4. Inheritance of the Ecological Culture with Harmony Between People and Nature

The manners of production and life in the society of a certain area are guided by unique regional cultural forms; culture is the starting point of the philosophy relating to human activities in production and life; a civilization dominated by industrial culture constitutes an industrial civilization, while production and life modes dominated by an ecological culture give rise to an ecological civilization. The thoughts that “harmony between people and nature should be achieved”, “the objective law follows nature”, “care for all the people and animals should be shown” advocated in traditional Chinese culture reflect the spirits of an ecological culture. In traditional Chinese culture, the philosophical line of thought of the systematic relationship between the people and nature is mainly reflected in the “harmony between people and nature” which is a long-standing issue. According to the Commentaries on the Book of Changes, the people and all creatures arise out of heaven and earth, so nature and people are essentially identical. Only when people act in line with the virtues in heaven and earth, brightness in the sun and the moon and the time sequence of the four seasons can the people master the law of nature to achieve freedom. An ecological civilization is a new form of civilization following a primitive civilization, a farming civilization and an industrial civilization; it carries forward and inherits the achievements of the human civilization, it also embodies a profound reflection on and criticism of the issues concerning a traditional civilization, especially an industrial civilization, it discards the value outlook, in an industrial civilization, that people rule nature, and stresses that human development should conform to the law of ecology and that people and nature should coexist harmoniously; it changes the developmental mode of “treatment after pollution”, emphasizes the principle of giving priority to ecology, and calls for promoting economic and social development and ecological and environmental development at the same time; it changes the materialistic lifestyle, stresses an abstemious accumulation of material wealth, upholds a moderate rate of consumption and cultural enjoyment, and the lifestyle of meeting human needs and causing no damage to the natural environment. It is generally held that an ecological culture is a new cultural form which negates traditional culture and stresses coordinated development of people and nature.