Page 40 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

2 Strong Sustainability as a Frame for Sustainability Communication 23

activities such that their goals can no longer be determined arbitrarily. On the
contrary, they should include programmes and strategies in those fields of action
that are decisive for the preservation of critical natural capital.
With regard to sustainability communication the following consequences arise
from the theory of strong sustainability. It is highly doubtful whether such concepts
as the theory of strong sustainability, and related fields of discourse, will attract the
attention of contemporary mass media in the short term. One should not however
commit the fallacy of misplaced concreteness by identifying communication with
mass media resonance. There are many platforms and arenas for communicating
sustainability in the general and rational public sphere, in realms of civil society,
academia, organisations and politics. A deeper understanding of the rational public
sphere and its structures (Habermas 1992) might prevent communication strategies
from promoting trivialization, ‘anything-goes attitudes’ or a ‘race to the intellectual
bottom’.
It is easy to argue that the regulative ideal of sustainable development is difficult
to communicate since it is too vague, imprecise and cumbersome to be able to easily
popularise. It is less easy to withstand this very danger. There are strong tendencies
for the idea of sustainability to collapse into a platitude subsuming all possible (and
impossible) sorts of issues under its umbrella. From a logical point of view, enlarg-
ing the scope of a concept comes at the price of a loss in meaning. Communicators
should be aware of the logical relationship between scope (‘extension’) and mean-
ing (‘intension’) threatening the meaning of sustainability. The theory of strong
sustainability counters these tendencies by identifying more precisely the normative
field constituting the very core of the sustainability concept, while avoiding a too
narrow understanding; the theory of strong sustainability leaves the field open to
and accessible for different perspectives, including intuitions, immediate experi-
ence, disciplinary approaches, non-formalized forms of knowledge and the like.
Moreover, since the theory of strong sustainability does justice to the ecological
view of the complexity of ecosystems and natural processes and allows for grounds
for valuation and value considerations not restricted to a sheer economic view, it
offers a range of arguments open to different actors in the field while also delivering
a strong defensive ground against the risk of a colonization of our experiences and
views by mainstream economic standards.
The theory of strong sustainability and sustainable development (a development
that leads to sustainability as the ultimate regulative ideal) can be easily used to
develop systems of objectives in fields corresponding to paradigmatic and even con-
firmed applications. This rectifies the vagueness of the term ‘sustainable develop-
ment’ as currently used (and criticized) and offers new possibilities for sustainability
communication. Communication strategies should take advantage of work by
researchers and policy advisors to specify the concept of strong sustainability in
different fields of environmental policy-making.
A thorough study of the sustainability debate and of the arguments delivered at
different levels by researchers as well as by stakeholders plays a major role in the
empowerment of citizens against manipulation by media and lobbies. A too vague and
nebulous understanding of sustainability works to the advantage of those who have