Environmental determinism, or the thought that the environment (including geography and climate) determines the personality and attributes of cultural and ethnic groups, was once traditionally used to justify Western colonization. In the article below, Matthew Kearnes reviews the principle of "environmental determinism" through a discussion of two well-known 20th century texts. More specifically, it explores how racism is intertwined with these deterministic narratives. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get an original essayA primarily strong lineage running through the development of modernist environmental questioning is the concept of environmental determinism “the general assertion that environmental stipulations decide the personality and attributes of (geographically distinct) cultural and ethnic groups. Although this deeply frustrating principle has enjoyed some popularity throughout Western philosophical and cultural history, it was once particularly evident in the early 20th century, shaping the development of the cutting-edge disciplines of area studies, anthropology and anthropology. , geography and environmental studies. Civilization and Climate, an ordinary textual content of this technology using Ellsworth Huntington, is a particularly striking example of this style of environmental thinking. First published in 1915 (and reprinted at least ten times), Huntington's textual content opens with perhaps the clearest expression of environmental and climatic determinism, asserting that "the races of the earth are like trees. Each, according to its species, produces the fruit considered as a civilization. » Huntington's racial idea is clear from the start. If particular races can be individualized by the sophistication of their culture and civilization, Huntington was quick to posit his central tenet that climatic stipulations impact the cultural sophistication of single racial and ethnic groups. Perhaps predictably, racial groups residing in temperate climates appear as a positive substitute in Huntington's account, while in comparison, "the inhabitants of the torrid region are slow and backward, and we are almost universally d "I agree that this is linked to the humid and constant heat." Huntington's climate determinism is of course a thin veil hiding a virulent structure of Eurocentric racism. It is necessary to note that Huntington's theories of racial superiority are an expression of the emergence of fascist political movements in Europe and America (Huntington was once a noted supporter of eugenics and wrote sympathetically about Hitler and the emergence of German National Socialism). They are part of a broader geopolitical discourse on Western colonialism which, in the words of Denis Cosgrove, "sought to base the political and military approach on what were once seen as enduring patterns of land, seas, climates and resources throughout the terrestrial sphere. Huntington's specific mode of reasoning, which seeks to establish causal relationships between environment and civilization, is not a skill unique to the disciplines of geography and environmental science. The organic selection method brought this diploma of freedom. For Smuts, the idea is an organ of wholes having the capacity to organize a social self and a social environment, and a capacity which has consequences in "..