农耕文明中国之省思:从人工与自然的关系方面谈起

Meditation of Agricultural Civilization China——From Perspctive of Relationship between Artificiality

农耕文明中国在给人类带来历史性的文明进步的同时,也造成独特的文化观念的现实。它的成就令华夏子孙自豪,但也有重要的值得省思的方面。其中一个重要的方面是对待人工活动和自然的关系的理解。聚居的农耕生产活动方式内含对自然生态环境的摧毁式的掠夺态度。获得铲除了自然植被的土地的欲望在聚居的人口对承载人口的耕作土地造成过大压力时会变得分外强烈。大规模改变自然生态环境以扩大耕作土地,尤其是大规模水利工程,被看作是人征服自然的象征。自然是人的母亲、人的生命的来源的古朴观念隐退了,对人类的生命之母的敬畏消失了。聚居的农耕文明生活方式已经深刻影响了人们对人自身与自然的关系的观念。我们习惯于用“荒”言说人力未及的环境,用“野”言说未经人力加工和培育的自然环境和动物的状态,即是例证。在工业文明之先,农耕文明的文化观念已经改变了人类对于自身同自然界的关系的具有原始的真实性的理解。人类思想在今天已经认识到这种改变是成问题的。但这种省思应当从对农耕文明的省思开始。

While agriculture-civilization China brings to mankind historical civil progresses, it causes a conceptual reality of a particular culture. Its achievements make the descendants of our forefathers proud on one hand and leave rooms for reflections on the other. One aspect is its understanding of the relationship of artificial activities and nature. Activities of agricultural production with people crowdedly living together imply a destructive plunder toward ecological environment. The desire to obtain large area of land deprived of all its natural vegetation becomes extremely strong when the burden of population over land has been too heavy. Huge changes made on natural environment to expend cultivatable land, especially large irrigation works, are regarded as signs of human＇s conquer over nature. The simple conception that nature is the mother of mankind and the very source of human lives retreats and the respect toward the mother of human lives disappears. The living style of agriculture civilization with people crowdedly living together has deeply influenced our conception of the relation of mankind itself and nature. For example, we are accustomed to use huang（waste） to account for an environment which has not been changed by artificial work, and use ye （wild） to describe the state of an environment that are not cultivated or an animal untrained. Before in- dustry civilization agriculture civilization has changed the naive understanding of the human-nature relationship that holds true. It is realized that this change is problematic. The reflection, however, should start from the reflection on agriculture civilization.