Introduction
In 2007, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Hu Jintao announced that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) would build an ecological civilisation (EC) (Goron 2018; Hanson 2019). At the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, President Xi Jinping endorsed the EC concept, and six years later, it became enshrined in the Constitution, embodying a set of values and a framework for transformative change toward a new, more harmonious relationship between society and nature (Pan 2018). The adoption of EC as an aspirational model for the PRC marked the official recognition of numerous environmental problems. These range from air and water pollution, degradation of natural resources, and loss of biodiversity, to the existence of so-called ‘cancer villages’ where the level of chemical pollution is so high that simply living there presents a significant cancer risk (Economy 2018; Kaiman 2013). Attaining EC would serve to circumvent the ‘progress traps’ faced by the PRC, where the relentless pursuit of economic growth and national prosperity results in severe environmental degradation that hinders future advancements (Hanson 2019: 7).
Although the EC concept has roots in China’s ancient philosophy, which emphasises people living in harmony with nature, it could also be seen as a decidedly modern sociotechnical imaginary (Huang and Westman 2021). Defined by Jasanoff and Kim (2009: 120) as ‘collectively imagined forms of social life and social order reflected in the design and fulfilment of nation-specific scientific and/or technological projects’, sociotechnical imaginaries such as EC combine moral and cultural virtues with scientific, technological, and political goals (see also Hansen and Liu 2018; Khalil 2021). The concept of EC emerged in relation to the scientific outlook on development (SOD), another term introduced in the early 2000s by General Secretary Hu Jintao and ratified into the constitution in 2007. The SOD concept implies that social and economic development in the PRC rests on science-based governance and innovation (Hu 2012). Through the amalgamation of socialist Marxism, science, and technology (S&T), the PRC aims to establish a rational basis for its objectives and leadership, ensuring sustainable and people-centred economic growth. The envisioned transitions to achieve EC involve incorporating various components of the SOD framework. These components encompass spatial planning, green innovations, infrastructural adjustments, environmental protection, sustainable resource utilisation, environmental governance, and public participation (UNEP 2016).
In the PRC, one single word, keji (科技), typically describe S&T. Greenhalgh (2020) traces the S&T question—i.e., the imagined role of S&T in bringing about the rejuvenation or revival of the PRC as a nation—to the birth of the Chinese republic in the early 20th century. She argues that throughout the century and in different historical stages the creation of China as a modern nation state hinged on the adoption and adaptation of Western S&T. The most recent stage began with the reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970’s. After the infamous set-back during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) with devastating impact on education and research, S&T again rose to prominence under Deng’s leadership (Freeman and Wei 2015). S&T became one of Deng’s ‘four modernisations’, alongside agriculture, industry, and defence. Since then, S&T have remained a dominant force in Chinese society and political leaders of the PRC continue ‘to place immense faith in science and technology’ (Greenhalgh 2020: 2; Wu 2019).
The combination of EC and SOD as key sociotechnical imaginaries for the PRC today underlines Susan Greenhalgh’s (2020) point. S&T are crucial for the kinds of socio-environmental transitions that are implied by EC and SOD policies. In response to pressing environmental challenges and as part of their journey towards EC, the Chinese government actively advocates for substantial investments in environmental S&T in addition to utilising carbon markets and environmental taxation as tools to foster sustainable development (Liao and Shi 2018). However, there are concerns about the approach. According to Elisabeth Lord’s (2020) interviews with environmental scientists like Professor Li, there are those who view the recent emphasis on environmental S&T primarily as a government tool, mainly focused on quantitative modelling, empirical research, and technological innovation. They argue that this approach falls short in generating the transformative changes required. Lord places this critique in the context of structural changes in the research environment, which forge close ties between the science pursued and the need to produce certain kinds of results that are directly applicable to policy-making and environmental governance (Lord 2020).
In this paper, we analyse another form of criticism related to environmentalism, environmental S&T, and the EC sociotechnical imaginary pursued by the PRC, namely the call for a revival of natural history or naturalism. Our research questions are:
What are the intellectual roots and social contexts of what Chinese scholars have called the Natural History Revival Movement (NHRM, 博物学复兴运动)?
How does the philosophy of the NHRM relate to its potential social significance and its viability as an alternative EC sociotechnical imaginary?
Material and method
Our work is based on extensive studies of (mostly Chinese) literature about the NHRM and its impact on public environmental debate in China. We were unable to locate sources that clearly define the NHRM. We therefore, proceeded on the assumption that out topic, the NHRM, is vaguely defined. Consequently, we opted for snowball sampling of relevant material. In the following, we first define our sampling procedure and then describe our analytical approach to the material collected. We rely on hermeneutics to interpret the meaning and impact of the NHRM, explicating on our pre-understanding of the NHRM while also attempting to situate the NHRM in relevant contexts.
Snowball sampling of NHRM material
Snowball sampling or chain sampling refer to the purposeful collection of material in qualitative research (Godwill 2015; Patton 2015). The snowballing method can be applied to sampling of social networks as well as literature search. Using a key subject or document as a starting point, new units such as persons, groups, or texts are added to the sample if they are meaningfully related to other units in the sample and they contribute meaningfully to the purpose of the study. The sampling continues until the sample or ‘snowball’ is considered to have sufficient size to generalise about the sample (but not the target population). The snowballing method entails purposive, not convenience sampling. The units are included into the sample based on an assessment of their main characteristics and their relations to the overall topic. In this sense, our snowballing method draws on hermeneutics in which knowledge is built in a dialectical interaction between our pre-understanding of the NHRM and the added information procured through snowballing sampling (Noy 2008).
We ‘snowballed’ the writings of Professor Liu Huajie of Peking University. Liu is widely considered the main protagonist and public spokesperson of the NHRM (Sun 2016). We followed the main scholarly references in Liu’s philosophical writings to construct a corpus of philosophical texts that would allow us to explicate the main strands of Liu’s intellectual NHRM approach. Furthermore, we delved into Liu’s research on naturalism and explored references to the NHRM as a social movement. This involved compiling Liu’s widely read books, as well as gathering news articles and other online content to gain insights into the significance of the NHRM for Chinese citizens and civic organisations. Our final NHRM corpus consisted of 25 entries, including Liu’s own writings and commentary on his work (n = 14) as well as other material explicating the social context of the NHRM (n = 11). We have referenced all this material in the reference section.
Analytical approach
We conducted a distinct analysis of the two segments within our NHRM corpus: the philosophical texts and the social-context texts. First, we approached the philosophical dimensions of the NHRM as a complex system of thought. We used philosophical analysis to decompose the NHRM into its main intellectual strands (Beaney 2021). The writings of Lui Huajie, including those that dealt only secondarily with the NHRM, and existing commentary in Chinese on Lui’s philosophy were key to this part of the analysis. In an iterative process of defining, discussing, and evaluating our options, we identified and described the most important strands in Liu’s philosophical works. In so doing, we sought to identify strands that would meaningfully relate to the dominant discourse in China about the role of S&T in the social process of modernisation.
We followed the same kind of analytical and iterative approach to our material pertaining to the public or social impact of NHRM. In this case, we were concerned with analytical perspectives that would allow for the identification of the NHRM as a sociotechnical imaginary. This entailed looking at the NHRM as scientific project that ideally would bring China closer to the goal of EC. We discussed and agreed upon aspects of the NHRM encompassing ideas about social order and scientific progress necessary to accomplish the EC goal. We paid particular attention to the perceived role of S&T as well as citizens and civil society in the transition to environmental civilisation (EC). We also defined cultural aspects of the NHRM, with particular attention to potential agreements or disagreements between China’s current path to modernisation, defined by her policy on the scientific outlook on development (SOD), and the NHRM’s emphasis on ‘living as a naturalist’ (Liu 2016a).
Our analytical approach, like the snowballing sampling described above, was informed by hermeneutics as an interpretative method and analytical approach (Seebohm 2004). According to hermeneutics, knowledge is produced in a recursive process where existing understandings or explanations are constantly being renewed by new information gained through enquiry. Moreover, hermeneutic interpretation is deeply contextual, seeking to justify interpretations though transparent documentation and an openness to a plurality of interpretations. The hermeneutic approach includes two canons (Seebohm 2004). The first canon describes the (virtuous) hermeneutic circle where the higher level of abstract theory or general concepts informs and is informed by the interpretation of specific symbolic actions. In other words, the whole must be understood in relation to the parts, and vice versa. The hermeneutic circle become vicious if it results in new understandings that are incommunicable or hegemonic. The second canon implies the contextual nature of interpretation, which means that higher or abstract levels of interpretation must remain faithful to the context of the symbolic actions being studies, i.e., the pre-understanding that was needed to produce them in the first place.
The main philosophical strands of NHRM
Originally trained as a geologist in the 1980s, Liu Huajie had pursued doctoral and postdoctoral philosophy studies in China and in the USA before he was appointed as associate professor in philosophy at Peking University in 2000. In the 1990s, Liu became known as a staunch critic of pseudoscience. He won the Chinese Natural Dialectics Research Association’s award for outstanding contribution to anti-pseudoscience in 2000, the same year as he received a national grant to study pseudoscience from a philosophical and sociological perspective (Tian 2017). By the time of the completion of the grant, Liu had modified or even reversed his original standpoint. In his book on Chinese pseudoscience, he preferred to talk about ‘alternative science’ rather than pseudoscience to emphasise that we should not see it as a deviation from science proper. Alternative science is based on overconfidence in science, a kind of extreme scientism, leading its practitioners to believe that science can solve all problems, including supernatural ones (Liu 2004).
Liu’s study of pseudo- or alternative science led him to adopt a critical anti-scientism stance. According to Liu, scientism as an ideology is deeply embedded in modern Chinese culture. Since the birth of China as a nation state and later enforced by scientific approaches to communism and development, science and scientific rationality had become seen as the best way forward for China (Kwok 1965; Shen 2016). Science, however, often was not very well defined by its staunch proponents. If it was, it usually meant some form of universalist, deterministic, and/or reductionist approach to problem-solving. Liu sought to criticise scientism wherever it appeared, be it in scientific institutions or in alternative science movements, arguing that a proper scientific attitude would lead to scepticism about the grand claims of scientism (Liu 2004). Liu’s anti-scientism became one of the foundations of the NHRM.
Around 2000, Liu Huajie began publishing academic and news articles, all of which called for a revival of natural history amidst a virtual flood of books in Chinese about nature and experiencing nature (Tian 2017). Liu had a longstanding interest in botany, and he is known to enjoy what he calls ‘first-order’ nature experiences, i.e., immediate, unmediated by theoretical reflection (Wang 2019). His proposal for the NHRM, however, built on four strands of ‘second-order’ ideas or research: 1) The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), 2) phenomenology, 3) revisionist historiography of natural history in China, and 4) an ecological or systems approach to the human-nature relationship (Zhang 2017). In the following, we elaborate on these four philosophical ideas and their significance to the NHRM.
The sociology of scientific knowledge
The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), also known as the strong programme in the sociology of knowledge, emerged from the work of Barry Barnes, David Bloor, and other British sociologists of science in the 1970s. The SSK approach is based on two philosophical concepts or principles: symmetry and naturalism.
The so-called ‘symmetry postulate’ states that all scientific knowledge claims, whether true or false, may be subjected to sociological analysis in the same way (Bloor 1991). The weak kind of sociology of knowledge, as practiced by one of the founding fathers of the sociology of knowledge Karl Mannheim, admitted a special place for scientific knowledge as being true regardless of its particular social context, due to its rational and empirical underpinnings. However, SSK maintained, there are key decisions about knowledge production and evaluation that must be made also in the hard sciences, which ultimately depend on values, judgement, and negotiation. Social conditions impact on such decisions and therefore play a role in bringing about particular ‘states of knowledge’, and not others (Bloor 1991: 7).
SSK’s conception of naturalism refers to empirical studies of the social conditions of scientific knowledge production, and not to metaphysical claims about the world. The naturalist approach espoused by SKK implies criticism of speculative philosophy of science, which pursues universal laws of logic and reason with no attention to social conditions. Naturalism, in contrast, suggests detailed study of the local environments in which scientific knowledge is being produced (Barnes et al. 1996). Since naturalism itself is a complex term (Agar 1998), it is not surprising that the translation of naturalism into the Chinese context implied other connotations than the ones originally promoted by SSK, see below.
Liu Huajie used SSK to defend natural history as a legitimate and relevant mode of knowledge production (Liu 2009; 2006). He criticised the tendency in China to equate biological and environmental science, in fact all science, with an experimental and instrumental approach. Citing Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch (1998), Liu argued that people in China typically possess the wrong image of science because science can be done in many ways (Liu 2006). Natural history, according to Liu, is a scientific approach to nature on a par with other scientific approaches such as experimental science. In contrast to how people in China usually understand science, the natural history approach emphasises inductive learning and emotional engagement with its subject matter, rather than hypothetical deduction and detachment (Liu 2006).
SSK provided intellectual justification for natural history as a legitimate scientific approach (Liu 2009). The symmetry postulate stated that scientific truths depended on social conditions for their creation and validation. Natural history, Liu (2009) argued, relies on other conditions than experimental research or applied research and therefore had to be understood and assessed according to its own conditions or merits. Natural history, just like the dominant version of science based on the hypothetico-deductive or the nomological-deductive model, is a local knowledge system. Moreover, the aim of natural history is to provide robust knowledge about local natural phenomena rather than universal cause-and-effect relations expressed in mathematical terms. To use Wittgenstein’s term, which underlines much of the SSK approach, natural history bears ‘family resemblance’ to local or indigenous knowledge more than it does contemporary science (Liu 2009: 7–9; see also Watson-Verran and Turnbull 1995).
The NHRM and the phenomenological critique of science
In addition to seeing natural history as local knowledge, Liu Huajie used the European phenomenological tradition to depict natural history as embodied knowledge (Liu 2010). East Asian scholars have been interested in phenomenology since the early 20th century, but it was not until the 1980s that Chinese academia really began devoting attention to the writings of phenomenologists such as Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merlau-Ponty (Jansen and Cai 2018). Husserl’s probably most influential work, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (1970[1936]), appeared in Chinese translation in 1992. In the book, Husserl depicted Western science, primarily represented by mathematical physics, in a state of crisis that began with Galileo’s vision of science as a mathematisation or geometrisation of nature. Science, Husserl argued, due to its high level of mathematical abstraction and conceptual differentiation, had become incompatible with our lifeworld experience and our unified knowledge or familiarity with everyday objects and events (Smith 2009).
Liu (2010) basically agreed that the Husserlian lifeworld represents another mode of human experience, which had been marginalised in course of the development of modern European science. He too saw the lifeworld as the shared common world of existing objects that are accessible to us as living conscious beings. In contrast to Husserl, however, Liu (2010) found evidence of an alternative tradition in the history of Western science, namely natural history (see also Jiang 2017). Natural history, for Liu (2010), implies direct attention to lived experiences and observational practice closely attached to nature, not detachment from nature. Although natural history of course also has its own classification systems that aims at some degree of abstraction and universality, an important part of natural history involves bodily practices of being in nature, sensing nature, and getting emotionally involved with nature (Liu 2010).
Taking Husserl’s notion of a crisis in science further, Liu (2010) said that natural history was no relic of the past. Husserl’s crisis idea assumed the demise of other scientific traditions. The growing interest in naturalist ideas and practices in China proved that it could be otherwise. In fact, natural history is undergoing a global renaissance, Yang Xueni and Liu Huajie agreed (Yang and Liu 2017). Natural history and what Husserl referred to as European science had developed in parallel in the past, see section on revisionist historiography below. Natural history, in the phenomenological understanding of the term, is more than merely science. Natural history implies a distinct subjective perspective on the natural world, which leads the attentive naturalist to recognise the direct connection between our conscious experience of nature and nature. Like phenomenology, the NHRM shows the limits of the mathematical-rational approach to nature and points to connections between the lifeworld and the natural world. At the same, the NHRM offers an alternative to Husserl’s crisis narrative (Yang and Liu 2017).
Revisionist (anti-Whig) history of Chinese natural history
Husserl’s crisis narrative builds on the same assumptions as the standard account of the Chinese science history, namely that science has developed from a premodern to its current modern stage in a process of invention and diffusion (Wu 2016). According to this kind of ‘modernist’ historiography, science’s modern development began during the Scientific Revolution when Galileo and other European scientists adopted mathematics and experimental methods to explain nature. In this way, modern science was invented (Wootton 2015). The assumption is that modern science emerged in Europe and then gradually spread to other parts of the world, defining what people around the world understand by science. In a Chinese context, the assumption implies that although Chinese scholars and craftsmen have made significant discoveries and inventions over the preceding centuries, China was a late adopter of modern science.
Liu Huajie and other Chinese scholars criticised the standard account for being anachronistic and triumphalist (Liu 2010, 2011; Wu 2016). The standard account was a Whig approach to the history of science that took celebrated, present-day ideas about science and projected them onto the past, while at the same time making judgements about what counts as science (Baltas 1994; Hall 1983). Liu Bing argued that the Whig approach would dismiss natural history as a legitimate source of scientific knowledge (Liu 2011). According to Liu (2011), the Whig approach to Chinese science history originated with Joseph Needham’s attempt to understand why ‘modern science had not developed in Chinese civilisation (or Indian) but only in Europe’ (quoted from Sivin 2017). The so-called ‘Needham Problem’ entailed a narrow approach to science, namely that science meant the ‘universally valid world science’ with roots in Ancient Greece’s deductive geometry and the mathematical and mechanistic sciences of the so-called Scientific Revolution (Liu 2011).
With its implicit definitions of science and civilisation, relying on grand dichotomies such as East/West, traditional/modern, and science/non-science (technology), the Needham Problem created a narrow understanding of Chinese science, including Chinese natural history (Hsia and Schäfer 2019). Today, professional historians of science are less interested in such gross comparisons between scientific tradition or cultures but prefer to understand local sciences and cultures on their own terms. For example, the most recent addition to Needham’s massive book project, Science and Civilisation in China, explicitly departed from Needham’s quest for ‘one unitary science of nature’ (Métailié 2015: 7). In his study of traditional botany in China, Georges Métailié (2015) found that Chinese botanists, rather than direct observation and systematic formalisation, were motivated by their moral pursuits and their love of plants. He also challenged Needham’s ‘fusion point’ where Chinese and Western botany would fuse together due to ‘the universality of modern science’ (Métailié 2015: 15).
Like Métailié (2015), Liu Huajie and Liu Bing both understood the history of Chinese natural history to be parallel to, and not convergent upon, Western natural history up until the early 20th century (Liu 2010, 2017, 2011). Even when Chinese biologists trained abroad in the 1920s returned to China to conduct systematic field work and laboratory research, traditional Chinese natural history as a research field and research practice did not go away, nor was it subsumed by new and more modern practices. Throughout the entire 20th century, naturalists in China as well as in Europe and North America pursued their natural history interests despite increasing difficulties in defending natural history as a science (Tewksbury et al. 2014; Wu 2016). At the turn of the millennium, naturalists in the East and in the West reported enthusiastically about an increasing interest in natural history among professional and amateur naturalists, who shared deep and intimate knowledge about selected groups of organisms or natural communities as well as profound admiration and care for nature and biodiversity (Grant 2000; Schmidly 2005). In China, this is precisely what Liu and others called the NHRM (Zhang 2017).
Fractal geometry, systems-thinking and symbiosis applied to natural history
As a philosopher, Liu Huajie studied non-linear complex systems and fractal dynamics. Early on, before he launched the NHRM concept, Liu related Benoît B. Mandelbrot’s work on the fractal geometry of nature to natural history (Liu 1998). Mandelbrot (1982) sought to apply the non-linear geometry of fractals, i.e., ‘fractured’ shapes that can be split into parts, each of which is a reduced-size copy of the whole, to natural patterns such as coastlines, mountains, and trees. Liu (1998, 2020) argued that fractals and, more generally, non-linear complex systems-theory provided a starting point for the reconstruction of natural history as a combined scientific and ecological practice. Although at first glance, fractals and non-linear science may seem to have very little to do with natural history, Liu maintained that they show the limitations of modern natural science based on a mechanist and reductionist worldview, opening the possibility for other, more aesthetic approaches to nature such as natural history. Like fractal geometry as applied by Mandelbrot, natural history allows us to see, understand, and emotionally relate to new kinds of patterns in nature (Liu 2020, 2010).
At heart, Liu’s natural history implied an ecological approach to nature based on ‘systems thinking’ and ‘symbiosis’ (Zhang 2017). As human beings, Liu and other proponents of NHRM argued, we need to see ourselves as part of nature and not as detached observers seeking to control nature. Natural history, due to its focus on emotional attachment and aesthetic experiences in nature, demonstrates to its practitioners and participants the unity of mankind and nature. These were first-order experiences according to Liu. Second-order reflections building on systems-thinking, as applied to the Earth system such as in James Lovelock’s Gaia theory, and on the symbiotic approach to evolutionary theory suggested by Lynn Margulis, supported these first-order experiences. According to Liu (2017), first-order naturalist experiences and second-order intellectual reflections are both needed if the NHRM will be conducive to the building of an ecological civilisation in the PRC.
The NHRM as an alternative sociotechnical imaginary of ecological civilisation
In 2016, Liu Huaije appeared smiling in China Daily’s Lifestyle section under the heading ‘Naturalist urges interaction with the world around us’ (Sun 2016). The occasion was Liu’s appearance at a salon in Beijing where he gave a talk titled ‘How could natural history rescue China from ecological crisis?’. The salon included input from Jiang Gaoming, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Jiang had referred to China’s acute environmental woes, such as overuse of pesticides, overgrazing, deforestation, red tides (harmful algae blooms), and, of course, smog. He concluded: ‘If we carry on what we've doing, it might be just too late to solve the problem’. Responding to Jiang’s challenge, Liu said that natural history and the love and reverence for nature, which is the immediate outcome of studying and observing nature first-hand, were needed to forge stronger ties between civilisation and nature. If we only allow students to encounter nature through authoritative science, we will never get them to really appreciate nature. ‘Natural history’, Liu concluded, ‘could contribute to ecological civilisation, especially in the long run’ (all quotes from Sun 2016).
Liu’s interventions in the Chinese public sphere—his books and public performances—show that the NHRM is more than a philosophical approach to science, history, society, and the environment. The NHRM expresses the need for public engagement with the environment and the future of China without taking an explicit political stance. It belongs to the emerging Chinese green public sphere identified by Yang and Calhoun (2007). The NHRM is a form of issue-specific activism in the sense that it seeks to mobilise large groups of society in the pursuit of naturalist studies and nature experiences, which combine love of nature with knowledge about nature. It is transnational in scope because nature potentially transgresses national and regional boundaries, but also because the philosophical ideas behind the NHRM have Western and Eastern roots. The rise of the green public sphere, Yang and Calhoun (2017: 212) argue, is significant because it accommodates public engagement and advocacy ‘without being primarily political’.
The NHRM, in effect, provides an alternative or supplement to the official PRC sociotechnical imaginary of ecological civilisation (EC). Like the Government’s counterpart, the NHRM-inspired EC sociotechnical imaginary combines individual and social virtues with visions of scientific and political governance. The two sociotechnical imaginaries, however, are very different. Whereas the official sociotechnical imaginary of EC places emphasis on scientific and technological progress aimed at government-set targets for environmental protection and sustainability, the NHRM counterpart requires transformation at the individual and social level to allow for an appreciation of other types of science and other ways of interpreting science history in the Chinese context. The NHRM philosophy challenges the science-based and authoritarian order implicit in the PRC’s EC concept. The EC proposed by the NHRM requires a transition to other modes of scientific knowledge production, i.e., natural history based on local knowledge practices. It also feeds on the rise and promotion of a green public sphere where citizens are free to pursue their love of nature by engaging in social activities and deliberations that promote the building of an EC from bottom-up.
In 2012, The New York Times Chinese Edition reported that the term ‘civil society’ had fallen out of favour with the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (Qian 2012). Hu Jintao, General Secretary of the CCP from 2002 to 2012 and stark proponent of the scientific-outlook-on-development (SOD) doctrine, had allowed civil organisations a limited degree of freedom to promote social stability and economic progress (Lam 2020). Under Hu’s predecessor, Xi Jinping, the CCP forbade academics to use the term ‘civil society’. Due to the tightly controlled regime of Xi’s social management, the NHRM and other social movements need to tread more carefully. Still, the NHRM seems to have gained in prominence and media exposure after 2011. In 2013, for example, Phoenix TV, a multinational media organisation with overseas Chinese as their main audience, introduced Liu’s book Living as a naturalist to show that everyone can participate in natural history and gain personal enjoyment and enrichment (Qing 2013). In 2016, Phoenix Weekly, sponsored by Phoenix TV and permitted by The Information Office of the State Council of the PRC, reported on Liu’s critique of modernisation. Zhang Dandan, the reporter, quoted Liu as saying that modern society with its emphasis on productivity, competitiveness, and power to manipulate nature, has deprived us of ‘inner feelings’ about nature. The NHRM, the article concluded, attempts to rebuild a more harmonious coexistence between humans and nature, thus creating the foundation of ecological civilisation (Zhang 2016).
In the following, to understand better the implicit politics and wider social significance of the NHRM, we outline some of the contributions of the NHRM to the green public sphere in China. We also seek to place the NHRM in context by connecting questions about nature and environmentalism to issues surrounding education, democracy, religion, and modernisation.
Living as a naturalist
Environmentalism in China is usually associated with concerns about pollution and the loss of economic, social, and health benefits at the societal or individual level (Zhong and Shi 2020). This is also the government’s position. In March 2014, at the opening of the annual meeting of People’s Congress, Premier of the State Council of the PRC, Li Keqiang, declared a ‘war on pollution’ (Greenstone et al. 2021). As a result, success in other priorities for implementation of ecological civilisation (EC) such as sustainable development, green urbanisation, climate change mitigation etc., will be measured by progress in the war on pollution (Hanson 2019). The ‘weapons’ needed are economic instruments, institutional change, effective management, and innovation systems compatible with ecological goals. The shifts in attitude, which are also needed to complete the transition and thus win the war, will result from the potential benefits accrued from fighting against pollution.
The NHRM is presented as an alternative route to EC, emphasising public engagement with nature through positive, personally enriching nature experiences rather than a collective war on pollution by means of science and technology (S&T) (Liu 2016a). According to the NHRM, the instrumentalization of environmentalism implied by the war on pollution metaphor and the tendency to quantify nature will turn out to be counterproductive (Tian 2011). Liu (2016a, 2017) argues that ecological civilisation will have to build on a change of mindset, i.e., a change in how Chinese people see nature. To really see nature, one will have to get to know it, which is why, according to Liu (2016a), naming natural entities is important. Assigning names to nature or classifying the natural world has been a fundamental undertaking in the field of natural history since the time of Aristotle. The names that we give plants and animals have scientific purpose, namely that of coherent classification by way of unique identifiers, but the names also are key to familiarising ourselves with nature. Liu (2016a: chapter 1) compares knowing the names of plants and animals to knowing the names of famous actors. To appreciate cultural products such as Hollywood movies, we want to know the names of the actors in the movies. Similarly, to appreciate nature, we need to know the names of plants and animals in nature (Liu, 2016a: chapter 1).
Being a movement, or rather a call for a movement centred on nature, the NHRM plays into an ongoing discussion about Chinese civil society and environmental NGOs, which gained renewed prominence at the turn of the millennium and into the twenty-first century (Cooper 2006; Lu 2007; Tang and Zhan 2008; Tilt 2010). Caroline Cooper (2006), for example, argues that even in an authoritarian society such as China, there seems to be political space for a ‘local state associational model’, which allows civil society actors to associate around certain issues without taking a strong corporatist identity. Making the connection between the conduct of natural history and civic empowerment, Liu (2016a: chapter 5) draws on historical examples from Europe, namely the natural history societies that emerged in Great Britain and Germany during the nineteenth century to play a small yet significant role in the economic and political reconstruction of the emerging nation states (see also Finnegan 2005; Phillips 2003). Like Cooper (2006), Liu (2016a) laments the Chinese tradition for government control of civil organisations but sees an opportunity for increased voluntary public engagement and stronger civil society associations centred on nature and naturalist interests.
Traditionally, the pursuit of natural history in the PRC has not been viewed as a political activity (Liu 2016a: chapter 5). Promoting the idea of NHRM, Liu (2016a) and others aim at reviving interest in natural history among Chinese citizens but also seek to make natural history relevant for political debates about the advancement of EC. The NHRM includes organised activities such as the many bird-watching clubs that have emerged in the PRC in the past decades, some of which are organised locally, and some of which are associated with the national China Bird Watching Network. Due to the size and scope of the data collected, these bird watchers have begun to make an impact on local conservation policies (Hu et al. 2017). Liu (2016a: chapter 5) points to other initiatives that are indicative of Chinese citizens associating around nature observation such as The Green Beagle Environmental Institute based in Beijing, which organises volunteers to conduct environmental monitoring, and Friends of Nature, the oldest environmental NGO in the PRC, which today organises more than 10,000 volunteers and has 14 local member groups.
Liu (2016a) promotes ‘living as a naturalist’ as a way forward for building EC in the PRC. This requires mobilisation of civil society to engage in meaningful interactions with nature by way of natural history. Nature needs spokespersons, Liu (2017) further argues, for EC to happen. Scientists with training in the natural sciences aimed at quantification and application are not well-suited for the task. A special kind of scientist or citizen-scientist is needed, namely the scholars and citizens who learn to speak the language of nature—the names and classifications supplied by natural history—and learn to pay attention to the symbiosis of man and nature. However, even though living as a naturalist would support the national efforts of the PRC, i.e., more research and innovation to achieve the green or ecological transition, it is not enough. To achieve EC, Liu (2017) mentions, but with no further elaboration or qualification, that the PRC also needs ‘full democracy’ and ‘perfect rule of law’.
‘Study nature, not books’
Liu Huajie generally makes few comments about the ways in which to achieve or mobilise the full potential of the NHRM (Liu 2016a; 2016b). It is not always clear from his writings whether the NHRM is already happening—the emerging interest in nature observations and environmental monitoring in the PRC would be only proof that this is so—or whether the NHRM is an intellectual idea or a call for a new movement. Perhaps the notion of NHRM means both things at the same time. It is when Liu speaks about natural history education that we most clearly see his vision for how to support or build the NHRM. Education in this case means practice and learning-by-doing, not formal training by following a well-defined curriculum. Liu (2016a: foreword) cites the nineteenth century Swiss-born naturalist Louis Agassiz to make his point: ‘Study nature, not books’. This could be interpreted as a more critical comment on education in the PRC system on a par with Zhao and Deng (2015: 2) who complains about the Chinese educational system’s stress on tests scores and job training. They argue that Chinese education fails to deliver ‘person-making’, ‘creativity and critical thinking skills’, and ‘responsible social members who can fit in and contribute to society’ (Zhao and Deng 2015: 2).
Learning how to practice natural history in the modern age, Liu (2016b) suggests supervised training. Natural history training is different from professional training or on-the-job training. There are no specific aims or learning goals involved in the kind of natural history envisaged by Liu (2016b) other than inciting curiosity about nature and love of nature. The Chinese term for natural history, bowu xue (博物学), was invented in the nineteenth century as a translation of ‘natural history’ (Fan 2004: 212, note 68). Bowu (博物) originally meant ‘a wide range of things’ and xue (学) was adopted by translators to denote Western-style disciplines. Liu (2016b) appropriates the term bowu to emphasise that the ‘new’ natural history or naturalism in principle involves knowledge about everything in nature, which means that no-one has complete or even extensive expertise in the field. The new natural history therefore depends on everyone’s efforts (Liu 2016b).
Liu (2016b) uses BOWU as an acronym to present or memorise the aims of the kind of natural history education that he has in mind:
Beauty: Liu (2016b) quotes Zhuangzi, the ancient Chinese text about the Taoist sage Master Zhuang, who stated that there is great beauty to be found in nature, but nature does not speak. This means that we primarily encounter nature through sensory experience and immersion in nature. The Zhuangzi represents a naturalist philosophy, where humans and human societies are part of nature and must navigate nature’s endless complications. The book is also noted for its anti-rationalist and anti-authoritarian viewpoints, fuelled partly by the nature’s inherent complexity (Hansen 2021). Sympathetic to its anti-authoritarian viewpoint, Liu (2016b) also stresses the Zhuangzi as a tool to appreciate the beauty of nature, which will lead to less worry about ‘basic living’.
Observation: Natural history requires meticulous observational work but should not be mistaken for scientific observation. The kind of observation that Liu (2016b) has in mind includes directed attention, viewing, recording, painting, classification, doing simple experiments, writing reports, etc. Taking pictures of nature, too, is important to Liu who often appears in photos with a camera in hand, because the natural history he has in mind should be non-interventionist. This means that specimens must not be collected (Liu 2016a). It is also imperative that observations aim at immersion and attachment, implying that observations should be somewhat detached from scientific books and classroom curricula.
Wonder: Modern education, Liu (2016b) states, has led to increasing numbness in relation to the natural world and carelessness about nature. The diagnosis resembles the ‘nature-deficit disorder’ described by journalist Richard Louv (2005) where isolation from nature leads to many problems in the modern world, one of which is negligence and disregard for nature. Wonder about nature originates in childhood, Louv (2005) maintains. Liu (2016b) referred to Rachel Carson’s last book published posthumously as The Sense of Wonder (1964) to emphasise the importance of engaging with nature in a way that allows children and adults alike to develop a sense of wonder about nature and a desire to learn about nature—rather than simply being told that this is how nature is.
Understanding: Naturalist training, according to Liu (2016b), aims at understanding the connectedness of all things. It is holistic in scope rather than reductionist. The naturalist will seek to understand that his or her subject position is intertwined with other things in complex networks. Living as and training to become a naturalist as Liu (2016a, 2016b) sees it, will allow individuals to establish a kind of dialogue with nature. In this way, it should be conducive, perhaps even fundamental to the establishment of ecological civilisation.
In awe of nature
The NHRM first and foremost is a secular movement aiming to connect modern people to nature. According to Liu (2014), however, the NHRM builds on deep values with affiliation to religious thoughts. Liu (2014) thinks that referring to religion is useful for explicating those values and for making the NHRM more understandable and perhaps even more attractive to wider publics. It also helps to make clearer the scientific ambitions of natural history. Contrary to popular belief, science is not value-free. Values are embedded in scientific practice. The modern sciences have achieved success by adopting a detached, objective, and instrumental approach to nature. Natural history in contrast seeks to foster emotional attachment to nature by way of intimate familiarity with nature through field observations (Liu 2014).
In the Christian tradition, for example, natural historians and theologists have found close connections between natural history and religion (Calloway 2015). Natural theology is the attempt to develop arguments for the existence of God based on reason and empirical evidence. Since the Scientific Revolution in the 17th century, scientists have used discoveries of the natural world to support religious beliefs. In the 19th century, natural historians interpreted direct observations of nature in the light of Christian doctrine. Naturalists such as the American Paul A. Chadbourne lectured extensively on natural history and its relations to religion. In present-day China, Liu Huajie promotes the study of natural theology to further elucidate the values embedded in natural history. One of his PhD students, Xiong Jiao, translated Chadbourne’s Lectures on Natural Theology into Chinese (Chadbourne 2014).
In his foreword to the Chinese edition of Chadbourne’s Lectures, Liu (2014) argued that natural theology makes sense regardless of whether you believe in Christianity or not. Without the religious implications, natural theology conveys four important messages to contemporary Chinese, all of which are in favour of Liu’s naturalist position: 1) Natural theology appeals to human reasoning but also to human appreciation and respect for natural order and nature’s intrinsic beauty. 2) Understanding natural theology leads to a more nuanced understanding of Western science and culture, which again could lead to more nuanced approaches to questions about science, innovation, and development in the PRC. 3) Natural theology invites non-anthropogenic interpretations of natural evolution and Christianity—even if humans have a special role in Christianity, humans should not be seen as the goal of nature, and there is great value in minimising risks for nature and the environment due to anthropogenic activities. There is great wisdom in nature due to natural evolution, and humans should be very cautious in trying to change nature. 4) Natural theology highlights the fact that the pursuit of natural history could have higher aims than simply more scientific understanding of nature—the new breed of naturalists at the heart of the NHRM develop deep attachments to nature such as awe, gratitude, and humility (Liu, 2014).
Modernity vs. anti-scientism
In many ways—practically, scientifically, ethically, and politically – the NHRM presents itself as an alternative path to ecological civilisation (EC) in the PRC. As such, it challenges the official position on how to achieve EC, which relies on the scientific-outlook-on-development (SOD) and the war-on-pollution metaphors discussed earlier in this paper. According to the NHRM, the concept of EC has wider implications. It is not enough to fight pollution and to measure EC in terms of economic, environmental, and technological progress. EC requires widespread acceptance in society of values that will lead to care for and respect for nature. According to Liu, we also need to think different about science and society—how science works, and what science accomplishes for modern society. The NHRM therefore challenges some of the assumptions at the heart of contemporary modern China (Liu 2016a, 2016b).
For these reasons, the NHRM faced criticism by Li Xingmin, a former researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and former editor of the Journal of the Dialectics of Nature. In a foreword to the PhD thesis by Sun Hongxia on romanticism and anti-science in science in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which he supervised, Li argued that the ideas underlying the NHRM are ‘neo-romantic’ and ‘anti-science’ (Li 2013). Referring to the counterculture of the 1960s and to the science wars that took place in Europe and the USA in the 1990’s (see Labinger and Collins 2001; Ross 1996; Roszak 1969), Li (2013) said that anti-science movements were romantic in the sense that they favoured traditional ways of living to modern ones. They were unable to account for the remarkable success of modern science, and they had very little to replace science and technology (S&T) as driving forces in modern society. Anti-science, as Li (2013) saw it, amounted to anti-progress or anti-modernity.
Liu Huajie and other proponents of the NHRM did not respond directly to Li’s critique. In previous writings mentioned above, Liu (2006) explained that anti-scientism and anti-science is not the same. Liu’s anti-scientism is opposed to scientism, i.e., the ideology that science is the best solution to all social problems, but not to science as such. Anti-scientism implies that there are—and should be—many ways to address grand challenges such as the making of EC. The NHRM therefore is not explicitly anti-modern as some versions of romanticism are (Löwy and Sayre 2001). The NHRM implies that dominant ideas about modernisation and enabling an EC by means of S&T are not enough. They should be supplemented by efforts to mobilise and engage broader segments of society in caring for nature and by appreciating other ways of doing science and other kinds of impacts that science can have on society.
Conclusion
The dominant discourse of ecological civilisation (EC) in the PRC implies a sociotechnical imaginary in which environmental and social improvements follow from investments in science and technology, which will then lead to green innovations as well as institutional and infrastructural change (Jasanoff and Kim 2009; Khalil 2021). The NHRM presents an alternative to the dominant discourse, introducing the social-cultural dynamics of naturalism and philosophical ideas as key drivers of the imagined sociotechnical transition (Huang and Westman 2021). The NHRM as articulated by Liu Huajie draws on a wide range of Western philosophical and scientific traditions, primarily, from the sociology of scientific knowledge and phenomenology to anti-Whiggist historiography, fractal geometry, and systems thinking. Mainly due to Lui’s public outreach, in particular his promotion of naturalism as a way of living, the NHRM has attracted some attention in the emerging green public sphere in relation to issues such as education, democracy, religion, and modernisation. The two aspects of the NHRM are complementary. The philosophy of the NHRM provides an intellectual superstructure with plenty of philosophical arguments for an alternative to the scientific outlook on development (SOD) promoted by the PRC, while Liu’s naturalist way of living implies individual action and community-building around nature.
According to the NHRM’s philosophy, science and technology (S&T) are not the sole solutions to societal challenges such as ecological sustainability. The NHRM remains critical towards scientism in the PRC, defined as the overconfidence in S&T that is evident from the scientific outlook on development (SOD). The anti-scientism of the NHRM has several elements. It is critical of the tendency to equate S&T with an instrumental and experimental approach, which leaves no room for more contemplative and non-interventionist ways of knowing such as natural history. It is also critical of the modernist historiography of S&T that places natural history in an obsolete past. Referencing holistic scientific methodologies, Liu envisaged a kind of natural history that would contribute to our scientific understanding of the natural world while at the same time allowing for admiration and care for ecosystems and species.
NHRM as a social movement involves ‘living as a naturalist’ (Liu 2016a). The call for naturalism as a way of life applies to individual citizens and communities. According to the NHRM, the naturalist way of life results in increased awareness of the natural world and our place in nature. It facilitates the reconnection with nature within an industrialised and modern society where people and communities are increasingly disconnected from the natural world. Moreover, the NHRM entails an alternative vision of EC with associations around nature as an important political force. The NHRM places greater emphasis on civil society and living in harmony nature than does the dominant idea about EC supported by the Chinese government. The NHRM implies transformation of the S&T educational system to include elements of traditional natural history, implied by the acronym BOWU: beauty, observation, wonder, and understanding of the connectedness of all living things. Ultimately, the NHRM encourages civil society to rethink its relations to nature as well as the state and to become more connected in relation to the former, but more independent in relation to the latter.
The NHRM may share the same end goal as the Chinese Communist Party, namely EC, but the means are very different. While the PRC focuses on data-intensive and quantitative environmental sciences, the NHRM advocates for a contemplative natural history approach. This approach not only aims to generate more pertinent environmental data but also seeks to foster a transformative mindset among practitioners of natural history. The phenomenological critique of the hegemony of mathematical or geometrical sciences and the phenomenologists’ emphasis on embodied, situated learning lend further philosophical support to the NHRM’s insistence on learning about nature through immersive and emotional practices. To comprehend nature—and respect nature—the NHRM argues that we need more than the mechanistic and reductionist sciences currently held in high regard by the PRC’s political and scientific establishment. Natural history or, as Liu (2020) says, living as a naturalist, offers a way for EC to emerge from the level of individuals and communities, and not from policymaking.
We suggest that the philosophical complexity of NHRM allows it to persist despite the more difficult political circumstances for social movements and civic engagement in the PRC. The NHRM can be understood as an alternative to the government’s vision of EC but also as an implicit critique. The NHRM complements the government’s position on EC by offering a way to merge the growing interest in nature observation and environmental monitoring with the concept of EC. For this to happen, the philosophical roots of the NHRM needs explication, and the educational and ethical aspects of the NHRM must be implemented. Thus understood, the NHRM could better connect the many local naturalist initiatives and the interests of the many nature enthusiasts to the government’s goal of achieving EC.
The NHRM, however, has additional critical connotations. The NHRM challenges the universalist aspirations of quantitative and instrumental S&T, and the idea, sometimes denigrated as a kind of scientism, that S&T are the (only) solution to societal and environmental problems. The NHRM also challenges the authoritarian governance model implied by the government’s approach to EC. According to the NHRM, EC needs a changed mindset, not more governmental control. To develop deep emotional attachments to nature, people must be able to associate and communicate more freely. Fundamentally, the NHRM strives to become a voluntary civil movement with the objective of guiding both science and society towards EC.
Acknowledgements
One of the authors [SF] would like to acknowledge support from the Chinese Government Scholarship (CSC) awarded by the Chinese Scholarship Council.
Author contributions
SF conceived the idea for the present study. Both authors contributed to data collection and analysis as well as the drafting of the manuscript. Both authors have approved the final version to be published.
Data availability
Data sharing is not applicable to this research. Information about where to retrieve the corpus of text that was analysed can be found in the references section.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Ethical approval
This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.
Informed consent
This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.
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Zhong Q, Shi G (2020) Environmental consciousness in China: change with social transformation. Chandos Publishing, Cambridge, MA. https://doi.org/10.1016/C2014-0-04069-5
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Abstract
The concept of ecological civilisation has become enshrined in the Chinese constitution as a blueprint for sustainable development based on a changed relationship with nature. Achieving the ecological civilisation, however, is no easy task. True to its socialist one-party system and scientific outlook on development, the Chinese government continues to place emphasis on authoritarian governance and science-based innovation. Alternative approaches to ecological civilisation have received less attention. In this paper, we seek to understand the philosophical and social perspectives offered by the Natural History Revival Movement (NHRM) regarding China’s path to an ecological civilisation. Based on sources collected by means of snowball sampling, we perform a hermeneutic analysis of the NHRM and its meanings. As a philosophy, the NHRM draws on inspiration from a variety of sources, most of which are European. The NHRM, functioning as a social movement, encompasses the growing enthusiasm within Chinese society for naturalist studies and environmental monitoring, rooted in distinct Chinese origins. Examining the NHRM provides a glimpse into different sociotechnical imaginaries in China, aligning with the government’s ecological-civilisation vision yet questioning the methods employed to attain the objective.
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Details
1 Aarhus University, Department of Mathematics, Centre for Science Studies, Aarhus C, Denmark (GRID:grid.7048.b) (ISNI:0000 0001 1956 2722)