The following post is adapted from Richard C. Levin's Yale Baccalaureate Address, delivered May 19-20, 2012.
I imagine you are finding it difficult to believe that your time here has come to an end. Let me tell you from experience: your memories of Yale College, and the lessons you have learned here, will endure, but you have so many exciting possibilities ahead that the sense of loss you feel today will fade quickly. And think of all that you have accomplished! You have opened for yourselves worlds that you never knew existed when you came here four years ago. You have discovered that you love philosophy, or music, or art history, or archaeological fieldwork, or analyzing economic data or computer images of the stars, or characterizing endophytes you gathered on a field trip to a rain forest, or helping to build a quantum computer. Nearly nine hundred of you spent at least one summer or semester in South America, or Africa, or Asia, or Europe learning a language, doing research, working as an intern, or taking a course led by a Yale professor. You have learned the value of seeing the world and the value of appreciating the differences among its peoples. You have worked hard. You have had fun. You have made friends for a lifetime. And you have come to know yourselves better than before - not only from the books you have read and the courses you have taken, not only from the overseas experiences you have had, but also from your endless discussions with classmates about your beliefs, hopes, and aspirations.
You have also learned something here about responsibility. You have lived in communities - communities formed by your suitemates, your entryway, and your college, as well as in communities defined as singing groups, chamber orchestras, dramatic societies, service organizations, publications, religious organizations, athletic teams, fraternities, sororities, and societies. Living in these communities and making them work has been a big part of your experience. You have learned that as gifted and talented as you are - and you are - it is not all about you. It is all about us. You have learned that making communities productive and a positive experience for all means taking account of the perceptions, feelings, and aspirations of others. Living in some of Yale's many communities has made you a better listener, more respectful of others, and better equipped to serve and to lead in the world beyond these walls.
And what of the world you are entering? There are big communities out there in which you will have roles, and, therefore, responsibilities. We are a global university, and each of you has a nation to which you now have an opportunity to contribute. Problems abound all around the world, and choices of direction are confronting every nation. Europe is debating austerity versus growth. In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, Middle Eastern and North African countries are testing whether democracy can thrive. China is struggling to find a way to distribute the fruits of increased prosperity more equitably, and to diminish the adverse environmental impact of rapid growth. The argument I wish to advance now applies equally to those of you with responsibilities as citizens of countries around the world, but I will focus on the United States, where all of you have chosen to attend school.
Surely you have noticed that there is a Presidential election going on. But it does not seem to have captured the imagination of many of you, as elections have often in the past. Let me suggest why. Perhaps it is because the issues that truly matter for the nation and the world are not at center stage. And there are, for sure, issues that truly matter. How do we create a sustainable foundation for long-run prosperity, with good jobs created in ever-increasing numbers to spread the fruits of growth more equitably across the population? How do we provide high quality and humane health care at a cost we can afford? How do we prevent the continued consumption of fossil fuels from warming our planet to the point that ecosystems are destroyed, food supplies are threatened, and rising sea levels force hundreds of millions to relocate? And, as a nation, how do we engage with a world in which the distribution of power and influence is inevitably becoming more multipolar?
It is not that these issues are being altogether ignored. For example, competing approaches to revitalizing the economy are very much the subject of debate, but the issues are typically broken into unconnected pieces and discussed in terms that reflect oversimplified ideological preferences rather than serious analysis. We talk about whether to increase the debt ceiling as if it were a religious issue, or whether to extend the tax cuts enacted a decade ago as if this were in itself the single question defining the proper role of government in the economy. Meanwhile, we ignore serious deliberation of how to undertake and finance, on a substantial scale, the investments in infrastructure, innovation, education, and training that are of fundamental importance to our future wellbeing.
The issue of climate change seems to have disappeared under the table, buried in an avalanche of know-nothing advocacy that disparages decades of disinterested scientific research. And the implications of a shift in the distribution of power among nations are simply not in the debate chamber. Instead, we talk of securing a new American Century, as if continued global dominance were a national objective. I do believe that America can prosper and lead in the 21st century. But the global landscape today is far different than it was in 1945, when World War II ended, or 1989, when the Cold War ended. We should be talking about how we might work effectively with other nations in the context of more widely shared power and responsibility.
I was poignantly reminded of the poverty of our current political discourse when, a couple of weeks ago, Professor Steven Smith, who recently stepped down as master of Branford College, gave me a copy of his new edition of The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, published by the Yale University Press.[i]
How utterly refreshing it is to read Lincoln's beautifully written, closely argued speeches and letters that grapple directly, deeply, and forcefully with the issues of his time. Of course, Lincoln's main preoccupation was with the subject of slavery, and he addresses that issue with a rigor and depth of argument that is simply unknown in American political discourse today. But he also touched brilliantly on other subjects of more direct relevance to our current situation. In a speech given in Milwaukee to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Association in September 1859, Lincoln addressed the full range of issues associated with deriving maximum social benefit from the development of what was then the nation's most significant natural resource - its fertile and abundant agricultural land.[ii] Like so many of Lincoln's speeches, it is remarkable for displaying an extraordinary mastery of his subject matter. His discussion focused on the need for continued innovation as a means to greater productivity and prosperity. To enable such innovation, he stressed the importance of infrastructure in the form of access to adequate supplies of water, and he especially emphasized the need for education. Farmers, said Lincoln, need not only to be literate, but also to have a working knowledge of botany, chemistry, and the mechanical arts.
One might have thought that Lincoln's vision of increasing prosperity through investment in innovation, infrastructure, and education might have been set aside in the face of the overwhelming priority of civil war that confronted him within six weeks of taking office. But, no, within a period of two years, working with Congress, Lincoln was able to enact legislation authorizing a transcontinental railroad, the Homestead Act enabling the establishment of farms across the western territories, and the Morrill Act granting land for the establishment of colleges to teach agriculture and the mechanical arts, colleges that subsequently became our treasured state universities.[iii] These public investments were the foundation of late 19th century America's prosperity.
We need to make such investments again today. We need to repair our crumbling physical infrastructure: our highways, ports, railroads, and airports, as well as waste and water management, traffic control, and communications systems. To make possible the flow of innovations upon which our economy depends, we need to maintain our commitment to investing in science. And to equip our citizens with the skills required to be productive and competitive in a modern, technology-enabled workplace, we need to make large and well-directed investments in both basic K-12 education and in specialized technical training. The gap in earnings between the highly educated and the poorly educated has grown dramatically in the last three decades, and the earnings of those without a college education have not kept up with inflation. Educating our workforce is the most effective way to prevent rising income disparity.
Tomorrow (Monday morning), I will confer upon you the degrees in Yale College as recommended by your Dean, and I will at that moment "admit you to all their rights and responsibilities." Not "rights and privileges," which is the language used at most of our peer institutions. You have already had the privilege of an extraordinary education. Now, you will assume the responsibilities that are entailed by that privilege.
By using the powers of reason and expression you developed here at Yale, by drawing upon your wide exposure to many disciplines and forms of discourse, each one of you has the capacity to make a difference in the quest to build a better world, for yourselves and for future generations. You can start by engaging in the public debate about the investments needed to secure our future and the perspective needed to operate effectively in a multipolar world. You can bring rigor and seriousness to the political dialogue, and insist that others do so as well by rejecting the superficial ideological slogans that are no substitute for true argument. And you can engage more directly in repairing the world through the career paths you choose and the organizations you join and support. I am not saying that you all need to take up public service or teach school, although I hope and trust that some of you will. Instead, I am urging you to engage with the future by helping to raise the sights of your communities, as Yale graduates traditionally have, and not confine your activity merely to the private pursuit of health, wealth, and happiness.
This is where I started, by reminding you that Yale is not merely a place that enabled you to define and transform yourselves as individuals. It has been for each of you a network of many communities in which you were expected to participate and to which you were expected to contribute. The world outside is no different. We need you to engage, to consider the wellbeing of others as well as yourselves: we need you to take responsibility.
Lincoln closed his Wisconsin speech with a memorable passage, inspiring his audience in his inimitable and graceful prose not to accept the world passively, but to work actively toward its betterment. He said:
Let us hope ... that by the best cultivation of the physical world, beneath and around us; and the intellectual and moral world within us, we shall secure an individual, social, and political prosperity and happiness, whose course shall be onward and upward, and which, while the earth endures, shall not pass away.[iv]
Women and men of the Yale College Class of 2012:
Congratulations! Your accomplishments, inside and outside the classroom, have earned our heartfelt praise and admiration. You have expanded your own horizons, and you have sustained and improved the life of Yale's many communities. Now is the time to build flourishing lives for yourselves, and also to strive for the betterment of your communities - local, professional, national, and global. Help these communities cultivate the world around us and the worlds within us. Take inspiration from Lincoln and from your own experiences here at Yale, and make your course, and the course of those without the privileges accorded to you, onward and upward.
[i] Steven B. Smith, ed., The Writings of Abraham Lincoln. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012.
[ii] Abraham Lincoln, "Address to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society," September 20, 1858, in Smith, op. cit., pp. 268-78.
[iii] Lincoln also presided over legislation that protected the Yosemite Valley from development and ensured public access for recreational purposes.
[iv] Lincoln, op. cit., p. 278.
No actually climate change has disappeared because the solution of smaller cars and more solar panels isn't a viable solution . . . that's basically where we're at.
The prosperity of late 19th century America came as a result of productivity, savings and investment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Industrial_Revolution
We have shifted from producing and investing to consuming and borrowing. We have left ourselves in no position to make any such grand public investments, however desperately needed, having frittered away our private wealth on overconsumption and our public wealth on guns and butter.
It's far too little, far too late to believe that these problems can be solved with math formulas and quaint quotes from a distant and significantly disparate era.
Chomsky advised the engagement of intellectuals as responsible brokers for decades ad nauseam. The academic elite spent their time and efforts perfecting intellectual dishonesty and preserving the status-quo.
Western Civilization had a chance to correct the course, and it's brokers failed - call it corruption, ignorance, malice, intellectual inadequacy - whatever. What's important is when the dust settles from
the uprisings, crumbling of empire and nature's wrath, new civilizations will rise and rule the planet.
Pretty exciting, actually.
"Dear Yale Graduates. If you are not a graduate of the Business School with family connections in Wall Street, you are royally screwed. Best accept it now and move on in life. I hear that the Chinese are hiring, I hope your minor is in Mandarin Language Studies, if not. Oooof. Well, just remember, I get paid the big bucks no matter what happens to you. Have fun paying off those loans working as a part-time Barista. See ya. suckers!"
If every citizen of the United States did one simple chore, our problems would begin to resolve themselves. Let each citizen simply sat down with a piece of paper and a pencil and list their rights in one column, and their responsibilities in another column. This is where any actual solution begins.
What this challenge requires is a response on two fronts. First, Congress will have to fundamentally overhaul the tax code. This means possibly doubling the the top income rate, adding several new tax brackets along with across the board increases based on the ability to pay. Certain services will have to be nationalized, such as health insurance, education and retirement.
The second part involves making the private sector work again. Collective bargaining needs to be bolstered, which will require not just EFCA, but repealing Taft-Hartley definitively. The minimum wage needs to be raised. Finance will have to be restricted to traditional banking activities.
There's no other way to do this. Corporate America is unwilling to invest their $2 trillion in reserves in meaningful job creation. And since markets tend to prefer, easy short term profits, they're unlikely to invest in long term priorities.
Reviving the economy is going to require a rethinking of our economic model. Period.
The stupidity of hating unions and them employing communists is lost on these self centered 'capitalists' , 2 trillion!!!
That discourages a lot of the short-term investing and encourages investments in building long-term companies not flipping them for quick gains.
Levin supports Israeli terrorism so we would naturally skip over the apartheid that begun in 1948 of Palestine and how his brethren has taken all but 15% of the Land with WMD's.