Quote of the Day

"Many of man's activities are conditioned by his cultural environment, and satisfied by certain interrelations with it. The term environment here is not intended as a metaphor: when man comes into the world he rapidly comes into contact with things, people and ideas outside himself. If a man lives among  people, these are part of his environment s much as the local geology, or plant life, or the weather. If he lives in a house, this is part of his environment. If he is taught a religion, this too is part of environment, since his behaviour and activities are conditioned by the forces which he believes act upon him rather than by those which the sceptic may recognise" - Colin Renfrew. The Emergence of Civilization, 8.


I like this quote; it recognizes the importance of structural and cultural impacts on the human environment. It's a bit too structuralist. I like to think that people have a more agency than he permits with this sentence, but the general idea is spot on for anyone to whom environmental justice matters!