570
Z. Ouyang
2 Analysis of the Issue
For a very long time, the countryside has become the dump site of the “three wastes”
generated by cities. Point pollution in cities evolves to be non-point pollution in rural
areas, which, combined with the decline of rural farmland and buildings, makes
people deeply disappointed in the rural environment. After the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, the central government exerted China’s institutional strengths and
quickly and effectively reconstructed the quake-hit areas through paired assistance.
Residents in rebuilt villages displayed a general and surprisingly high recognition of
ecological civilization and both the environment and their spiritual outlook underwent dramatic changes. Especially after the 18th National Congress of the CPC,
building a beautiful countryside has become a state action and ecological efforts in
rural areas have yielded fast and large-scale progress. Villagers consciously protect
mountains, waters, forests, farmlands, lakes and grasslands, and pollution control has
entered a regular and institutionalized track. Waste sorting and cycling, for instance,
which is hard to promote in cities, has proceeded quite smoothly in the countryside. This profound change is directly related with central decisions. What’s worth
further study is that apart from the Beautiful Countryside initiative, there is another
state-level task of building a “Beautiful China” with the same connotations. Since
cities have much more input and much better conditions than rural areas, why is it
so difficult to promote ecological civilization in cities? One viewpoint is that this is
because the development of ecological civilization is directly linked with villagers’
income. This makes some sense, but why is voluntary environmental protection that
is not directly linked with villagers’ income implemented with a much stronger
momentum in rural areas, particularly those inhabited by ethnic minorities, than in
cities? Another phenomenon is that migrants may not follow environmental rules
in cities, but they do when coming back to rural areas where there are standard
environmental rules. They even help promote them. Villagers’ environment-friendly
behaviors are more common and conscious on the frontline of sand control. Some
argue that this is because they are face to face with nature, but that cannot explain why
people who were also face to face with nature under the planned economy didn’t
display such traits. To seek an answer, it is necessary to employ the synergetics
founded by Hermann Haken in the 1970s. Synergetics derives from natural sciences,
but it gives rational explanations of social phenomena.
Synergetics studies how an open system “far from Equilibrium State (a stable,
even and regular state)” voluntarily develops an orderly structure in time, space
and function through internal synergy when having material or energy exchange
with the external environment. Haken divided organization into two kinds—“heterorganization” and “self-organization”—based on its evolution. A system is a heterorganization if it is organized by external orders; a system is a self-organization if
its various units, following some tacit rules, automatically organize into an orderly
structure by each performing their duties while coordinating with each other in the
absence of external orders. The aforementioned accrete self-organization is a typical
self-organization. This paper will only give qualitative descriptions of the social
Z. Ouyang
2 Analysis of the Issue
For a very long time, the countryside has become the dump site of the “three wastes”
generated by cities. Point pollution in cities evolves to be non-point pollution in rural
areas, which, combined with the decline of rural farmland and buildings, makes
people deeply disappointed in the rural environment. After the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, the central government exerted China’s institutional strengths and
quickly and effectively reconstructed the quake-hit areas through paired assistance.
Residents in rebuilt villages displayed a general and surprisingly high recognition of
ecological civilization and both the environment and their spiritual outlook underwent dramatic changes. Especially after the 18th National Congress of the CPC,
building a beautiful countryside has become a state action and ecological efforts in
rural areas have yielded fast and large-scale progress. Villagers consciously protect
mountains, waters, forests, farmlands, lakes and grasslands, and pollution control has
entered a regular and institutionalized track. Waste sorting and cycling, for instance,
which is hard to promote in cities, has proceeded quite smoothly in the countryside. This profound change is directly related with central decisions. What’s worth
further study is that apart from the Beautiful Countryside initiative, there is another
state-level task of building a “Beautiful China” with the same connotations. Since
cities have much more input and much better conditions than rural areas, why is it
so difficult to promote ecological civilization in cities? One viewpoint is that this is
because the development of ecological civilization is directly linked with villagers’
income. This makes some sense, but why is voluntary environmental protection that
is not directly linked with villagers’ income implemented with a much stronger
momentum in rural areas, particularly those inhabited by ethnic minorities, than in
cities? Another phenomenon is that migrants may not follow environmental rules
in cities, but they do when coming back to rural areas where there are standard
environmental rules. They even help promote them. Villagers’ environment-friendly
behaviors are more common and conscious on the frontline of sand control. Some
argue that this is because they are face to face with nature, but that cannot explain why
people who were also face to face with nature under the planned economy didn’t
display such traits. To seek an answer, it is necessary to employ the synergetics
founded by Hermann Haken in the 1970s. Synergetics derives from natural sciences,
but it gives rational explanations of social phenomena.
Synergetics studies how an open system “far from Equilibrium State (a stable,
even and regular state)” voluntarily develops an orderly structure in time, space
and function through internal synergy when having material or energy exchange
with the external environment. Haken divided organization into two kinds—“heterorganization” and “self-organization”—based on its evolution. A system is a heterorganization if it is organized by external orders; a system is a self-organization if
its various units, following some tacit rules, automatically organize into an orderly
structure by each performing their duties while coordinating with each other in the
absence of external orders. The aforementioned accrete self-organization is a typical
self-organization. This paper will only give qualitative descriptions of the social