The ubiquity of nature: Climate and culture

Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences

Volumn 32, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 151-159

  Stehr, Nico ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0342568924     PISSN: 00225061     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1520-6696(199604)32:2<151::aid-jhbs3>3.0.co;2-z     Document Type: Article

References (46)

1. Ted Benton, "Biology and Social Science. Why the Return of the Repressed Should be Given a (Cautious) Welcome," Sociology 25 (1991): 1-29;
2. Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).
3. I plan to deal in greater detail with Willy H. Hellpach, Die Geopsychischen Erscheinungen: Wetter und Klima, und Landschaft in ihrem Einfluß auf das Seelenleben (Leipzig: W. Engelmann, 1911) in a separate paper with particular emphasis on Hellpach's discussion of climate change.
4. The issue of climate change is not explicitly addressed in later editions of Hellpach's book, perhaps confirming the fact that the notion of climate change lost currency among geographers and climatologists after an initial strong interest at the beginning of the century (see Nico Stehr, Hans von Storch and Moritz Flügel, The 19th Century Discussion of Climate Variability and Climate Change: Analogies for the Present? (MPI Report 157. Hamburg: Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie, 1995).
5. The title of Hellpach's book (e.g., the [1911]1939 and [1911] 1965 editions) changes over time and becomes Geopsyche: Die Menschenseele unter dem Einfluß von Wetter und Klima, Boden und Landschaft (Leipzig: W. Engelmann), signaling perhaps that the notion of geopsychical phenomena became an acceped sub-specialty within science.
6. "Kultur und Klima," in Klima-Wetter-Mensch, Heiz Wolterek, Ed. (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1938), 428-429.
7. Willy H. Hellpach, Deutsche Physiognomik: Grundlegung einer Naturgeschichte de Nationalgesichter (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1942).
8. Willy H. Hellpach, Schöpferische Unvernunft? Rolle und Grenze des Irrationalen in der Wissenschaft (Leipzig: Meiner, 1937).
9. H. Gundlach, "Willy Hellpach; Attributionen," in Psychologie im Nationalsozialismus, Carl F. Graumann, Ed. (Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1985), pp. 165-195, concludes, for example, that Hellpach was not an active supporter of the Nazi regime. But the exact assessment of Hellpach's involvement awaits, it seems to me, more detailed archival work, perhaps in the context of a comprehensive analysis of the role of professional psychology from 1933-1945 in Germany. Hellpach's dedication and foward to the fifth edition of Geopsyche (Leipzig: W. Engelmann), published in 1939, shows him to be a supporter of the war just started by the Nazi regime; that is, in the foreword Hellpach echoes the propaganda of the day and claims that the war was imposed on the country (ix.). Shortly after the war, Hellpach insisted that the Dutch translation should omit this foreword (Letter from Wilhelm Englemann [the publisher] to Hellpach dated 30 May 1947; Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe, Hellpach's Papers).
10. Hellpach, "Zentraler Gegenstand der Soziologie: Volk als Naturtatsache, Geistige Gestalt und Willensschöpfung," in Actes du Huitième Congrés International de Philosophie à Prague (Prague: Comité d'organisation du Congrès, [1934] 1936), pp. 249-265;
11. Thomas Mann, Briefe 1889-1936 (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1978).
12. Gundlach, "Willy Hellpach; Attributionen," 178-182.
13. E.g. Emile Durkheim, Suicide: A Study in Sociology (NY: Free Press, [1897] 1951).
14. Georg Simmel, Soziologie: Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung. Volume II: Gesamtausgabe (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, [1908] 1992).
15. Pitirim Sorokin, Contemporary Sociological Theories (NY: Harper & Brothers, 1928).
16. Letter, Heinz Woltereck to Willy Hellpach dated 18 February 1938, Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe, Hellpach's Papers.
17. "Kultur und Klima," (1938), 422, referred, for example, to the general historical possibility that entire nations had been decimated - if not exterminated - as the result of extremely unfavorable climatic conditions. In the revision of the original version, he omitted reference to the possibility that just such a fate has explained the demise of the Maya nation in Central America or eliminated further qualifications found in the initial essay. Similarly, Hellpach dropped a couple of paragraphs designed to show that the conceptual dichotomy between culture and civilization is perhaps not as straightforward as it was made out to be in many discussions. Thus, these omissions, and it is mainly omissions that separate the two essays from each other, are only of marginal concern to me. I will not enumerate them completely.
18. The 1952 additions are limited to two paragraphs of text that referred to the presence of climatic conceptions in archaic religion and myth.
19. "Kultur and Klima" (1938), 420.
20. Kultur and Klima( Ibid., 424.
21. Kultur and Klima( Ibid., 427,
22. It appears though Hellpach did not provide any direct evidence that he employs the term "race" in the sense in which it was then common to do, namely as a biological category.
23. Some of the psychological and social attributes that consistently vary from North to South are summed by Hellpach, "Kultur und Klima," (1938), 429-430, as follows: "Prevalent in the north of a given hemisphere are the character traits of sobriety, harshness, restraint, imperturbability, readiness for exertion, patience, stamina, rigidity, and the resolute employment of reason and determination. The prevalent traits of the south are liveliness, excitability, impulsiveness, engagement with the spheres of feeling and imagination, a phlegmatic going-with-the-flow or momentary flare-ups. Within a nation, the northerners are more practical, reliable, but inaccessible, and the southerners devoted to the fine arts, accessible (sociable, likable, talkative), but unreliable."
24. The same assumption can be found in Werner Sombart's various discussions of the impact of climate on ethnic and racial characteristics. For example, Sombart, The Jews and Modern Capitalism. Translated by M. Epstein. With an Introduction to the American Edition by Bert F. Hoselitz. (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, [1911] 1951, p. 324;
25. Werner Sombart, Vom Menschen: Versuch einer Geiteswissenschaftlichen Anthropologie (Berlin: Buchholz & Weisswange, 1938).
26. "Kultur und Klima" (1938), 419.
27. Kultur und Klima Ibid., 437.
28. Kultur und Klima Ibid., 425.
29. Kultur und Klima Ibid., 433.
30. Kultur und Klima Ibid., 422.
31. Kultur und Klima Ibid., 424.
32. Kultur und Klima Ibid., 431.
33. Kultur und Klima Ibid., 438.
34. In 1938, Hellpach added to this conclusion - dropped after the War - the affirmative remark that such an insight is for good reason an insight of the current century. In the same paragraph of the 1952 version of the essay-Hellpach, "Kultur und Klima," in Klima-Wetter-Mensch, A. Seybold and Heinz Wolterek, Eds. (Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1952), 291 - he substitutes the 1938 adjective "rassegedeihlich"(es) ("race assertive conditions") climate for "lebensgedeihlich"(es) ("life assertive conditions") climate which, of course, is not only ambivalent, but conveys a very different message.
35. "Kultur und Klima" (1938), 431.
36. Kultur und Klima Ibid., 430-431.
37. Kultur und Klima Ibid., 433.
38. Kultur und Klima Ibid., 435.
39. Kultur und Klima [only] Ibid., 438.
40. In a language very difficult to translate without loss of the peculiar sense and the convictions it attempts to convey, Hellpach, "Kultur und Klima" (1938), p. 438, claims that: "a climate conducive to the development of the race is the condition for a culture which is true to its essence, and a history rooted in the soil and true to its people."
41. There is no correspondence preserved in Hellpach's papers regarding the revisions of the essay.
42. "Kultur und Klmia" (1938), 427.
43. Kultur und Klmia Ibid., 436.
44. Kultur und Klmia Ibid., 438.
45. Kultur und Klmia Ibid., 434-435, 437.
46. Among climatologists the discussion of climate change that began near the end of the 19th century quickly dissipated and until recently gave way to the same notion, namely that climate in historical times is for all intents and purposes a constant phenemonon (cf. Stehr, von Storch and Flügel, The 19th Century Discussion of Climate Variability and Climate Change).