limits on such developments either by permitting or forbidding their occurrence. Toynbee (1955) is of the opinion that development of civilisations could be explained in terms of their response to environmental challenges.

Possibilities do not ignore the influence of the physical environment, and they realize that the imprint of nature shows in many cultures. However the possibilists stressed that cultural heritage is at least as important as the physical environment in affecting human behaviour. Most importantly, the general orientation of environmental explanation in anthropology shifted away from determinism toward possibilism in the 1920s and 1930s. Much of this shift was due to the personal influence of Franz Boas, a renowned German-American anthropologist who showed that the origin of specific cultural features and patterns was generally to be found in historical tradition rather than in environment. Boas emphasised upon specific cultural explanation which gave rise to the so-called school of “historical particularism”, a school that has often been chided for its anti-environmentalism. However, Boas did not completely ignore environment and stated that: ‘I shall always continue to consider (environmental variables) as relevant in limiting and modifying existing culture”( Harris,1968). He did consider it irrelevant to explain the origin of culture traits and that environment, plays an important role in explaining why they did occur. This belief is the hallmark of possibilism.

Perhaps the most famous example of possibilistic explanation is that posited by Kroeber(1939) for the geographical distribution of maize cultivation. Kroeber gave data showing that the distribution of maize farming in aboriginal North America was restricted to climates with at least a four-month growing season, during which rainfall was sufficient and there were no killing frosts. A similar study was made by the archaeologist Waldo Wedl who proposed that on the aboriginal Great Plains the geographical boundary of farming was a function of rainfall. Farming was practiced only in areas where the mean annual rainfall was sufficiently high to assure the necessary growing season and in areas where drought was not frequent. In areas where the mean annual rainfall was high enough but in which killing droughts were frequent, mixed farming and foraging (hunting and gathering) were practiced. Finally, in areas with both frequent droughts and low average rainfall, only foragers were found.

Fig 3. Environment Possibilism shows that not only the environment but other factors also determines the culture.

Possibilism made significant contribution to the “culture area” concept. As early as 1896, Otis T. Mason suggested that the geographical distribution of material culture and technology is “molded” by the environment but is not caused by it. He defined 12 “ethnic” environments or culture areas based upon this assumption. Mason’s work was elaborated by Clark (1926) and Kroeber (1939). Both recognised a general correlation between culture areas and natural areas but viewed the correlation in terms of what cultural features a natural area would or would not permit. Thus farming was relevant to the eastern United States, not because of the temperature climate but because it permitted the necessary growing season. Likewise, big game hunting was permitted by the grasslands of the Great Plains, after the introduction of the horse and firearms, but was not caused by it. Finally, the limited cultural development in the Great Basin and other “marginal” areas was attributed to environmental limitations while the cultural “florescence” in the southeast United States was attributed to the absence of environmental limitations. Environment, however, could not be used to explain why one culture area was marked by patrilineal inheritance and another by matrilineal inheritance. This could only be explained by cultural history. Thus, Kroeber (1939) remarked that while it is true that cultures are rooted in nature, and can therefore never be completely understood except with reference to that piece of nature in which they occur, they are no more produced by that nature than a plant is produced or caused by the soil in which it is rooted. The immediate causes of cultural phenomena are other cultural phenomena.

The culture area concept, therefore developed into a kind of compromise between determinism and the extreme diffusionists’ views of the “kulturkries” and related schools. The role of environment in cultural evolution is particularly clear in possibilists’ thought: environment places stringent limitations on the level of cultural development. Perhaps the most frequently cited example of this position is taken by the archaeologist Betty Meggers. In her 1954 paper “Environmental limitations on the Development of culture”, Meggers suggests that farming is necessary for advanced stages of cultural evolution and that areas suitability for farming is an accurate measure of its “potential” for cultural evolution. She defines four environment “types” from at least suitable for farming to the most suitable:

1. “Where agriculture is impossible because of temperature, aridity, soil consumption, altitude, topography, latitude, or some other natural factor which inhibits the growth or maturation of domesticated plants”.
2. “Where agricultural productivity is limited to a relatively low level by climate factors causing rapid depletion of soil fertility”.
3. “Where relatively high crop yields can be obtained indefinitely from the same plot of land with fertilization, fallowing, crop rotation, and other kinds of soil restorative measures, or in more arid regions by irrigation”.
4. “Where little or no specialized knowledge is required to achieve and maintain a stable level of agricultural productivity”.

   These types are not to be constructed as causing cultural evolution. According to Meggers, types 3 and 4 may not reach a high level of development for cultural reasons, for example, the absence of appropriate diffusion. However, no amount of diffusion or other cultural factors can lead to advanced cultural development in a type 1 or type 2 environment. Furthermore, if an advanced culture expands into a type 1 or type 2 environment, it is deemed to failure.

The most notable application of this model is in the lowland Maya, who occupied a type 2 environment, migrated into the tropical lowlands after achieving the roots of civilization elsewhere, probably in the highlands of southern Mexico and Guatemala. Reaching maturity in its new home, it suddenly surpassed the farming potential of the poor environment and collapsed.

The Ecological perspective

Environmental determinism and possiblism have one thing in common: an Aristotelian view of the relationship between man and environment. That is, humans occupy one sphere and environment another and never the twain shall meet. The purpose of both the model is to ascertain the impact of one sphere on the other, with the deterministic view holding that environment actively shapes man and the possibilistic view assigning environment as a limiting or selecting role. According to the anthropologist Clifford Geertz, with such a formulation, one can ask only the grossest questions: “how far is culture influenced by environment?” “how far is the environment modified by the activities of man?” can give only the grossest answers: “to a degree, but not completely”.

A more precise understanding of the relationship between man and environment is made possible by the non- Aristotelian view that constant interplay takes place and that two distinct “spheres” do not exist. One cannot be understood without the other.

This assumption provided the theoretical foundation of ecology, the third major theme in environmental thought. The word ecology was apparently first coined by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel to refer to the way that animals make their living, “above all the beneficial and inimical relations with other animals and plants” but also including relationships with the inorganic environment. However, the roots of the ecological orientation are found deep in western tradition. Indeed, the idea of interplay occurs in the writings of Plato and Aristotle and later in the literature of the Judaeo-Christian. Thus, Aristotle introduced the concept of “design in nature”, which viewed the earth and universe as a clock like system having interrelated parts, although parts that were distinct “species” and driven by different causes. The concept of design in nature was picked up by various Judaeo-Christian philosophers and elaborated to suit their purposes, including the substitution of the Aristotelian “final cause” with the Christian deity as the reason for the design. Clarence James Glacken, a geographer, refers to this school of thought as physic-theology and gives the following passage to suggest its prevailing view of the world:

The earth as an orderly well planned place in which there was “nothing wanting, nothing redundant, nothing botching or ill-made”. Physic-theology took on a more secular orientation with its inclusion into the “normal” science of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The earth and the cosmos were viewed as perfect clockwork like mechanisms subject to completely predictable natural laws rather than divine purpose.

Continuity of the ecological theme into the 19th century is particularly expressed in Charles Darwin’s “web of life” concept and in the writings of Baron Alexander von( Glacken,1967). According to Darwin all living creatures must mutually adjust to each other in their “struggle for existence”. In the origin of species(1859) he gives an example of the web of life, as he refers to this relationship. Bumble bees are responsible for pollinating clover fields in the English countryside. However, the abundance of the bees is limited by field mice because they destroy the hives. With fewer bees, less clover is pollinated and the field is not as productive as it might be. However, Darwin observed, that clover fields were more productive near villages and towns. The reason for this is that house cats were abundant in these localities and preyed upon field mice, thus drastically reducing their numbers. With fewer field mice bumble bees boomed and fields blossomed.

Humboldt, an early 19th century German naturalist and traveller, had views similar to Darwin. He was particularly interested in the relationship between plants and man in the tropical regions of the world. According to Humbodlt, man is often responsible for changing the character of native plants by introducing exotics that become dominant, driving the indigenous species out of existence or into remote places. The most typical result was the creation of monotony of the landscape, eliminating natural diversity in favour of a few plants useful to man. However, plants have a corresponding impact upon man. Humbodlt believed that plant diversity, such as that in the tropics, stimulated human imagination and artistic sensitivity. Humbodlt travelled widely in the American tropics and was quite impressed by the ruins of pre-Columbian civilizations in the jungles. It is not surprising that the spectacular remains led him to this conclusion ‘when man replaced the natural diversity with monotony, the quest for knowledge and artistic endeavour suffered accordingly(Hardesty, 1977).

Summary

Historically and philosophically speaking, the roots of western notions of the interrelations between man and environment are very old. What it all amounts to, is what has been labelled a “super organic” conception of culture.This involves an implicit emphasis on human beings and their culture as independent of nature. As a consequence of this perceived dichotomy, explanations of human diversity or unity were to be found either in ultra-human or external conditions. In the first case the position was one of biological or psychobiological determinism. In the latter case, the milieu or surroundings was seen as the causal factor. The most wide-spread of the doctrines based on milieu were the climatic and geographical. Among the proponents of these theories were Aristotle, Hippocrates, Huntington, Montesquieu, Plato and Ratzel.

Some of the scholars classified here as “determinists”, can also be seen as representing the older and partly naive evolutionist and diffusionist positions. This is true, for Ratzel and his “anthropogeography”, as well as for Adolf Bastain and his emphasis on “parallelism” in human societal environment.

At this point it is only correct and fair to point out that the possibilists characterization of the so-called “naive linear deterministic view” is at best an over simplification.

All in all, the crude deterministic argument was however rather naive. It was clear that it would sooner or later have to be challenged.

In general, Friedrich Ratzel a German geographer during the 20th century have said that all human activities were determined by the environment. Environment has influenced man. And it is the environment that sets human culture. For example: Eskimos are nomads living in an arctic region and are still “primitive” because of their harsh environmental conditions or extreme cold environment. On other hand, there is environmental possibilism where it says environmental factor develops the human culture but there are certain environment factors that restrict the development of human culture or technology. For example, in temperate region: it is very favourable for development of agriculture. Where as in Arctic region: because of environmental conditions there is no development in agriculture. Likewise, in Islands and landlocked states: People living in the Islands have developed the technology of making boats and ships whereas settlers in landlocked states do not have the capability.

Thus, one should not generate the environmental conditions, as different places have different environmental conditions with different people. So, the effect or influence of the environment differs from place to place.

References

• Anderson, James. N (1977). Ecological Anthropology and Anthropological Ecology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
• Clarke W.C (1966). From extensive to Intensive shifting cultivation. [Accessed: 20th March 2016].
• Forde, C.D (1934). Habitat, Economy and Society: A Geographical Introduction to Ethnology. New York: Dutton.
• Glaccken, C (1967). Traces on the Rhodian shore. Berkeley: university of California press.
• Gulia Brig K.S (2005). Human ecology of Sikkim. Delhi: Kalpaz publications.
• Hardesty Donald L. (1977). Ecological Anthropology. United sates of America: John Wiley and Sons.
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• Huntington, E (1945) Mainsprings of civilization. New York: John Wiley and sons.
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• Kroeber, A.C (1939). Cultural and natural areas of native North America. Berkeley: University of California press.
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    Suggested Readings

• Bates,G. 1963. The Role of Somatic Change in Evolution.,Evolution, 17,529-39
• Brosius,J.P.1999.Analyses and interventions: anthropological engagements with environmentalism. Current Anthropology 40(3): 277-309.
• Burton, M., G. Schoepfle and M. Miller, 1986. Natural resource anthropology. Human Organization 45(3): 261-269.
• Colinvaux, P. 1973. Introduction to Ecology. John Wiley & Sons.
• Descola, P. and G. Pálsson, 1996. Introduction. In P. Descola and G. Pálsson (eds) Nature and Society: Anthropological Perspectives, pp. 1-21. London: Routledge
• Ellen, R. 1996. Introduction. In R. Ellen and K. Fukui (eds) Redefining Nature: Ecology, Culture, and Domestication, pp. 1-38. Washington, DC: Berg Publishers
• Emilo.P.Foran.2016. People and Nature: An Introduction to Human Ecological Relations, 2nd edn.Wiley-Balckwell
• Franklin, A. 2002. Nature and Social Theory. London: Sage.
• Grafton, R., L. Robin and R. Wasson (eds), 2005. Understanding the Environment: Bridging the Disciplinary Divides. Sydney, NSW: University of New South Wales Press
• Head, L. 2000. Cultural Landscapes and Environmental Change. London: Arnold.
• Kottak, C. 1999. The new ecological anthropology. American Anthropologist 101: 23-35
• Milton, K. 1993a. Environmentalism: The View from Anthropology. London: Routledge
• Orlove, B. and S. Brush, 1996. Anthropology and the conservation of biodiversity. Annual Review of Anthropology 25: 329-352.