| I construct a theoretical framework for human agency connecting mythology, psychology, and environmental ethics. My perspective employs a synthesis of work from Joseph Campbell, Aldo Leopold, Carl Jung, and George Perkins Marsh, which I refer to as a Mythogenetic Framework for Human Agency.; Using descriptive statistics, T-tests, f-tests, regression, and factor analysis, I test the significance and content of ten alternative paradigms including: Deep Ecology, Resourcism, Judeo-Christian Biblical Fundamentalism, Preservationism, Traditional Anthropocentrism, Ecocentrism, Aware Consumerism, Ecofeminism, Modernism, and Post-Modernism. Results affirm the significance of these environmental paradigms and demonstrate that they may be described through standard statistical sampling and analysis methods. For example, my experimental population of students revealed strongly positive identity with Aware Consumerism, Ecocentrism, and Preservationism while recording strongly negative inclinations toward Traditional Anthropocentrism. This pattern of tension was also evident in a three-factor model accounting for 70.1% variance, and composed of progressive, mainstream, and reactionary land ethics.; Through literary criticism and symbol interpretation, I explore the nature and content of land ethics in two very different works: Beowulf and Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West. Analysis of Beowulf reveals a land ethic of Traditional Anthropocentrism and a cosmology akin to Judeo-Christian Biblical Fundamentalism. Undaunted Courage… presents a land ethic composed of Resourcism, and, consistent with its historical setting in the early Enlightenment period, a cosmology of Modernism. These results suggest a historical context of changing land ethics wrapped within social norms and expressed in nature-society relationships embedded in culture and economy.; In the final chapter, I reintegrate qualitative and quantitative results into conclusions which argue the value of considering cultural mythology in understanding and predicting land ethic paradigms among populations and explaining how land ethic paradigms change over time. Examples are offered to illustrate the usefulness of this approach to current topics. |
