評論
打印
Then overnight came the great compression. Far-flung areas which had been secure in their remoteness suddenly became crowded together in a single arena. And all at once a new type of education became necessary, an education in liberation from tribalism. For tribalism had persisted from earliest times, though it had taken refined forms. The new education had to teach man the most difficult lesson of all: to look at someone anywhere in the world and be able to recognize the image of himself. It had to be an education in self-recognition. The old emphasis upon superficial differences had to give way to education for mutuality and for citizenship in the human community.
然后，在一夜之間，世界被壓縮在一起。原先那些因偏僻而感到安全的邊遠地區突然間都擠到同一個舞臺上來。一種新型教育，一種能讓我們從部落意識中解放出來的教育，立刻變得很有必要。因為部落意識從遠古時代一直延續至今，盡管形式上進行了改良。這種新型教育必須要教會人類最難的課程：在看到世界上任何地方的人時，都能看到自己的影子。它必須是關于自我認識的教育。那種傳統的重視表面差異的教育必須讓位于強調共性、強調人類社會公民的新型教育。
In such an education we begin with the fact that the universe itself does not hold life cheaply. Life is a rare occurrence among the millions of galaxies and solar systems that occupy space. And in this particular solar system life occurs on only one planet. And on that one planet life takes millions of forms. Of all these countless forms of life, only one, the human species, possesses certain faculties in combination that give it supreme advantages over all the others. Among those faculties or gifts is a creative intelligence that enables man to reflect and foresee, to take in past experience, and also to visualize future needs. There are endless other wonderful faculties, the workings of which are not yet within our understanding—the faculties of hope, conscience, appreciation of beauty, kinship, love, faith.
在這樣的教育中，我們首先應該認識到宇宙中生命的寶貴性。在太空里的數以百萬計的星系和太陽系中，生命是稀有的事物。在我們這個太陽系中，也只有一個星球上有生命。而在這個星球上，生命的形式千差萬別。在這些無數的生命形式中，只有一種，就是我們人類，擁有某些綜合能力，這些能力賦予了我們高于其他任何生命的最高等的優勢。在這些能力和天賦中，有一種創造性的智慧，它使人類能夠反思過去，預測未來，能夠吸取過去的經驗教訓，預見未來的需求。另外還有許多神奇的能力，我們尚不能明白它們是怎么起作用的——比如希望、良知、審美、親情、愛及忠誠。
