Powerless, Stupefied, and Repressed Actors Cannot Challenge Climate Change: Real Helplessness as a Barrier Between Environmental Concern and Action

There is a gap between concern about environmental degradation such as climate change and effective action taken against the forces that drive degradation. This paper argues that real helplessness, a social condition producing powerless, stupefied, and repressed actors, is a fortified barrier betwee...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal for the theory of social behaviour Vol. 53; no. 2; pp. 271 - 295
Main Author Gunderson, Ryan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.06.2023
Subjects
Action
Adorno
Adorno, Theodor Wiesengrund (1903-1969)
Althusser
Climate change
climate inaction
culture industry
Economic change
Economic conditions
Economic systems
Economic theory
Environmental attitudes
Environmental degradation
environmental values
Helplessness
ideology
learned helplessness
Lukács
pro‐environmental behavior
repressive state apparatus
Social conditions & trends
Transformation
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Summary:There is a gap between concern about environmental degradation such as climate change and effective action taken against the forces that drive degradation. This paper argues that real helplessness, a social condition producing powerless, stupefied, and repressed actors, is a fortified barrier between climate concern and effective climate action. Political‐economic analysis has theoretical and methodological implications for environmental social science and helps explain a current conundrum in critical sociology: Why are alternatives to a system that drives climate change and other catastrophic risks still seen as unrealistic? We suffer from a political‐economic system impervious to transformation before we suffer from a lack of alternative ideas.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ISSN:0021-8308
1468-5914
DOI:10.1111/jtsb.12366