So long as their loyalties are turned toward centers or borders, people will buy a whole package of political judgments about nature, human and physical, that go with center or border views. Some dangers are unknown; others are known, but not by us because no one person can know everything. Science wrought this change between us and nonmoderns. How, then, do people decide which risks to take and which to ignore? The advantages of quantitative growth, the argument goes, have to be sacrificed to improve the quality of life. Trim Size: 5.5 x 8.25. The risk-averse side starts from the point that unbridled economic growth has hurt the natural environment and human life. We moderns are supposed to behave differently, especially because the same science and technology that make us modern also produce our risks and because advanced statistics enable us to calculate them. I Risks are Hidden II Risks are Selected III Scientists Disagree IV Assessment is Biased v The Center is Complacent VI The Border is Alarmed VII The Border Fears for Nature VIII America is a Border Country IX The Dialogue is Political Conclusion: Risk is a Collective Construct Notes Index, © Copyright And there are short-term factors predisposing the events to occur when they do. Dame Mary Douglas, DBE, FBA (25 March 1921 – 16 May 2007) was a British anthropologist, known for her writings on human culture and symbolism, whose area of speciality was social anthropology. This article provides a critical comparative review of Ulrich Beck's and Mary Douglas's social theories of risk. Before we decide that our own case is totally different, first let us try to understand how cultural theory explains the selection of dangers among people who are without the benefit of modern science. What can be said about them is mostly well known. on JSTOR. There are medium-range factors, closer to the time in question, that facilitate the emergence of certain patterns of behavior. We expect that those which show up as most hierarchical in their relation with each other and the outside world will also be making the more typically hierarchical selection of dangers. The argument pursued here is not easy however. Can we know the risks we face, now or in the future? How, then, do people decide which risks to take and which to ignore? Cultural Theory arose out of the work of Mary Douglas, an anthropologist studying traditional African religion. Some dangers are unknown; others are known, but not by us because no one person can know everything. It is easy to understand that before modern times natural dangers were used as threats in the work of mustering social consensus. Privacy Policy, An Essay on the Selection of Technological and Environmental Dangers. The human race and its physical environment is threatened with degradation or even extinction. Mary Douglas shows that to examine what is considered as unclean in any culture is to take a looking-glass approach to the ordered patterning which that culture strives to establish. Rights: Available worldwide Sectarianism, we contend, has always had some strength in America. Dame Mary Douglas, DBE, FBA (25 March 1921 – 16 May 2007) was a British anthropologist, known for her writings on human culture and symbolism, whose area of speciality was social anthropology. We can demonstrate the social theory of risk perception by classifying them according to their principles of organization. Most people cannot be aware of most dangers at most times. The aim of this book has been to understand the social forces that speak on behalf of environmental protection in America. Here is a case of cultural change to which cultural analysis can be applied. Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technical and Environmental Dangers @inproceedings{Robbins1983RiskAC, title={Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technical and Environmental Dangers}, author={Thomas Robbins and Mary Douglas and Aaron B. Wildavsky}, year={1983} } Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technological and Environmental Dangers [Douglas, Mary, Wildavsky, Aaron] on Amazon.com. The other (risk-takers) side says that economic growth is good; it advises citizens not to lower standards of living by very much in order to reduce risk a little. It is hardly true, however, that their universe is more unknown than ours. Risk and Culture Book Description: The concern of many Americans with dangers to the natural environment is not justified rationally, according to the authors, but results from American cultural biases and the political goals of environmentalists.
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