The movement from a state of necessity to a state of freedom represents which of the following?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Possibilism
Option (1) Determinism — Incorrect. Environmental determinism says that nature controls human life. Early societies with little technology lived as nature dictated, which is the state of necessity itself, not a move away from it.
Option (2) Possibilism — Correct. As societies develop better technology, people move from a state of necessity to a state of freedom. They create possibilities with the resources the environment offers; this view is possibilism.
Option (3) Neo-determinism — Incorrect. Griffith Taylor’s neo-determinism takes a middle path between the two: humans can use nature only by obeying its limits, like traffic that stops at a red light and moves on a green one. It describes neither full necessity nor full freedom.
Option (4) Regionalism — Incorrect. It is not one of the views on how humans relate to nature, so it has nothing to say about a change from necessity to freedom.
Note: A similar question was also asked in CUET (UG) 2026 on 21-05-2026 (Slot 2), and in CUET (UG) 2025 on 21-05-2025 (Slot 1).
NCERT (2025-26): “Naturalisation of Humans and Humanisation of Nature … With social and cultural development, humans develop better and more efficient technology. They move from a state of necessity to a state of freedom. They create possibilities with the resources obtained from the environment. The human activities create cultural landscape. The imprints of human activities are created everywhere; health resorts on highlands, huge urban sprawls, fields, orchards and pastures in plains and rolling hills, ports on the coasts, oceanic routes on the oceanic surface and satellites in the space. The earlier scholars termed this as possibilism.…” |