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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，在一夜之间，世界被压缩在一起。原先那些因偏僻而感到安全的边远地区突然间都挤到同一个舞台上来。一种新型教育，一种能让我们从部落意识中解放出来的教育，立刻变得很有必要。因为部落意识从远古时代一直延续至今，尽管形式上进行了改良。这种新型教育必须要教会人类最难的课程：在看到世界上任何地方的人时，都能看到自己的影子。它必须是关于自我认识的教育。那种传统的重视表面差异的教育必须让位于强调共性、强调人类社会公民的新型教育。
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.
在这样的教育中，我们首先应该认识到宇宙中生命的宝贵性。在太空里的数以百万计的星系和太阳系中，生命是稀有的事物。在我们这个太阳系中，也只有一个星球上有生命。而在这个星球上，生命的形式千差万别。在这些无数的生命形式中，只有一种，就是我们人类，拥有某些综合能力，这些能力赋予了我们高于其他任何生命的最高等的优势。在这些能力和天赋中，有一种创造性的智慧，它使人类能够反思过去，预测未来，能够吸取过去的经验教训，预见未来的需求。另外还有许多神奇的能力，我们尚不能明白它们是怎么起作用的——比如希望、良知、审美、亲情、爱及忠诚。
