Modern American nonfiction literature has a long history of attention to the social ecology and natural ecology of the United States. Non-fiction texts that reflect on social ecology are mainly embodied in the true record and deep reflection on social change in the United States from the perspective of critical realism and postmodernism. The texts that reflect on the natural ecology are mainly embodied in the perspective of ecology and idealism, which express their worries about the relationship between man and nature and the ecology of human survival. The difference in the identity of the writer also restricts the cultural and aesthetic appeals of these two types of ecological reflection texts to a certain extent. This quest is ultimately reflected in textual structure, narrative discourse, and non-narrative discourse.
Mark Twain's On the Mississippi River, Sinclair's Slaughterhouse, the new news reports of the 1960s and 1970s, non-fiction and oral history, norman Mailler, Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, Sturkel and many of the works, are typical non-fiction texts of the reflective type of social ecology, which run through the true record and deep reflection on the social changes in the United States from the perspective of critical realism or postmodernism, through the description of the radical changes in American society. To explore the shocks of reality in the social ecology that are more exciting than fiction, in order to express the writers' anti-traditional and anti-authority independent civilization critical concepts, and to express their deep concern for the spiritual ecological crisis of human beings.
Thoreau's Walden (1854), Leopold's Annals of sand country (1949), Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962), Davis's Smoke Like Water (2002), Weissmann's World Without Us (2007) and other works, as non-fiction texts of the reflective genre of natural ecology, mainly from the perspective of ecology and idealism, expressing concerns about the relationship between man and nature. In 1962, when environmental issues had not yet entered the U.S. government's decision-making, American marine biologist Rachel Carson published her book Silent Spring. This work does not write the poetic connection between man and nature as always, but a critique of the "DDT" chemical pesticide, a symbol of scientific and technological progress, because when it kills insects that harm crops, it also kills the living environment of human beings, turning a noisy and vibrant spring into a silent spring. This work should be counted as an "awakening work" of contemporary ecological literature. Later so-called environmental protection literature, ecological literature and other statements are actually inseparable from it. It can be said that the American non-fiction literature since "Silent Spring" is a strong reaction to the ecological crisis at the time of the advent of a high-speed, highly developed industrialized society, which in a sense coincides with the concept of non-fiction texts that reflect on the social ecology, that is, to warn the government and people of the unpredictable doom of the human destruction of the natural ecology and the unpredictable doom of the human regeneration system, to express the anti-traditional (anthropocentric) concept and the blind arrogance of rebelling against human stupidity. This is undoubtedly an independent critical concept of civilization. In terms of ecological reflection, non-fiction texts that reflect on social ecology are different from non-fiction texts that reflect on natural ecology. The former focuses on the crisis of man's "self" itself (including the individual and the state, the nation and civilization, justice and injustice, etc.), while the latter mainly expresses the crisis of the relationship between man and the "other" (including other natural ecosystems other than man). And it is precisely the crisis expressed by the former that leads to the crisis revealed by the latter, that is, the crisis of natural ecology directly comes from the crisis of human spiritual ecology. Because on our planet, man is a unique species with the power to change nature, which makes him enlarge his sense of earth domination, driven by desire, man's unlimited breaking of environmental balance, making the "land ethics" distorted, and man became the giant of the "land community". In this regard, some writers have tried to use "harmony" as a solution, such as Leopold's interpretation of "land ethics" in the "Sand Country Annals", that is, the hope that man and nature can live in harmony in this land community; Rachel Carson's concept of "biological sharing" of the earth expressed in "Silent Spring" also points to the "harmony" between man and nature.
Chinese ecological literature began roughly in Taiwan in the 1980s, and since then mainland writers have also begun to write in this area. Xu Gang was originally known as a poet in the literary world, but it was precisely such a poetic writer who wrote his life, becoming an early and concentrated writer on the mainland who reflected the reality of ecological damage in a documentary manner. His "Logger, Wake Up", "The Land of The Sinking Land", "The Legend of the Yangtze River" and his poetic depiction of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau's "Great Landscape" make us deeply feel a poet's condemnation and reflection on the loss of man's "poetic habitat" environment in the process of industrialization.
Since the 1980s, some responsible reportage writers have paid close attention to the crisis reality of China's ecology in the process of modernization and written many shocking wake-up works. In terms of describing the ecology and water crisis of rivers, there are Sha Qing's "Beijing Is Out of Balance", Yue Feiqiu's "There is Only One Yangtze River", Xu Gang's "Rivers Are Not Ancient Streams" and "Biography of the Yangtze River", Zhefu's "River Ecology Report" series, Ma Junjun's "China's Water Crisis", Lu Yuegang's "Three Gorges of the Yangtze River: China's Epic", Chen Guidi's "Warning of the Huai River", and so on. Since the 21st century, Chen Qiwen's "River Series" such as "Up and Down the Great River - The Fate of the Yellow River" and "Lifeline - China Water Conservancy Survey" are neither comprehensive textbooks on China's water system and water conservancy, nor are they literary editions of China National Geographic magazine, but documentary reports with their own unique narrative perspectives. The work takes the investigation of the history of water conservancy construction and its actual situation in China's major water systems as the main line running through the whole text, and is committed to the revelation of the truth. It is necessary to go beyond anthropocentrism to maintain, repair, and ultimately achieve a harmonious ecology between man and nature, including water. To preserve the healthy ecology of water is to preserve the "lifeblood" of human survival and development. With the ultimate concern of modern human beings, that is, the realization of their subjective freedom as the purpose, we think and reflect on the relationship between man and nature in the process of modernization, pay special attention to and alert human society to various deficiencies that are contrary to this purpose in the process of modernization, reflect and criticize the negative effects of industrialization and the rapidly expanding selfish desires in human nature, and guard against and prevent the irrational way of thinking and behavior of human beings. His "China Water Tower" writes about the ecology of Sanjiangyuan in Qinghai, not a tourist guide about Sanjiangyuan, but a highly targeted and in-depth investigation of the ecological status quo of Sanjiangyuan and its crisis, objectively reproducing the shocking reality, and reproducing the awakening of people's awareness of restoration and protection and practical actions, so as to wake up the Chinese people and the world.
Ren Linju is a rising star in ecological non-fiction writing. His "Grain Road" not only created a "new concept" documentary style, but also focused on "food", a major event involving the national economy and people's livelihood, similar to the problem reportage produced in the 1980s. But the narrative of this work is more relaxed- starting from the grain theory, using a multidisciplinary perspective, vividly expounding the "avenue" of "the people take food as the sky", and the complex relationship between the grain road and humanity, the grain road and the country, and the grain road and the world. These accounts confirm the basic purpose of intellectual writing.
For example, Li Qingsong's "Mountain Forest" series - "Republic: Returning Farmland to Forest", "Farewell to the Logging Era", "Wuliang Suhai", "Oil Tea Era", "Grain Full", "Notes on All Things", etc., are the thoughts and feelings of a forestry worker who has been "immersed in the scene" for a long time. As a journalist and editor, Wang Guoping has written works such as "Beautiful Countryside Speaking", "The Weight of a Leaf", and "A Good Big "Forest"" in recent years, reproducing the relationship between "forest and people" from the perspectives of the construction of beautiful villages in Zhejiang, the ecological poverty alleviation of the Anji white tea industry, and the Saihanba forest farm in Hebei.
It should be said that compared with the ecological literature of the United States, China's ecological literature belongs to the latecomers. In the field of fiction and non-fiction, China's outstanding writers have created ecological literature works with great Chinese feelings and world vision. Ecological literature is not a scientific report, but an image writing infiltrated with humanistic care and ultimate care, full of rich "human" worries. Jia Pingwa's novel "Remembering the Wolf" is different from Jiang Rong's novel "Wolf Totem", which borrows the "wolf" to play and mainly talks about the national spirit, in that it clings to ecological problems and focuses on interpreting the relationship between man and ecology. In "Remembering the Wolf", the relationship between the wolf and the person is contradictory. On the one hand, the two are hostile to each other, threatening each other's safety and survival; on the other hand, man and wolf are interdependent, and the former is inseparable from the latter. This is the law of balance in nature's "biological chain". Once the wolf is destroyed, the hunter is physically and mentally exhausted until death. This tells us that man, as an integral part of the earth's organisms, must be the beneficiaries of biodiversity, and that it is impossible for man to destroy all species while living alone. As some scholars have pointed out: "Wolves and people complement each other and depend on each other for their lives, and the end of the tragic fate of wolves is actually the beginning of man's tragic fate." Therefore, "Remembering the Wolf" is thinking about what contemporary ecological literature is concerned about, and its conclusions just confirm the concept of "harmony and difference" ecological humanism. This concept is a reversal and transcendence of the "natural humanism" in the era of agricultural civilization that emphasizes the chaos and absolute identity of man and nature, and the "scientific and technological humanism" in which man and nature are opposed and destroyed in the era of industrial civilization, which confirms that the existence of anything is inseparable from the connection with other things and dependence on the entire system, no species can survive and develop alone, they must use each other, contain each other, compete with each other in the realm of great harmony, and finally achieve their respective goals of existence.