On Ecological Civilization And Its Contemporary Value

Eco-civilization refers to the total results that people achieve in the aspects of material, spirit and system, during the process when they reconstruct the objective physical world, continuously overcome the negative effects and meanwhile actively improve and optimize the relationship between human beings and nature, persons and persons, to build an orderly eco-circulation mechanism and good eco-environment. It reflects the progressive degree to which the mankind handles relationship between their activities and nature, displays an inevitable development trend of human civilization, and has become a basic mark and essential embodiment of the development of modern civilization. Contemporary development state of eco-civilization has become an important guide line which measures the whole development of a country. However, if the mankind desires to fulfill a conversion from industrial civilization's paradigm to ecological civilization's, they need to carry out an idealistic"Copernicus' Revolution". In our country, the important target of social economic development has already constituted the basic contents of ecological civilization's construction. This reveals the basic characteristics and development trend of socialism civilization system.Therefore, carrying on a theoretic study and analysis on the problems in the process of eco-civilization's construction from the perspective of reality has great significance to a harmonious society's construction and Chinese civilization's renewal have theories and realistic meaning in terms of theory and reality.This author thinks that eco-civilization's construction is a realistic problem and meanwhile a philosophy problem which has vitality, realistic meaning during the development of economy and society in our country. Because of these, we should use and absorb the theoretic and practical results of eco-civilization implicated in western and eastern culture with the guidance of Marxism eco-civilization's thought, and introspects the problems of environment during the course of industrial civilization from the perspective of the human civilization's paradigm. On the basis of this, the article puts forward some new principles of the eco-civilization and the new paradigm of economic development, to direct eco-civilization's construction of our country and make China guide the development of eco-civilization.Part One is an introduction. This part gives an overall research of eco-civilization. According to academe's probing into ecological civilization's meaning and content, the identity has been established and shaped that the era of eco-civilization has approached. In 2007, the political report of the 17 conference of national delegate of Chinese Communist Party definitely put forward the request that eco-civilization should be built in our country. Therefore, according to the principle that comprehensive integration equals to innovation, the article conceives to make a study on the problems with construction of eco-civilization's paradigm by amalgamating eco-civilization's thought in Chinese, western and Marxism philosophy and push forward the eco-civilization's construction by combining theory and practice.Part Two: The mankind is heading for the era of eco-civilization. The history of human civilization's development exhibits that every civilization form's appearance are based on the former civilization and that these different civilization forms have been developing interactively. Eco-civilization is a kind of new civilization form that the mankind put forward after the industrial civilization. Therefore, it not only absorbs but also discards something from the industrial civilization. So it requests the mankind to change narrow anthropocentrism, abandon old civilization of ignoring the nature right, and turn to such a kind of new civilization, where nature can get the same respect and attention as mankind. By studying into the contents and characteristics of the eco-civilization, the article states that eco-civilization can realize economic, social and environmental benign circulation and development on the basis of harmonious eco-development environment, scientific eco-development consciousness and healthy eco-circulation mechanism. Thus, it carries such traits as equality, diversified coexistence and circulating rebirth. In a word, eco-philosophy's task is to take relationship and regulation between human beings and nature as a researching object, explore and adjust relationship between persons and persons, and provide philosophy foundation for the society transition from the traditional industrial civilization to modern eco-civilization.Part Three is about the eco-civilization thought from Karl Marx and Engles. Firstly, the dialectical relationship between human beings and nature is the theoretical cornerstone of Marxist eco-civilization thought. On the one hand, it announced preexistence of nature for the mankind from the angle of ontology and pointed out the mankind have to respect and well-treat nature while reforming and making use of nature. On the other hand, it disclosed coincidence of human beings and nature according to practice theory and indicated that people's development and nature's evolvement should happen simultaneously and harmoniously. Secondly, the harmonious development between human beings and nature is the purpose of Marxist eco-civilization thought. From the historical perspective of the harmonious development between people and nature, the article points out that following natural laws is the necessary condition of the harmonious development between people and nature and that handling well the relationship between persons and persons is the key which fulfills harmonious development between people and nature. Finally, the article emphasizes that harmonious development of the population, resources and economy is the practical base of Marxist eco-civilization thought. What's more, from the perspective of harmonious development——population reproduction and the material reproduction, natural reproduction and the material reproduction,this part displays such a view. That is, the key which resolves properly the environmental problems in the process of economy construction lies in whether people can realize value of nature correctly and strengthen natural reproduction construction while exploring and making use of nature.Part Four is about Ecological Marxist eco-civilization thought. Faced with global environmental problems, ecological Marxists try to combine Marxism and ecology, analyze the ecological crisis of contemporary capitalism, inquiry into the crisis-resolving approaches and consequently arrive at latest Marxist theories. Researches are carried out mainly from three aspects. First of all, the article explores the essence and roots of ecological crises in capitalist society and pointed out that that the capitalist producing expanse and the alienation consumption are the sources which cause crises. And then from the view of value, the article indicates that another source of ecological crisis is the intention of controlling nature. The correct way is to construct ecological Marxist theories on the foundation of the dialectical process between the needs of people and the limit of ecosystem. Thirdly, from the perspective of political system, they would think that the basic path which solves capitalism crises is to construct ecological socialism. This not only provides enlightenment for us to further understand ecological crisis and set up ecological consciousness, but also provided a new angle of view for us to initiate a scientific development view and enrich and develop Marxist eco-civilization thought.Part Five is about the eco-civilization in the Chinese traditional culture thought. In the Chinese traditional cultures, Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism have all paid special attention to ecological civilization problem. Confucianism from the realistic need of production and life, advocates the natural view of ecology about"the harmony between Heaven and Man", the life view of ethics about reverence for life and universal love, and the doctrine of the mean of the ecological practice. It will play a very important social role and influence of the most far-reaching. Taoism not only proposed the ecological natural view about one body of myriad things and following natural law, the ecological ethics view about all things from the Dao and reverence for Dao, and ecological practice view of complying with the nature, but also stressed that the man wanted to respect the nature for the conformance and intergrowth of man and nature. It should be fostered and raised that our country people's consciousness of ecological civilization. Buddhism advocates the ecological natural concept of unification in Buddhism, the ecological ethics of equality of all things, and the ecological practice concept with compassion, so that the Buddhist adjusts and treats everything well from these viewpoints for the protection of biological species diversity. The ecological civilization thoughts in Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism provide many valuable opinions for us to involve ecological crisis, exceed industrial civilization and build eco-civilization. Therefore we should treasure them.Part Six: the eco-civilization thought in western postmodern culture. Postmodern culture produces from introspection and criticism on modernity crises. Especially constructive postmodernism, it not only negates and criticizes modernism, but actively seeks for solving methods and re- construct the organic integrative relationship between people and nature. By initiating a green economy view, building up natural axiology, valuing natural rights and setting up ecological world view, value view and ecological mode of thinking, constructive postmodernism has shaped a new system of thought that differs from modernity cultures. This system of thought owns important meaning as theory reference for the eco-civilization's construction. From it we can draw some experiential lessons, avoid making the same mistakes as other countries, learn the new theories of postmodern culture, build up the new principles that human beings are unified and harmonious with nature, construct a new eco-civilization's theory that suits our country's state, and hence inaugurate a new way of constructing eco-civilization in Chinese mode.Part Seven: speeding up the step of theoretical establishment on our country's eco-civilization's construction. Building an ecological civilization's society of Chinese features is a new higher request for our country under the new situation. It is the inevitable choice which adjusts the developmental current of the world civilization, and meanwhile it is the important path to great revival of the Chinese nation. Practically, we should consider eco-civilization's construction as a developmental direction towards which a socialism society carrying Chinese features will be built successfully. Especially at the current stage, ecological civilization's construction should be organically associated with the implementation of scientific development view, the promotion of modern construction as well as the establishment of socialism harmonious society. Because of this, to speed up the eco-civilization's construction of our country, on the one hand, a new principle on eco-civilization should be strengthened, consciousness on eco-civilization should be promoted, value view, development view and ethics view on eco-civilization should be built up and meanwhile an integrative, multi-latitude and circulative mode of thinking should be advocated. On the other hand, an ecological producing fashion should be founded and a healthy life style should be popularized. Moreover we should reinforce system construction and technique research in order to build an eco-civilization's society. Eco-civilization's growth up as a new civilization different from traditional industry civilization is not because it is the general combination of many factors in industry civilization, but optimization and renewal of the gene contained in the global civilization.