This is an audio version of my new chapter with Justin Farrell in the new Handbook of the Sociology of Morality, V2 (2023) called "The Influence of the Nature-Culture Dualism on Morality." The new handbook was edited by Steven Hitlin, Shai M. Dromi, and Aliza Luft and is out from Springer-Verlag New York, LLC.

Abstract:

Nature and culture are perhaps the two most consistent moral categories in Western thought. And yet, despite their stability, what nature and culture represent within a given moral system varies widely. In this chapter, we argue that the nature-culture dualism (“NCD”) has a fundamental impact on the moral imagination of different societies, and that this relationship has been underappreciated by sociology. To illustrate our argument, we trace the evolution of nature-culture dualism (“NCD”) from Greek and Roman thought, through Medieval Christian thought, and into the Modern era, from which sociology emerged. We show how in each era different presuppositions are stabilized by metaphors that naturalize a particular nature-culture dualism and set of moral beliefs, first about how humans should treat nature, and second, about what type of society nature is telling humans to build. Moving forward, sociologists should pay closer attention to the nature-culture dualism, not only because it is analytically important but because moral imagination is impossible without it.

This is a long and boring answer to the first question on my PhD qualifying exams at Yale University from this past Spring. I used the new ElevenLabs AI to turn the answer into an audiobook quality thing. This was the question:

Your attempt to develop a new “Sociology of Nature” raises questions—both old and new—about the relationship between society and nature. How was this relationship thought about in classical sociology, and where does the study of this relationship stand today?

I asked an AI-bot to read a little extended abstract I wrote for the American Sociological Association's annual meeting. It's pretty academic, but a good little summary of what my work has been focused on over the past few years: conservatism, nazism, ecofascism, nature, and the environment.

A brief reflection on Bill Cronon's 1998 essay "The Trouble With Wilderness". A lot of this thinking is built up on Bruno Latour's idea of "coming down to earth" and Isabelle Stenger's idea of "obligations."

Lauren and I start with her work on the weird case of a woman in Jackson, Wyoming feeding the most famous bear in the world off her back porch and we end wondering about the philosophy of perception and causality and conflict. Good shit.

Emile Newman (@curlsinthewild) is a model and professional snowboarder based out of Jackson, Wyoming and a Masters student at the Yale School of the Environment. Navigating both worlds as a Black woman can be tough and rewarding and confusing. 

*At one point Emile refers to Quannah Chasing Horse as Quannah Parker*