Civic Engagement And Public Spirit

Mass incidents at the present stage in our country tend to happen frequently,expanding from mere economic interests to aspects such as religious beliefs, grassroot democracy, ecological environment, etc. Among all mass incidents, it is worth noting that those ones induced by environmental problems are more prominent. According to the statistical data provided by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, environmental contamination is the major cause of mass incidents with more than ten thousand people involved, accounting for 50% of incidents with the same size from 2000 to2014. Taking this into consideration, the government can no longer neglect people’s increasing awareness of environmental protection.through research the author found that in the civic engagement of environmental group incidents, there exists the problem of “publicity loss” in both the government and the public. Since modern times, the utilitarian philosophy replaced the Greek sense of publicity and also dominated the thought and practice of politics. Politics developed from the focus of public virtues to the emphasis on power and order. The author admitted that due to efficiency, economy, bureaucracy and technology, the utilitarianism played a significant role in improving the public administration.However, this also caused the loss of publicity which made people care more about personal utility or cost benefit and also replaced collective efforts for greater goodness.The purpose of government was reduced to seeking welfare for private persons. The development of modern politics can’t deny the use of system and technology, and it can’t lose the perfection of laws and system. But system and technology can’t solve every problem, we must call for the return of publicity. In environmental group incidents, the loss of publicity is especially evident. For economic interests, the government secures advantages for polluting enterprises; while the public oppose the project just because it is near my house and they don’t care the development of chemical project or national economy security. This causes contradictions between these two parties during the process of interest conversion, leading to the frequent occurrence of environmental group incidents. The author attempts to reveal problems of the publicity deficiency by means of a political analysis on environmental group events, thus explore the possible solutions based on public spirit.