Place in Massachusetts History—Class 2-12-03

 

Physical Features of the State

 

Question:

     In understanding the history of Massachusetts, what are the relevant physical-environmental aspects?

 

Considerations:

     Whether or not one can answer the general question—how does man relate to his environment?—we can offer some ideas of how we have thought that relationship existed over time. It is surely bound up in technology, science, our understanding of the environment, politics, economics and just about all of the major disciplines.

      It was thought for many years that “the environment” was the controlling-dominating-major influence upon man and his activities and that man was the “recipient” of these environmental offerings and that man ‘chose’ from these “offerings”. This view pervaded our thinking to the extent that a term was coined—“environmentalism”, or “determinism”, or even “environmental determinism”. (Graphically = environment à man) This philosophy was manifested in such ideas as poor soils and short seasons meant that New Englanders were destined to be ‘non-farmers’. That the nearby sea was so rich in fish we became fisherman. That our invigorating “mid-latitude’ climate stimulated “thought production” and hence we became manufacturers and later innovators of all manner of hi-tech ideas.

    

The opposite idea is the notion that man is the dominant part of the man-land equation—that man can ‘do anything’ and the environment is a passive ‘receptacle’ of our activities. (Graphically = land ß man) This view pervaded our thinking during much of the second half of the 20th century. Examples here are numerous: our building of dams everywhere there is flowing water; dumping sewage into the ocean and expecting the tide and water to flush it away and cleanse itself; that we can cut the forests and pave over the land without worrying about repercussions. This point of view has sometimes been termed (in opposition to determinism) “possibilism”.

 

     More recently some would argue that rather than being one extreme or the other that we recently have recognized the interrelatedness of our interests with that of the land. (So that the equation becomes land ßà man)

 

     How do you think man ‘gets along’ with his natural environment? Do you think the situation is different than what you would like it to be?