Toward a New Civilization: Ecological Civilization …
539
mankind has gone through primitive civilization, agricultural civilization and industrial civilization. Ecological civilization is the outcome of industrialization reaching
a certain stage, and the new requirement for man-nature harmony.” Here the “ecological civilization” is also diachronic. It is clear that China has admitted that ecological
civilization will replace industrial civilization, and the new era we are ushering in is
a new age of socialist ecological civilization.
2 Information Civilization Theory
In the 1980s and 1990s, Alvin Toffler’s futuristic studies greatly influenced the
Chinese academia. He put forth the idea of “third wave” in the 1980s. The Tofflers
wrote in their book Creating a New Civilization: The Politics of the Third Wave,
published in 1995, that “A new civilization is emerging in our lives, and blind men
everywhere are trying to suppress it. This new civilization brings with it new family
styles; changed ways of working, loving, and living; a new economy; new political
conflicts; and beyond all this an altered consciousness as well.” They called the rise
of this new civilization “the third wave.” According to them, the human race has
undergone two great waves of change. The First Wave of change—the agricultural
revolution—took thousands of years to play itself out. The Second Wave—the rise
of industrial civilization—took a mere three hundred years. Today “We, who happen
to share the planet at this explosive moment, will therefore feel the full impact of the
Third Wave in our own lifetimes.” “We are the final generation of an old civilization and the first generation of a new one.” They believed “industrial civilization is
coming to an end” and “the general crisis of industrialism” is all too obvious. The
First Wave brought agricultural civilization, the second one industrial civilization.
“The first civilization is still symbolized by the hoe, the second by the assembly
line, and the third by the computer.” “While land, labor, raw materials and capital
were the main factors in production in the Second Wave economy of the past, knowledge—broadly defined here to include data, information, images, symbols, culture,
ideology and values—is now the central resource of the Third Wave economy.” It
is clear that the economy of the new civilization is the “knowledge economy” or
“information economy” that was heatedly discussed at the turn of the century. The
Tofflers called it a “super-symbolic Third Wave economy.” If railways and highways represent the infrastructure of industrial civilization, “information highways”
or “electronic passages” make the infrastructure of the new civilization. The Tofflers
tended to call the new civilization (the third civilization) an information civilization.
Tofflers’ view on the new age and new economy was echoed by Peter F. Drucker,
father of management, although he called it the age of “Post-Capitalism Society.”
Drucker said we obviously lived in a process of historical transformation, which
has changed the world’s political, economic, social and moral domains, and after
which our values, convictions, social and economic structure, political concepts and
systems, and world outlook would be changed far beyond our imagination. In a postcapitalism society, the truly dominant resource and decisive “factor of production”
539
mankind has gone through primitive civilization, agricultural civilization and industrial civilization. Ecological civilization is the outcome of industrialization reaching
a certain stage, and the new requirement for man-nature harmony.” Here the “ecological civilization” is also diachronic. It is clear that China has admitted that ecological
civilization will replace industrial civilization, and the new era we are ushering in is
a new age of socialist ecological civilization.
2 Information Civilization Theory
In the 1980s and 1990s, Alvin Toffler’s futuristic studies greatly influenced the
Chinese academia. He put forth the idea of “third wave” in the 1980s. The Tofflers
wrote in their book Creating a New Civilization: The Politics of the Third Wave,
published in 1995, that “A new civilization is emerging in our lives, and blind men
everywhere are trying to suppress it. This new civilization brings with it new family
styles; changed ways of working, loving, and living; a new economy; new political
conflicts; and beyond all this an altered consciousness as well.” They called the rise
of this new civilization “the third wave.” According to them, the human race has
undergone two great waves of change. The First Wave of change—the agricultural
revolution—took thousands of years to play itself out. The Second Wave—the rise
of industrial civilization—took a mere three hundred years. Today “We, who happen
to share the planet at this explosive moment, will therefore feel the full impact of the
Third Wave in our own lifetimes.” “We are the final generation of an old civilization and the first generation of a new one.” They believed “industrial civilization is
coming to an end” and “the general crisis of industrialism” is all too obvious. The
First Wave brought agricultural civilization, the second one industrial civilization.
“The first civilization is still symbolized by the hoe, the second by the assembly
line, and the third by the computer.” “While land, labor, raw materials and capital
were the main factors in production in the Second Wave economy of the past, knowledge—broadly defined here to include data, information, images, symbols, culture,
ideology and values—is now the central resource of the Third Wave economy.” It
is clear that the economy of the new civilization is the “knowledge economy” or
“information economy” that was heatedly discussed at the turn of the century. The
Tofflers called it a “super-symbolic Third Wave economy.” If railways and highways represent the infrastructure of industrial civilization, “information highways”
or “electronic passages” make the infrastructure of the new civilization. The Tofflers
tended to call the new civilization (the third civilization) an information civilization.
Tofflers’ view on the new age and new economy was echoed by Peter F. Drucker,
father of management, although he called it the age of “Post-Capitalism Society.”
Drucker said we obviously lived in a process of historical transformation, which
has changed the world’s political, economic, social and moral domains, and after
which our values, convictions, social and economic structure, political concepts and
systems, and world outlook would be changed far beyond our imagination. In a postcapitalism society, the truly dominant resource and decisive “factor of production”