Move up in the chain of potential causalities

In Shepard’s view, the daily spectacle of a nature that was redone in the image of man would have had a profound influence on the psyche of the first village farmers. Wild nature beyond cultivated fields is synonymous with danger, every game eruption evokes a loss of harvest, every drought or hail shower is synonymous with famine, every great predator inspires fear of death.

In contrast, the village sheltered from bad weather and wild animals, the fenced field guaranteed to eat to its hunger, the cultures extended the power of the tool, symbolizing the mastery of man over the primitive world. Thus, there is a shift in the sense of values, an illusion of dominating nature, a security in the artificial environment, leaving an ever greater place to disregard the original environment and the illusions of urbanization with its false needs and ecological cost.

It is, of course, impossible to summarize in a few lines a work as remarkable as Shepard’s, or even inappropriate to show his limits. It is easier to mention the points on which human ecogenetics brings a plus.

The psychological causes of environmental destructive behaviour can either be extrinsic, culture-induced, or intrinsic, part of the innate functioning of human psychism. The elements within these two categories must be examined with the same care.

The first class, cultural causes, is certainly the most important. It can be hoped that the natural functioning of the psyche will preserve the biotope on which the survival of the group or species depends. There is no need for great reasoning to understand that animal species that have tended to devastate their territory would have been more likely to disappear in the long term. Thus, selection pressure could favour species that are more environmentally friendly. And one might hope that man, located at the top of creation, has this happy tendency to his own. As a result, destructive behaviour in the environment would rather come from behaviours induced by certain factors that disrupted the initial balance.

It is in this capacity that human ecogenetics intends to review all the factors of disorder that potentially induce anti-ecological behaviour. The aim is not only to identify these factors, but to highlight their own origins and mechanisms of action. Thus opens a field of research including that of the influences of the peasant environment explored by Shepard, but extending to all cultural contingencies affecting food, sexuality, spirituality, etc.

This should not lead to neglect of the second class of possible defects: denouncing certain imperfections of human psyche should not be understood as a form of self-flogging or fatalism. On the contrary, it is useful to identify certain innate trends that may contribute to environmental degradation. Once the responsible mechanisms are better understood, preventive, educational, awareness-raising or prohibition measures can be properly defined with the aim of limiting damage.

There is, however, reason to believe that nature, under the laws of co-evolution (mutual genetic adaptation of different species), cannot in principle be mistaken about its own health when it is at work under original conditions. Therefore, whenever a mental tendency harmful to the environment seems innate, it is reasonable to ask whether it is not merely an appearance. Such heuristics avoid stalemate on unsolved causes.

Another specific field of human ecogenetics is the notion of progenetic civilization in contrast to any antigenetic constraint. Each artifact constituting a civilization may be in accordance with the genetic propensities of the affected organisms, or may exceed their adaptability limits. Beyond certain thresholds, any innovation that changes the environment or relationships to the environment may be detrimental. There is therefore a need to distinguish between human artifacts that respect these limits and those that do not. This clearly explained basis of reasoning is an essential basis for research. It leads in particular to the questioning of all kinds of potential causes and degradation mechanisms that otherwise go unnoticed.

The decryption grid thus defined makes it possible to scrutinize all kinds of behaviors and trace their roots. Thus, human ecogenetics leads to the consideration of sectors of activity generally ignored or marginalized by environmentalists. Here, two of the most important are: nutrition and sexuality, with their impact on psychological structure and psycho-affective state, sources of many anti-ecological behaviors…