'Reflect not on what you
have learned but on how you have learned it'
This is
the prepared text of the Class Day speech by Condoleezza
Rice, University provost, to seniors and their families
and friends on June 12.
Good morning
and congratulations to the Class of 1999. I especially
want to welcome your parents and your friends who have
been a source of support to you throughout your time
here. I want to acknowledge other people who have made it
possible for you to enjoy the benefits of a Stanford
education -- the thousands of alumni and friends of
Stanford who sustain this university with their
generosity so that generation after generation can enjoy
the opportunity to study here.
I hope that as you leave
that you will not forget your obligation to now join in
on behalf of your alma mater, so that years from now the
benefit of a Stanford education will still be there for
all, regardless of means.
Related
Information:
I want to talk with you
today about another kind of obligation -- the obligation
of an educated person to live one's life in a way that
contributes to the common good.
As you go through this
weekend, I want to ask you to think hard about your own
role in the hard work before the human race and how the
time here may have changed the way that you will go about
fulfilling your obligation to make a difference. I ask
you to reflect not on the specifics of what you have
learned but on how you have learned it.
You have been afforded the
privilege of exploring the full range of the state of
human knowledge -- you have had the luxury of finding out
about yourself. You have tried new things -- succeeded at
some and perhaps failed at others. But this has been a
protected place to develop, learn and grow. Because you
have been so lucky, try to remember that your education
was a privilege, not a right. There are those who were as
smart, as capable, who never got to this place. Today,
when there is so much talk about how to fill the ranks of
colleges and universities, who deserves to be here and
who does not, try to remember that even you were not
admitted to Stanford for what you had already achieved.
You were chosen because of your potential to contribute
from here on.
That will firmly ground
you to think about perhaps the most important way in
which you have been transformed -- you have been
transformed by those with whom you have worked and with
whom you have shared this journey. Reflect on them -- the
common experiences that you have had -- and how those
common experiences have overcome the differences that
seem so important -- differences in talent, in
background, in racial and ethnic identity, in creed. You
have had a small window on perhaps the greatest challenge
before us as human beings -- finding a way that people
who are different can live together in peace and move
forward together.
The dream of multiethnic
democracy -- one out of many -- is not easy to realize.
Here in the United States it has been hard to make it
work. This multiethnic democracy is imperfect -- it was
imperfect at its birth. When the founding fathers said,
"We the people," they did not mean me. To them,
my ancestors were property, three-fifths of a man. But
therein lies the lesson. Democracy is a work in progress.
Today we struggle with Jasper, Texas, in the news and
hate mail at home. But step by step -- little by little
-- we are finding a way to make "we the people"
a more inclusive concept.
This is, I believe, the
greatest challenge that we, the human race, faces in the
century to come: building multiethnic democracies that
work -- finding a way to treat each other at the same
time more humanely and more honestly.
In order to do that, there
are several steps that we must take. First, we need to
realize that identity and history are double-edged
swords. On the one hand, what it is to be human is to
have a memory of a past and expectations for the future.
One who is not grounded in his own culture is most
assuredly lost. Identity and cultural connection are as
important to your humanness as individual development.
But when that history
becomes tinged with victimization, the dangers are many.
Today, everyone is angry about something that has been
done to them, something that they have been denied. Every
group, every nation, every ethnic group seems caught up
in "Why me?" -- holding on to the old wounds to
find the moral high ground of victimization and
suffering. To the degree that I have suffered more than
you have, my demands and my interests take precedence
over yours.
This is dangerous
business. In Kosovo today, Slobodan Milosevic has found a
way to stir the embers of victimization 600 years old. We
marvel at that, but we in our own ways sometimes use the
club of historical injury to stop the conversation and
win the argument. It is true that those who forget
history are doomed to repeat it. But it is also the case
that those who use history in this way are bound to
re-live it.
Second, we need a more
inclusive notion of culture and identity -- one that does
not make culture a barrier, where the price of admission
is origin and blood. I am one who believes that cultures
can be adopted. My own culture as an African American
Southerner is enormously important to me, but it is also
true that I have never felt more at home -- more
fulfilled -- than in my adopted culture that is Russia.
To be multicultural is not just to have many cultures
represented within an institution -- it is to recognize
that individuals can be and often are multicultural
themselves. In some sense, multiculturality is at its
best when it is within each and every one of us.
Third, we need to find
forms of governance that permit people of different
races, ethnic backgrounds and creeds to live together and
push toward a common goal. I know that the American
concept of citizenship is not universally shared. But it
does have its advantages. That you can be American not by
virtue of blood but by acceptance of a set of values and
beliefs is so much the story of this country's success.
And it is a model that is spreading -- delinking
citizenship and territory and ethnicity. Even in Germany,
a country for which the iron link between blood and
nation has caused so many woes, universal citizenship is
finally coming into being.
Often it is pointed out
that this is not natural. But I ask you, what is the
alternative? If every group must rule itself, there is no
end to the chaos that self-determination will bring as
borders are drawn and redrawn. And there is hope that it
is perhaps not so impossible after all. There is much to
focus on in Yugoslavia, but in Ukraine and the Baltics,
Russians live in peace. Hungary and Romania -- Bulgarians
and Turks -- and remarkably in South Africa, where the
wounds are very deep -- multiethnic democracy, though
still very young, seems to have a chance.
To be sure, it will be
hard. And it cannot be done at gunpoint. Occasionally in
egregious circumstances, military might may right the
balance. But military power will never be the answer to
the hatred and fear and the more subtle forms of
exclusion that we confront.
Now, what does this have
to do with you? It has a great deal to do with who you
are and how I hope you will live. You have been fortunate
to be in a place where you have lived and worked,
prospered and struggled with people who are different
than you are, and you know the challenge of that: wanting
not to offend, you fail to be candid and open. Wanting to
be sympathetic to historical oppression of a group, you
unintentionally patronize the individual. Wanting not to
make a mistake and confirm some stereotype about who you
are, you pull away instead and stay with those who
"look like you."
The next time you marvel
at how hard it is for those people to get along -- at the
hatred between the Serbs and the Albanians, or the Tutsi
and the Hutu -- ask yourself what you have done to cross
cultural lines.
Do you hold to the notion
that you must find role models only in people who look
like you, or that you can be a role model only for your
own? Do you want to help them or do you really believe
that they can help you too? Are you really committed to
living in accordance with all that you say about the
value of diversity -- are you just tolerant of them, or
are they among your friends? You can cross cultural lines
through music and art and literature -- did you look at
the faces of Talisman and Taiko today? But you can also
cross those lines by just extending a hand to make a new
friend.
This is a long and tough
struggle for the human race. The desire to be different
-- and the propensity to make difference a license to
kill -- is a very old story. But if we are going to move
forward, if we are going to get better, we humans -- we
are going to have to change this one part of us.
Because of the experiences
you have had here, I hope that you will accept some of
the responsibility and obligation to live -- really live
-- not just speak in ways that show that your educational
experiences have transformed you on this score. And in
doing so -- person by person -- you can set an example of
how we should really live together, so that we do not
tear each other apart. SR
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