Linking Animal Cruelty and Family Violence By Lisa Anne Zilney

Chapter 1:

Theoretical Foundations

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the biophysical environment is an inexhaustible backdrop to human social organization; and

because of the human capacity for technology, social progress is indefinite and social problems are solvable (Humphrey and Buttel 1982).

The exemption of human beings from the forces of nature established a misguided orientation toward the biophysical world that permeated “the entire ensemble of societal institutions and ... led to widespread institutionalized norms of... confidence in indefinite material progress” (Buttel 1998: 44-45). Dunlap and Catton suggested that this orientation was responsible for unsustainable environmental practices and was blinding sociologists to the feedback relationships between human life and biophysical processes.

Based on difficulties with mainstream sociology, Catton and Dunlap outlined what they called a New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) as a philosophical alternative to the HEP, and as a basis for environmental sociology. The assumptions of the NEP are:

in spite of our capacity for technology, human beings are one species of many;

human behavior is governed by socio-cultural and biophysical factors that are intertwined;

the biophysical basis of human life is fragile, and if upset, can potently affect human life; and

the earth is a closed ecological system and no component of the system can expand indefinitely.