Environment and Society: A Critical Essay Analysis

This essay critically analyzes the relationship between environment and society, drawing on five articles that explore various facets of this complex interplay. The first article examines criminology in a global context, while the second critiques the concept of negative liberty. The third article highlights environmental problems contributing to civilization collapse, and the fourth investigates the role of indigenous knowledge in sustainable development. Finally, the fifth article discusses intellectual genius in the Islamic Golden Age and questions the benefits of civilization. The essay synthesizes these diverse perspectives to offer a comprehensive understanding of the challenges and opportunities at the intersection of environment and society, emphasizing the potential for environmental issues to undermine societal structures and the importance of considering alternative perspectives on societal progress.

Running head: ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY
Environment and Society
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY
Article 1: Morrison, W., 2013. Criminology, civilisation and the new world order.
Routledge-Cavendish.
This book my Morrison re-examines the criminology in a global context. It is wide
ranging and updates and covers all the necessary topics in relation to genocide, colonialism,
post-colonialism, state control as well as the 11th September and post 9/11 world. Morrison
(2013) in this book has explored the relation between a contemporary discipline and
modernity and at the same time, reworks the composition and the history of criminology in
context to 11th September as well as the existence of genocide in the modernity. The book has
analysed several statistics, anthropology along with the daily assumptions on the history of
criminology. It is also to note that this book also addressed the scholarly and political grip on
the territorial nations and states along with the absence of global criminology (Morrison
2013). It has rejected the earlier September 11th with the responses that it has evoked were the
exceptions that have either revealed or destroyed the prevalence of the global legal order. The
author has confirmed the nature of world order of the modernity.
Article 2: Taylor, C., 2017. What’s wrong with negative liberty? In Liberty Reader (pp.
141-162). Routledge.
Charles Taylor in this book have criticised the rationality and consistency of the
notion of negative liberty (Taylor 2017). According to Taylor, “negative liberty is
indefensible and unsustainable because freedom cannot be just denoted as the absence of
many external obstacles because there are also many internal obstacles that are need to
consider.” He have complained that civilisation has indeed changed the way people today act,
think and react. He has complained that negative liberty depicts the freedom of human beings
as being the freedom of the physical objects. He have also opined that civilization is the
pinnacle of human beings’ achievement and it has saved the life of human beings that was

2ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY
once brutish, poor and very nasty (Taylor 2017). Hence, in the view of Charles Taylor,
civilization has bring in some significant positive changes that has made the human existence
and life better.
Article 3: Ehrlich, P.R. and Ehrlich, A.H., 2013. Can a collapse of global civilization be
avoided?. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 280(1754), p.20122845.
Ehrlich and Ehrlich (2013) in this article have highlighted the importance of various
environmental problems that have aided to the numerous collapse of the civilisations. It has
mainly highlighted the man-made problems that are the result of advanced civilised people
and modernity. According the authors of this article, every past civilization have undergone
collapse eventually for some or the other consequences. “Loss of socio-political-economic
complexity usually accompanied by a dramatic decline in population size”. It has mentioned
some examples of civilisation collapse like those of the China and Egypt that have been
recovered effectively from the collapse at different stages like the Classic Maya and the
Easter Island. As per them, civilisation has brought several different types of destructions in
the life support system of the human beings. The authors of this article have blamed science
and advanced technologies for incorporating such a devastating change in the society and this
world (Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 2013). They have claimed that the global civilisation of humanity
is threatened with the collapse of civilisation by an array of environmental related issues.
Article 4: Gupta, A.D., 2013. Does Indigenous Knowledge have anything to deal with
Sustainable Development. Cultural Anthropology, 57, p.64.
Gupta (2013) in this paper have investigated about whether the indigenous skills and
knowledge has anything to do with the sustainable development of the society and the nation
as a whole. It has shed light on the importance of indigenous culture, values, norms and
rituals and its significance in the development of the traditional society. The author of this

3ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY
article have also shed light on the role that it has played on the creation and development of
the modern society and individual nature. As per the author, the “traditional knowledge is
much functional and at the same time, is heavily value-loaded and dependent on the non-
adaptive socio-cultural characteristics and with the same, the “traits of traditional knowledge
traits are not always open, still, many of the times, it is much hidden in the type- so these
have to decode from the cultural symbols exclusively in the religious laboratory of the
existence (Gupta 2013).” Today, human beings have their own cultural domain and they have
developed in the form of complete freedom that, some or other way, have destructed the
traditional culture.
Article 5: Simonton, D.K., 2018. Intellectual genius in the Islamic Golden Age: Cross-
civilization replications, extensions, and modifications. Psychology of Aesthetics,
Creativity, and the Arts, 12(2), p.125. :
This article by Simonton (2018) continues a range of inquiries about the reasons for
which the creative geniuses in the world civilisations led to a cluster into the Golden Ages
that are separated by the different period of relative creative inactivity. According to the
author, “The adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life,
was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With agriculture came
the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism that curse our existence.”
With the same, the author have also went on to mention that the traditional or the tribal way
of life led by the hunters and gatherers was much positive and long term as compared to that
of the masters of the civilisations who lived very complicated life. Moreover, it is also to note
that Simonton (2019) have opined that if human beings continue to live within the story of
civilisation then human beings are not for much long period for this world. As per him.
Civilisation has brought several different types of destructions in the life support system of
the human beings (Simonton 2019). He further have questioned regarding the myth that

4ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY
considers civilisation to be the best that human beings can do and have proposed that the next
great adventure of humanity is “beyond civilization”.
References:
Ehrlich, P.R. and Ehrlich, A.H., 2013. Can a collapse of global civilization be
avoided?. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 280(1754), p.20122845.
Gupta, A.D., 2013. Does Indigenous Knowledge have anything to deal with Sustainable
Development. Cultural Anthropology, 57, p.64.
Morrison, W., 2013. Criminology, civilisation and the new world order. Routledge-
Cavendish.
Simonton, D.K., 2018. Intellectual genius in the Islamic Golden Age: Cross-civilization
replications, extensions, and modifications. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the
Arts, 12(2), p.125. :
Taylor, C., 2017. What’s wrong with negative liberty? In Liberty Reader (pp. 141-162).
Routledge.