Entropy, the Anthroposphere and the Ecology of Civilization: An Essay on the Problem of ‘Liberalism in One Village’ in the Long View

Abstract

In his theory of civilizing processes Elias drew attention, albeit obliquely, to the interweaving connections between ecological, biological, social and psychological processes operating at a variety of nested temporal scales. Elucidating a series of fundamental propositions, this paper is an attempt firstly to explicate the parameters of the general theory of humanity that is implicit in his concrete historical studies, and secondly to apply this theory to linked problems of global sustainability and cosmopolitan democracy. Building on Goudsblom's concept of the ‘anthroposphere’, I argue that long-term processes of social development have always been synonymous with a specific process of ecological transformation defined by ‘trophic expansion’. This Eliasian approach to human ecology is then used to explore the global environmental ecological crisis through the lens of the longue durée. From this perspective, I question liberal assumptions about the natural affinity between democracy and ecological sustainability and, more specifically, the possibility of ‘low energy cosmopolitanism’. Developing ideas hinted at by C. H. Waddington in the 1960s and more recently by James Lovelock, I argue that any long-term future for complex, cosmopolitan societies and a sustainable rapprochement between the biosphere and the anthroposphere, will depend on the emergence of technologies of ‘trophic detachment’.