Pragmatism vs. Essentialism

From ClimateNetworkWiki

Pragmatism vs. Essentialism is part of the Solutions section of the Knowledge Base. This article looks at two competing paradigms for understanding personal change.

Contents 1 Toward a Paradigm Shit? 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Essentialism 1.3 Pragmatism 1.4 Differences in Paradigms and Environmental Context 1.5 Climate Change and the Pragmatic Paradigm 1.6 Social Marketing and the Environmental Movement 1.7 Community-Based Social Marketing and Sustainability 1.8 Criticisms of a Pragmatic Approach 2 Tools for Fostering Sustainable Behaviour 2.1 Commitment 2.1.1 Prompts 2.1.2 Norm Appeals 2.1.3 Communication 2.1.4 Incentives 2.1.5 Convenience 2.2 References 2.3 Talk Page

Toward a Paradigm Shit?

“If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves” Thomas A. Edison

Introduction

Climate change is a complex problem that requires complex solutions, many of which have not yet been developed. However, applying a pragmatist approach to the climate crisis may offer workable steps that can lead individuals active in the environmental movement closer to a solution. One pragmatic approach is Community Based Social Marketing, which stresses practical tools to effectively change behaviour. Though often solutions are found through the amalgamation of many different theories, the pragmatism of the Community Based Social Marketing approach may offer tools to help concerned individuals encourage more sustainable behaviours while working together on local, regional and global levels to build a more desirable future.

Essentialism

There are many different paradigms reflecting popular beliefs about the state of the environment today, and specifically contemplating the relationship between humans and nature. These paradigms were designed primarily to illustrate philosophical differences in human nature. However, they have also been used to describe certain features of how people view the environment and their place within it. There are two paradigms in particular which encapsulate contemporary environmentalist thought. The first of these two paradigms is known as essentialism. Essentialist thought assumes people or things have a certain character, an essence that is innate rather than socially constructed. Simply put, essentialism is a way of seeing things that have value in and of themselves, rather than value insinuated by social spheres. It reduces complex realities into simple ones, or to single essences (^[1]). In this paradigm, nature is a seen as having a single meaning, something outside of the systems within which humans operate. It views nature in a nonanthropocentric way, by stipulating that objects and creatures in nature hold their own intrinsic value. Thus essentialism argues that any change to the environment ultimately results in nature being destroyed (^[1]) because the essence is ultimately altered. Because of this, environmentalists have seen nature as something to be protected from humans for fear of changing its underlying essence of what true nature is. For example, “ most environmentalists don’t think of “the environment” as a mental category at all — they think of it as a real “thing” to be protected and defended. They think of themselves, literally, as representatives and defenders of this thing” (^[2], p.12). This thinking has been explained by prominent environmentalist, most notably Rachel Carson[1], Al Gore[2] and the Deep Ecology[3] movement.

Pragmatism

In contrast, pragmatism has been suggested as an alternative to essentialist thinking. Pragmatist thought applies a practical approach rather than ideological solutions to problems, and is concerned primarily with results. A pragmatist sees knowledge as something that is perceived (^[1]). Pragmatism, in contrast to essentialism does not see the environment as something removed from humans (^[3]). Rather, the environment and humans are seen to have no distinction between them, and are thought to exist in the same reality. Therefore, pragmatism is often hailed as the grounding approach to the environmental movement by offering a more practical, rather than ideological approach. For example:

Pragmatism’s stress on concrete facts, flexibility, experimentation, and practical, workable solutions to real world problems, combined with its clear preference for democratic consensus-building and social justice, appears to provide a sensible intellectual framework for innovation and reform in environmental decision-making at all levels.(Mintz, 2001,p. 649, as cited in ^[4])

Pragmatism has been used as a tool, most prominently by Nordhaus and Shellenberger, to demonstrate and inspire the power of humans in the environmental movement, rather than to recognize the limits of nature and society’s modern shortcomings to its protection.

Differences in Paradigms and Environmental Context

The distinction between these two paradigms is important because it questions societal values and highlights human and ecological possibility. Many environmentalists are concerned that public policy regarding the environment is failing, which largely reflects misguided values based on outdated paradigms. It has been suggested that the pragmatic paradigm is much more suited to the complexity of post-modern environmental issues. Though this way of seeing the environment and humans’ place within it is not universally accepted, there seems to be a strong consensus that whatever people and policy makers are doing now doesn’t seem effective and that therefore society needs a new way of thinking;a new environmentally-friendly worldview ( ^[5]). As worldviews largely determine how people act, the justification for changing worldviews comes from the notion that a change is the only way to alter harmful behaviour (^[5]).

Climate Change and the Pragmatic Paradigm

Climate change has been described as one of the most challenging environmental problems of our time, an “undertaking of monumental size and complexity” (^[2], p.6). Its effects will reach every corner of the globe. Though the physical driver of climate change has almost unanimously been agreed to be rising levels of greenhouse gasses from anthropogenic sources, issues such as deforestation, industrialization, urbanization, and desertification, also contribute to the phenomenon. Suddenly cumulative effects such as incremental poverty and food insecurity, loss of biodiversity, altering of global climate regulation systems, rising sea levels, droughts, human health issues and economic repercussions which were not previously considered consequences of environmental problems, have now become part of the larger complex problem that is global climate change. Many effects are still unknown and as such are exceedingly difficult to scientifically model. Essentially, what the challenge of climate change stipulates is evolution to an entirely new level of complexity, combined with growing levels of uncertainty. Climate change is a complex problem, and thus requires complex solutions. There is an insistence in contemporary environmental thought that reducing carbon emissions is the only way to stop climate change. However, there is no single meaning of climate change, and essentialist definitions and obvious solutions limit policy actions by masking true understanding of the real problem (^[1]). For example,

The environmental movement’s failure to craft inspiring and powerful proposals to deal with global warming is directly related to the movement’s reductive logic about the supposedly root causes (e.g., “too much carbon in the atmosphere”) of any given environmental problem. The problem is that once you identify something as the root cause, you have little reason to look for even deeper causes or connections with other root causes. (^[2], p.14-15)

Moreover, the ways that environmental problems were solved in the 1960s and 1970s will no longer work for these new complex issues (^[2]). And because the complexity of problems has increased, some argue that the place for essentialist thinking is in the past. A suggestion is that behaviour change involves changing the way people think from an essentialist to a pragmatist point of view. Nordhaus and Shellenberger comment that:

A pragmatic, anti-essentialist politics recognizes that the stories we choose to tell about ourselves and the world have profound implications for the kind of work we create and should be judged by their ability to help us imagine and create the world we want.(^[1], p. 220)

Similarly, Nordhaus and Shellenberger believe that any effective politics should address needs and values rather than issues and interests:

the world’s most effective leaders are not issue-identified but rather vision and value-identified. These leaders distinguish themselves by inspiring hope against fear, love against injustice, and power against powerlessness. A positive, transformative vision doesn’t just inspire, it also creates the cognitive space for assumptions to be challenged and new ideas to surface (^[2], p. 31)

Therefore, solutions to global climate change will require a wide lens to address issues in the larger context of how they interact with each other. But this requires a new way of thinking, and a new way of looking at the problem. Post-modern problems cannot be solved with outdated solutions, nor can complex problem be solved with simple answers. Therefore, this new way of thinking can be encouraged through tools for behaviour change. Using ecological systems as a model for how to live and plan in the environmental sphere, it becomes increasingly clear that essentialism has lost its place in post modern-environmentalism and that the pragmatist paradigm can be a more useful tool for shaping the future.

Social Marketing and the Environmental Movement

Once the postmodern paradigm has been explained, the next logical progression is how to use this information to build environmental campaigns that are effective at changing behaviour. Often, behaviour change campaigns are conducted in the form of public information campaigns (^[6]), with the belief that information will be enough to change people’s behaviour for the better. Information is used as the primary method in behaviour change programs, because of a misconception about behaviour change; that changes in behaviour happen exclusively because of public education (^[6]). However, it has been suggested that many other barriers can also prevent people from living sustainably (^[6]). Mass public information is conducted through many means, such as advertising in its many forms. Contrary to popular conception, the relationship between behaviour and environmental knowledge is often quite often weak (^[6]). It has been suggested that there has not been enough focus put on the success of sustainability initiatives in changing people’s behaviour(^[6]). In order for sustainability initiatives to work they need to actually change behaviour and the way people think. Knowing this, behaviour changing strategies can be used as a tool and incorporated into programs. Often, community based social marketing is offered as an alternative to conventional information based campaigns.

Community-Based Social Marketing and Sustainability

Social marketing[4] is the utilization of certain aspects of traditional marketing to bring about voluntary changes in behaviour, in order to improve personal and societal welfare (^[7]). The discipline of social marketing can be applied to many areas of study because its main focus is to change behaviour (^[7]). In this way, it is a perfect candidate for the environmental movement, and speaks to those who feel traditional forms of information sharing are not resulting in society-wide behaviour changes. One of the main reasons why social marketing is so successful in relation to regular marketing and advertizing is that it understands the conditions required for behaviour to change (^[8]). One type of social marketing, community based social marketing, has gained significant popularity in the environmental movement. Community-Based Social Marketing (CBSM) is a theory developed by Dr. Doug McKenzie-Mohr, an environmental psychologist, as a way to foster sustainable behaviours. CBSM is offered as an alternative to campaigns that tend to be information–heavy and it has proved to be quite successful at changing behaviour (^[9]). CBSM uses research from social psychology to demonstrates that changes occurring at the community level, involving direct interpersonal contact, tend to be more effective (^[6]). CBSM is pragmatic in its approach (^[9]). This approach involves four steps:
• finding potential barriers to sustainable behaviour,
• incorporating the tools of behaviour change into the strategy,
• involving the community in the testing of the ideas
• evaluating the success of the program upon completion (^[9]).

When individuals begin certain sustainable behaviours, the whole community tends to begin moving towards more sustainable behaviour (^[9]). As such, the method of delivering the program is of crucial importance, as the success of sustainable behaviour in general depends on it. In this way, the importance of program delivery is most important, as the success of the sustainable behaviour being followed depends on this.

Criticisms of a Pragmatic Approach

There is some opposition to the marketing approach to behaviour change. Some, such as Tom Crompton from the World Wildlife Fund, argue that this approach to the environmental movement simplifies the problem by offering a 'quick fix' that only involves investment. He argues that the traditional marketing approach does not question the underlying reasons behind motivation for action, and does not speak to societies’ materialistic thinking based on increased needs for consumption. He argues that the marketing approach “may entail encouraging individuals to change their behaviour for reasons of social status or financial self-interest, rather than environmental benefit” (^[10], p.5). He argues that the marketing approach depends on society buying into the latest trend. The basis of the marketing approach is “to find a product or service that embodies this behavioural change, and to market this as a proxy for the change itself” (^[10], p. 8). The marketing approach encourages small quick and painless steps which do not speak to the underlying problems. Crompton argues that “in the course of embracing the more systemic and structural changes that are needed they may be at best a distraction, and at worst a procrastination” (^[10],p.10). According to Crompton:

The question examined here is not whether, cumulatively, marginal changes in an individual household’s energy use can contribute to addressing the problem of climate change – in purely numerical terms, and they clearly can. But there is a more pressing question about how irresistible public demand for radical regulatory change will emerge, and whether the current emphasis on encouraging marginal individual behavioural changes will facilitate the development of this. (^[10],p.13)

Therefore, pragmatist actions have been argued as insufficient to deal with the monumental shifts in behaviour that are needed to tackle climate change.

Tools for Fostering Sustainable Behaviour

McKenzie-Mohr has developed a list of tools to apply to programs, which have been successful in achieving more sustainable change. McKenzie-Mohr specifies that though the tools can be applied individually, their combined use can create the most effective change (^[6]). Some common tools in community based social marketing involve the following aspects: commitment, prompts, norms appeals,communication, incentives and convenience.

Commitment

Commitment involves making a pledge or a personal agreement on something that will take place in the future. Commitments have been found to help foster more sustainable behaviour (^[6]). While many studies have found commitment to be effective, the most common elements of these studies are discussed here. It has been found that when someone makes a small commitment, they are more likely to support a larger request as well(^[6]). Possibly this occurs because consistency is important to people, and if they committed once, then they will likely do it again (^[6]). Also, some forms of commitment seem to be more effective than others. For example, written commitments appear to be more effective than verbal commitments, and a public commitment is a powerful way of increasing public participation rates in sustainable behaviour (^[6]). However, McKenzie-Mohr also cautions that commitments should be used as a tool only when there is an initial interest in the issue or activity to begin with. He suggests commitment strategies will fail if the individuals feel pressured to commit, and suggests individuals must volunteer their commitment rather than be forced into something in order for the commitment to be effective (^[6]).

Prompts

A prompt is something that encourages action when one cannot do it themselves, often because they have forgotten or it is not immediately apparent. Prompts are important, because many of the actions that people use to gage sustainable behaviours are easy to forget ( ^[6]). For example, sometimes disposable coffee cups are used simply because a personal reusable mug was forgotten by the user. Prompts are effective as they offer reminders and thus enable to behaviour to be easier to follow (^[6]). Prompts are appropriate to use when individuals are already predisposed to conducting an activity but could still benefit from a reminder to continue the behaviour (^[11] ).

Norm Appeals

Norms are actions that are taken by members of society that are assumed to be appropriate behaviour. If one doesn’t follow such norms, there is a worry of social exclusion. According to McKenzie-Mohr, norms are a key element of social learning theory yet their importance in influencing the adoption of sustainable behaviour has not yet been emphasized(^[6]). He argues that a transition to a more sustainable future requires an adaptation of a new set of societal norms that support sustainable lifestyles ( ^[6]). He also suggests that where possible, programs to promote sustainable behaviour should attempt to communicate what are accepted behaviours ( ^[6]). For norms to be effective they need to be internalized by people, and that individuals should see the behaviour that the norm prescribes as the normal way to behave (^[6]). It is also important that the norm be publicly visible(^[6]). For example, many actions performed by individuals occur in private, such as the choice to use cold water for laundry. Therefore, publicizing such action could encourage such activities to be perceived as norms.

Communication

Often leaders in the environmental movement are challenged with portraying a message that will be heard. It is important to ensure that communication methods are effective, and that attempts are not futile. McKenzie Mohr suggests that one of the most effective ways to ensure attention is to present information that is vivid, concrete and personalized ( ^[6]). For example, an effective metaphor could be used as a vivid description. Information that is vivid is likely to stand out against all the other information that is competing for attention , and individuals are more likely to remember the information at a later time (^[6]). Often the environmental movement is quite dismal and points out threats and failures. However, he suggests that threatening messages are a necessary part of directing people's attention to crises, but , they are likely to be counter-productive if they are not coupled with messages that are empowering (^[6]).

Incentives

According to McKenzie-Mohr, incentives, whether financial or otherwise (e.g., social approval), can provide the motivation for individuals to perform activities either that they already perform or to begin a new activity (^[6]). Incentives are a key element of social learning theory, because incentives and disincentives are powerful tools for encouraging or discouraging behaviours (^[12]). McKenzie- Mohr says that incentives can be an important component of a community-based social marketing strategy, particularly when motivation to engage in a sustainable behaviour is low, and can be effective for rewarding positive behaviour (^[6]). However, it is important to recognize when each incentive or disincentive is appropriate. For example, when sustainable behaviours are rewarded with lower costs, the likelihood that people will continue that behaviour increases (^[6]). However, disincentives can be less predictable since the punishment restricts an unwanted behaviour, while failing to encourage a positive alternative (^[6]).

Convenience

Convenience has a large role in behaviour change in the environmental movement. According to McKenzie-Mohr, the success of a CBSM strategy depends on the convenience, pleasantness, cost and timeliness of the proposed behaviour (^[6]). However, he cautions that increasing convenience may be impossible in terms of cost and infrastructure. For example, providing increased public transportation may be difficult for a small group to achieve. In this case, he suggests making the discouraged behaviour less convenient and more costly, which can in turn increase motivation for the encouraged behaviour. However, some external barriers such as inconvenience can be a matter of perception. For example, an experienced composter will perceive that activity as more convenient than someone who has never composted before. He suggest that other tools such as commitment and norms can be used to mitigate moderate concerns of convenience, while deeper insolvencies may be more difficult to overcome (^[6]).

References

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4}
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4}
3. ↑
4. ↑
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1}
6. ↑ ^{6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 6.15 6.16 6.17 6.18 6.19 6.20 6.21 6.22 6.23 6.24 6.25 6.26 6.27}
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1}
8. ↑
9. ↑ ^{9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3}
10. ↑ ^{10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3}
11. ↑
12. ↑

Andreasen, A.R. ( 1995). Marketing social change: Changing behaviour to promote health, social development, and the environment. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Crompton, T. (2008). Weathercocks and signposts: The environmental movement at a crossroads. Retrieved from WWF Strategies for Change: http://www.wwf.org.uk/filelibrary/pdf/weathercocks_report2.pdf

Irwin, R. ( 2007). The neoliberal state, environmental pragmatism, and its discontents. Environmental Politics,16, ( 4), 643 – 658. Accessed August 8,2008 from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09644010701419154

Kassirer, J. ( 1999).Prompts. Retrieved August 8, 2008 from Tools of change website: http://www.toolsofchange.com/English/ToolsofChange/default.asp?Section=Prompts

McKenzie-Mohr, D. ( 1996).Promoting a sustainable future: An introduction to community-based social marketing. Ottawa: Ontario: National Round Table on the environment and the Economy.

Nordhaus, T., & Shellenberger, M. ( 2007). Break Through: From the death of environmentalism to the politics of possibility. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Parker, K.A. ( 1996). Pragmatism and Environmental Thought. In A. Light & E. Katz ( Eds.), Environmental pragmatism. (pp.21-37). London: Routledge. Retrieved Aug.7,2008 from http://www.public.iastate.edu/~jwcwolf/Papers/Parker.pdf

Reitan, E. ( 1998). Pragmatism, Environmental World Views, and Sustainability. Electronic. Accessed August 8,2008 from Ebscohost database.

Shellenberger, M. & Nordhaus, T. (2004). The death of environmentalism: Global warming politics in a post-environmental world. Retrieved August 8, 2008 from http://www.thebreakthrough.org/images/Death_of_Environmentalism.pdf

Transport Canada. ( 2008). The Role of community-based social marketing in supporting active and sustainable transportation. Retrieved from Transport Canada, August 8, 2008 from http://www.tc.gc.ca/Programs/Environment/utsp/commsocialmarketing.htm#tools

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