Building Ecological Culture, Showcasing Ecological Wisdom
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5. Spiritual and cultural values
Ecological culture offers a spiritual home for man, continuously elevates their realm
and urges them toward a new civilization.
The development of human society is a process in which we use natural values
to create and realize cultural values. Natural ecosystem takes effects spontaneously;
human labor turns natural values into cultural values; and culture is the representation
of human power. Human culture is intelligent in that it turns natural nature into
artificial nature and realizes cultural values from natural values.
3 Manifestation of Ecological Wisdom
Material resources in the ecosystem can be continuously used through circulation,
transformation and regeneration. The feedback resulting from the interrelations and
interactions of various factors in the ecosystem is coordinated and stable on the one
hand, and efficient and consistently evolutionary on the other. This is “ecosophy.”
Arne Naess said, “What we need today is an extremely expansive ecological
mindset that I call ecosophy. ‘Sophy’ comes from the Greek term ‘sophia,’ or
‘wisdom,’ which relates to ethics, norms, rules, and practices. Ecosophy, or deep
ecology, involves a shift from science to wisdom. It is a philosophy of wisdom.”
Ecological culture reflects a kind of wisdom that has the following core ideas:
universal connection and harmonious co-existence; diversity, peace, balance and
inclusiveness; mutual respect, equality and interaction; perpetual cycle of life, truth,
good, beauty and sanctity.
1. Universal connection and harmonious co-existence
Mankind and all things in the ecosystem are universally connected. They live in
harmony together and evolve together in the perpetual cycle of life.
American ecologist Commoner proposed the primary principle of ecology: Everything is connected to everything else. This is the principle of ecological connection.
An individual existence would lose its vitality if it is not connected with the system.
According to American scholar Carolyn Merchant, “The premise of ecology is
that all things in nature are interconnected. It stresses the interactions in nature as
paramount. Every part communicates and interacts with other parts and the whole.
Every part and every small environment in the ecological community is in dynamic
connection with the surrounding ecosystems. Organisms in any specific small environment would affect and at the same time be affected by the whole network
comprising both living and non-living environments. As a philosophy of nature,
ecology is rooted in the organic theory, holding that the universe is an organic whole,
its growth and development rely on its internal force, and it is the unity of structure
and function.”
It is necessary to adopt the holistic and organic mindset and stress holistic development. “All organisms in an ecosystem are ‘interdependent’… Such integral and
591
5. Spiritual and cultural values
Ecological culture offers a spiritual home for man, continuously elevates their realm
and urges them toward a new civilization.
The development of human society is a process in which we use natural values
to create and realize cultural values. Natural ecosystem takes effects spontaneously;
human labor turns natural values into cultural values; and culture is the representation
of human power. Human culture is intelligent in that it turns natural nature into
artificial nature and realizes cultural values from natural values.
3 Manifestation of Ecological Wisdom
Material resources in the ecosystem can be continuously used through circulation,
transformation and regeneration. The feedback resulting from the interrelations and
interactions of various factors in the ecosystem is coordinated and stable on the one
hand, and efficient and consistently evolutionary on the other. This is “ecosophy.”
Arne Naess said, “What we need today is an extremely expansive ecological
mindset that I call ecosophy. ‘Sophy’ comes from the Greek term ‘sophia,’ or
‘wisdom,’ which relates to ethics, norms, rules, and practices. Ecosophy, or deep
ecology, involves a shift from science to wisdom. It is a philosophy of wisdom.”
Ecological culture reflects a kind of wisdom that has the following core ideas:
universal connection and harmonious co-existence; diversity, peace, balance and
inclusiveness; mutual respect, equality and interaction; perpetual cycle of life, truth,
good, beauty and sanctity.
1. Universal connection and harmonious co-existence
Mankind and all things in the ecosystem are universally connected. They live in
harmony together and evolve together in the perpetual cycle of life.
American ecologist Commoner proposed the primary principle of ecology: Everything is connected to everything else. This is the principle of ecological connection.
An individual existence would lose its vitality if it is not connected with the system.
According to American scholar Carolyn Merchant, “The premise of ecology is
that all things in nature are interconnected. It stresses the interactions in nature as
paramount. Every part communicates and interacts with other parts and the whole.
Every part and every small environment in the ecological community is in dynamic
connection with the surrounding ecosystems. Organisms in any specific small environment would affect and at the same time be affected by the whole network
comprising both living and non-living environments. As a philosophy of nature,
ecology is rooted in the organic theory, holding that the universe is an organic whole,
its growth and development rely on its internal force, and it is the unity of structure
and function.”
It is necessary to adopt the holistic and organic mindset and stress holistic development. “All organisms in an ecosystem are ‘interdependent’… Such integral and