Princeton Weekly Bulletin June 7, 1999
Finding Common Ground
Commencement address by President Harold Shapiro, delivered June 1
Commencement is always a special moment, not only for the graduating students but for their families, their friends, their teachers and all those who have nurtured and assisted them.
This year, however, Commencement is being held at quite an extraordinary moment, because we meet together on Princeton's historic front campus as the 20th century draws to an end and the new millennium approaches. It is an opportune occasion, therefore, to pause -- and ponder the human experience of the last century and contemplate what we may do, both individually and together, to forge our future.
Looking back at our history and forward toward our common destiny can be an occasion for raising our goals and aspirations and setting out to construct an even better world. This turn of the century transition, therefore, should be a time of thoughtful social and cultural innovation. I would like to take advantage of this special time of passage to reflect briefly on some facets of the century that is about to become history and to consider some of my own expectations and hopes for the epochs ahead.
On the one hand, I believe that the century we are about to leave can be characterized as one of extraordinary accomplishment and brilliant, indeed unprecedented, inventiveness across a wide range of human endeavors. One hundred years ago, not even the most imaginative and farsighted members of the Princeton Class of 1899 could have foreseen such fantastic developments as we have lived through in the 20th century. A kaleidoscope of empires, social and political movements, and new technologies whirled past us through the decades.
While the 20th century has manifested an extraordinary inventiveness in art, in music and in literature, giving us rich new ways to represent and reflect on life's experiences, for many of us it is the march of science and technology that had the most overwhelming impact on our lives. As we unraveled the mysteries of the natural world, one scientific frontier after another was conquered and one after another astounding new technologies appeared. Previously dreaded diseases were banished, and the material well-being of the peoples of some nations reached previously unimaginable heights. By unlocking the secrets of the cell, the atom and the properties of silicon, and through the development of scholarship across a wide array of areas we have opened up a vast new matrix of possibilities for humankind.
On the other hand, the 20th century also brought us disappointments, for we bore witness to the continuing fragility of human empathy and kindness. Our spectacular progress in scientific understanding was not accompanied by a sufficiently improved understanding of what is just, what is fair and what is good, or how to take other people's interests into account when we act. We showed much less inventiveness in finding ways to live together more peacefully, to share our resources more equitably, or to define moral and ethical values that would enable thoughtful people of all cultures to treat each other with understanding and dignity. In the midst of so much human creativity and achievement, we witnessed senseless cruelty, irrational hatred, insidious oppression and armed conflict -- much of it ironically and, for me, unforgettably -- carried out in the name of one type of utopia or another.
In addition, we can see more clearly now that the spectacular speed of scientific and technological advance in the 20th century has presented challenge after challenge to long established and even revered customs. Often, in our eagerness to swiftly incorporate the genuine advantages of new technology, we may have too hastily put aside both many traditional ways of doing things and a host of accepted social and cultural norms governing our relationships with each other.
It seems that the avant garde was constantly with us -- always challenging established cultural commitments. This constant questioning of existing cultural authority and beliefs, and the unintended consequences of so many new initiatives, often made us somewhat apprehensive and anxious. As a result, frequently we were unsure whether we preferred the new solution or the old problem.
In any case, one of the most common 20th century experiences we all share is that we have grown up in a world dominated by novelty. Never before has a society been so mesmerized by speed and by change. I fear that this has caused us to lose the distinction between superficial or shallow changes and thoughtful transformations and to substitute mere movement for a sense of direction. It might be better if we concerned ourselves more with where we are heading than the speed with which we are moving.
It was Emerson who noted that in skating over thin ice our safety was in our speed. Perhaps in our increasingly interdependent world our penchant for speed reflects our uncertainty regarding whether the values we share can support the structure of the modern life that is emerging or whether in this respect we ourselves are skating on thin ice!
I turn now to the matter of what we might expect and what we should hope for in the 21st century. In this respect I want to limit myself to making two interrelated points. The first point is that many of the important challenges of the 21st century will continue to require the careful articulation of the available options, the exercise of thoughtful judgment and the courage to act in an uncertain world. There will continue to be no substitute for thoughtful judgments and courageous actions that are motivated by a desire to help us all more fully realize our human potential.
My second and closely related point concerns the increasing urgency I feel to reach out to people everywhere who are willing to engage in thoughtful discourse aimed at understanding and helping each other meet basic human needs. I do not aspire to one government or one way of doing things. Rather, what I hope for is a thoughtful exchange of ideas and approaches whose mutual interaction would allow us all to build better communities and meet human needs that we all share.
The 21st century, therefore, will be one in which it will be critical for all of you to contribute your judgment and your energy to helping us decide where we should focus our efforts. In those countries, like America, that enjoy the freedoms of a liberal democracy, we have many mechanisms available to bring our individual voices to the debate on how to shape both our individual lives and national objectives. This opportunity is our most precious cultural inheritance, and each of us must grasp the potential it provides to contribute to the ongoing search for values and ethics and for social and cultural arrangements, whether ancient or modern, that would enable everyone better to realize the full potential of his or her own humanity.
As graduates of this University, you are a very privileged group. You have earned this privilege, and it will provide you with many opportunities for yourselves, but it also requires serious responsibilities for others. It will be your special obligation, therefore, to join with other thoughtful young people to consider both the achievements and
the failures that are part of your broader cultural inheritance and to find the pathways that will move us all toward a more humane society as the 21st century unfolds. While much of the detailed terrain of your generation's future remains partially hidden beyond the horizon of the currently knowable, you can shape important parts of its contours, and this is both your great opportunity and your deep responsibility.
Although there is much about the next century that is difficult to predict, we can safely assume that science will continue to develop at a dizzying pace, creating new possibilities for us all. We can also reliably predict that the 21st century not only will present new issues to deal with but will inherit older problems with which humankind has been struggling throughout recorded history. I can predict without fear of contradiction that many of these older issues will not be resolved by one more scientific discovery. They will instead require each of you both to think deeply and carefully about the ethical boundaries that should govern our common life and to exercise your judgment when difficult and even tragic choices present themselves.
For example, each of today's graduates will have to think about the balance we should build between our own material welfare and the needs of those less fortunate than ourselves, and the balance between our concern for our families and our concern about the broader communities of which we are members. You will have to puzzle, for example, as many of us have, over our failure to mobilize the truly exciting scientific findings of recent years to protect and nourish all of our children. The sad fact is that although science has revealed how the lack of nourishment and support for children limits their physiological, cognitive and social development, we have not yet mobilized the moral commitment to ensure that all children have a reasonable opportunity to flourish.
These are complex and difficult issues with important moral dimensions, but as the 21st century unfolds we must do a better job of ensuring that as many people as possible have a stake in our common future. Therefore, it is more critical than ever to work with others to broaden the base of
our moral and ethical concerns to include larger numbers of people both at home and abroad. I am convinced it is time to rededicate ourselves to ensuring that as many others as possible can share in the aspirations we claim for ourselves and for our children. I believe that the same technology that does so much to "shrink" the world gives us an urgent moral task. It requires us to reach out to all those willing to engage in a thoughtful discourse regarding how together we can build a world designed to fulfill the human needs and aspirations that we share.
In our efforts to establish such thoughtful and mutually empathetic conversations with others we must always reject any type of aggressive moral imperialism in favor of the strategy of building two-way bridges across which ideas and moral commitments can flow both ways. Successful bridge builders expect that the impact of their efforts will be to change those on both sides of their new construction.
To paraphrase Justice Holmes's remark, once we are stretched by a new idea we never return to our original shape. The bonds that we hope to build, therefore, would be ones of mutual affection, mutual respect and mutual responsibility for each other. I am confident that today's graduates are well prepared to respond to such issues and to develop other positive and humane ways of both meeting our older challenges and directing our new knowledge to its most redeeming human use. In just a few moments, you will leave this historic green, and in keeping with our tradition, you will start your own journeys by walking out through FitzRandolph Gateway as alumni of Princeton University.
I hope your years here -- and your teachers, your classmates, your hours in the library and laboratory, your moments of fellowship on and off the athletic field and of solitary reflection -- have given each of you the capacity, the confidence and the courage you will need for your journey. As you leave, I urge you to recall Adlai Stevenson's advice 45 years ago to the senior Class of 1954: "When you leave here, remember why you came." As for my own words, may you draw from the spirit of those who have gone before you, and may your lives inspire those who come after you. May each of you find your own way to be "In the Nation's Service and In the Service of All Nations."