The following is the transcript of a commencement address that I gave at the Nora School in 2015.
First, let me thank you for allowing me to share this wonderful day with you. Let me add to the thanks that are rightfully exchanged today. Thanks to the parents, whose great works are being celebrated today. Thanks to the teachers, whose combination of pride and sadness of the ladder being kicked away I can personally relate to. And thanks to those who make this place, the Nora School, a place where students can grow. There is no more important work than what you do here and no more precious community than what all of you - students, teachers, parents, administrators, staff and friends - have built here. Thanks so much for letting me be a part of it today.
I want to talk to you today about another community that we all belong to. That community was described by one of its founders as “a great experiment.” It’s been more than 200 years, but in a lot of ways, it’s still an experiment. I am, of course, talking about the United States of America. Now before anyone heads for the exits, let me assure you that I am neither headed off into a xenophobic rant or any kind of political diatribe here. I just want to think a little bit about what it means to be part of the American experiment today and what you who are inheriting its leadership can do to help it succeed. Whether you are citizens or not, patriots or not, residents or not, our community welcomes you and we need your help.
When I was a bit younger than you, we had - and lost - an inspirational president who challenged us with the oft-quoted words, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Out of context, these words lack power. When you add the words that precede the famous quote, you see that he is not just talking about casual volunteering, or some kind of “discretionary” effort. He is talking about the life’s blood of the Republic. Just before the famous quote, he says,
“In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility--I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it--and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.”
Kennedy was acutely aware, as all great American leaders have always been aware, that the only way that this great experiment can succeed is through the strength, ingenuity, resourcefulness, independence and passion of an informed electorate committed to actually making it work.
I am asking you today to become that - the generation that transforms American democracy. There is a lot of work to do. First, you need to really study important issues and insist on engaging in open, honest, probing and visionary debate about them. What are the important issues? I can tell you the ones that are important to me; but what really matters is what is important to you and why it’s important. We can easily agree that the ad hominem, sound-byte nonsense that dominates political dialog today is not important. So demand something different. Find and support candidates who bring something different. Talk to your friends and family and get them to demand something different.
I know not all of you are interested in politics and some of you may be so disillusioned by what you see in the politics feed that you just want to #fail it and let others worry about it. Realistically, I can’t expect many of you to really engage directly. I get that. But that doesn’t mean you can’t respond to Kennedy’s challenge. Your example and influence, the choices you make, what you think about and talk about every day - all of these things contribute to defining who we are as a community and what we demand of our leaders.
The “who we are” part is what I want to challenge you to think about today. I am not going to give you answers. I am not going to tell you who to be. I am just going to give you some things to think about. And I want you to keep in mind the basic fact that like it or not, who we choose to be as individuals determines who we can be as a community. To hack JKF, I guess my main point today is “ask not who your country is, ask who you are.”
One of my favorite passages in literature is the beginning of the Platonic dialog, the Protagoras. The dialog starts with a young Athenian, Hippocrates, awakening Socrates before dawn with the urgent request that he come introduce him to Protagoras and get him to agree to take him on as a student. Protagoras is a sophist - an itinerant peddler of what might be called finishing school services for aristocratic Greeks. He promises to teach his students rhetoric and arete (variously translated virtue or excellence). Hippocrates wants desperately to get this training; but he has a hard time answering Socrates’ questions about what exactly he expects to get out of it. At one point, when it has become clear that Hippocrates really has no idea what he is going to learn from Protagoras, Socrates gives him the following warning:
“Knowledge cannot be taken away in a parcel. When you have paid for it, you must receive it straight into your soul. You go away having learned it and are benefited or harmed accordingly.” He is making a very important point here. You don’t get to take knowledge back to the store if it turns you into a person that you don’t want to be. You are what you learn. That’s the first thing that I want you to think about. When you decide what to study, who to listen to, who to work for, who to marry, who to pray with - all of these decisions are going to have irreversible impacts on who you are. And who we are. I will offer you the same simple advice that Socrates gives Hippocrates - when making these decisions talk to - and listen to the opinions of - those who you know and respect.
The second thing that I need you to think about is the influence that you have on others. It’s a little unfair, but everything you do sets an example. In a convoluted but eminently logical statement, Immanuel Kant once said, “Act only on that maxim that you can at the same time will to be a universal law of nature.” This “categorical imperative” is the cornerstone of Kant’s moral philosophy. Often paraphrased as “don’t make an exception of yourself,” what it actually means is more than that: make an example of yourself. Like I said, that is not fair, especially for a young person. But it’s the hand we’re dealt. I remember when I was just a couple of years older than the seniors graduating today, I learned this lesson in a very painful way. I lost a friend and the world lost an amazing human being. I could have been a better example and I could have used my influence to prevent a tragedy. I did not. And I will never forgive myself. Most examples are less dramatic than that, but the older you get, the more you will look back on your life and ask yourself, how were people better for having known me? How were communities better for having included me? We are all individually the products of the examples that others have set for us and we are collectively the result of those that we choose to follow. The waves of social change are formed from little ripples when people decide what is cool, what is acceptable, what is inspiring, what is expected. Little by little, the small things we go along with end up turning into big swells that carry us all along. You may not think of yourself as a trendsetter, a role model or an example to emulate - but like it or not, you are all of these things, all the time. Think about the example you are setting. Think about what you are defining as acceptable, inspiring and expected.
If the first part of your life has been about making sense of the world, it’s now time to start thinking about making sense to the world. Individuality, creativity, spontaneity and adaptivity are all wonderful things that we welcome and need from you. But as a French jazz player once put it to me, you can’t just play “n’importe qua” (just anything). Somehow, just as your experience needs to hang together in a way that allows you to say “I think…” before every perception that you have about the world, so what you do and say needs to make sense to those around you, so they can say, “she thinks…” so they can play along, variously being inspired by and inspiring you. We get the word ‘integrity’ from the same root that gives us ‘integer’ - a unified whole. Something or someone with integrity is first and foremost one thing. A structure that has integrity holds itself together. A person with integrity thinks, feels, speaks and acts with one voice – always the same. Sure, your voice will grow, adapt, and evolve over time. Just bring us along with you and we can all make better sense of the world and make better decisions.
I have asked you to think about three things today - who and what you allow to influence you, the example you set for others and how you can really be one person in the world. I have asked you to do this because how well you do with each of these challenges will determine how well any community that includes you will do. How well you respond will be the difference between a failed experiment and the realization of the great dream shared by every generation before you. This great experiment really can succeed. We really can realize Kennedy’s dream. Like Kennedy himself and every other human who has ever walked this earth, we all have strengths and limitations, proud moments and moments of shame, kind moments and mean-spirited ones. We’re not going to be perfect and we’re certainly not always going to agree. We just need to share the commitment to really think about who we want to be and to try to stay true to that vision. If we hold fast to this commitment, we will see in our Republic what Plato envisioned 2000+ years ago: “Justice writ large” growing from honest, self-critical dialog within and among individuals. We just need to really care about who we are and gently but firmly call each other out when what we are doing just doesn’t make sense.
What I am asking you is very hard. Day-to-day pressures and rewards will often pull in the opposite direction - toward shortsighted, selfish, mindless and retreating actions and habits. You will work with and for people who lack vision and integrity. You will be part of groups that tolerate and even encourage bad behaviors. Groups where what is accepted and expected makes no sense to you. When you see that happening around you, you need to stand up and take risk - calling out the bad behaviors and challenging the group to define itself. The courage that you show in these moments is every bit as important as the courage shown by the bravest soldier in the fiercest firefight. You are both doing the same thing - defending an idea. And we need desperately for you to do that.
Senator John McCain provided an example of this kind of courage on the floor of the Senate last year. He called us out for doing something that did not make sense to him. He said, “In the end, torture’s failure to serve its intended purpose isn’t the main reason to oppose its use. I have often said, and will always maintain, that this question isn’t about our enemies; it’s about us. It’s about who we were, who we are and who we aspire to be. It’s about how we represent ourselves to the world."
He goes on to say, “When we fight to defend our security we fight also for an idea.” The “idea” that McCain refers to is the same idea that motivated George Washington and the other founding fathers to launch the great experiment that is the United States of America. The same idea that Abraham Lincoln hoped could “long endure” and that JFK challenged my generation to defend in its “hour of maximum danger.”
It’s easy to look around us today and see examples of terrible leadership, failed institutions, structural inequity and dysfunctional politics. It’s easy to give up - blaming “bad people” who have somehow co-opted our corporations and political institutions. But those people are us. When you look inside these institutions, you will see people just like you and me - all trying to find their way in the world, all looking to each other for inspiration and approval. These organizations really can be transformed from within. Every leader of every institution today will eventually be replaced by people in your generation. You can, as Mahatma Gandhi so succinctly put it, “be the change you want to see in the world.”
One day, you will stand where I stand today, asking yourself what you are leaving the next generation and asking them to step up and lead. I sincerely hope that you will have the same optimism that I have now. The optimism of an excited scientist who feels like she is on the cusp of a great discovery. The optimism of a proud parent who sees a better future for his children. Better not just economically, but socially and culturally because he envisions them as not just better off than him but better than him and part of a better community.
You can lead us to realize Kennedy’s dream if you step up to the simple challenge that I have laid out for you today: Develop yourself. Set an example. And be who you are. Now, to end with my favorite quote from Plato, “let us be going.” Thank you.