公民日記：戰爭世代、科學世代、藝術世代 Civic Diary: the War Generation, the Science Generation, and the Art Generation

Steps to Civilization Cliff / 通往文明斷崖的階梯

年初的時候寫在鎖朋友文的東西，為了方便讓人引用，也貼到部落格來。

I've written a private post early in this year. I'm posting it here too so people can quote the content conveniently.

美國開國元勳之一 John Adams 格言：

John Adams, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, used to say:

我必須修習政治學與戰爭學，我們的後代才能擁有修習數學、哲學的自由；我們的後代必須修習數學、哲學、地理學、博物學、造船學、航海學、商學及農學，他們的後代才有學習繪畫、詩歌、音樂、建築、雕刻、繡織和瓷藝的權利。

I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.

― John Adams, Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife

個人覺得最後面，應該要再加上一句：

Personally, I would like to append some more words:

如果後代醉心於哲學、藝術，而遺忘了我們這一代所學過的政治學與戰爭學，那他們的後代就必需重新開始做我們這一代的事。

If their children forget about the politics and war we've learned, then the next generation will need to start over.

最近的感慨：

Some thoughts recently:

開源烏托邦的理想，是屬於藝術世代的浪漫；而我們目前面對的，是戰爭世代的問題。

The open source utopian is the romance belongs to the art generation. However, the problems we are dealing with right now, belong to the war generation.

以上，寫給 五年前的自己 。
For the old version of me 5 years ago.