Thursday, May 25, 2000 Remarks by
William R. Brody, President
The Johns Hopkins University Good morning. To our honorary degree recipients, new members of the
Society of Scholars, to our Trustees and alumni, faculty
and staff, to our parents, family members and friends, but
most of all, to our brand new graduates, I offer greetings
on behalf of all of Johns Hopkins University. Recently, I had an opportunity to talk with the president
of a renowned research university who is retiring after
many years of celebrated achievement. Since I was anxious
to know the reasons for his great success, I asked him a
number of questions, finishing with what I considered to be
the toughest question of them all: What is the right length
for a commencement address? Without pausing for a second, he answered "Eleven minutes." I said, eleven minutes — how did you come up with that? He said, it needs to be long enough for people to think
they got their money's worth. But not so long that they
have to pay attention to what you're saying. Thus suitably humbled, I will try to respect the wisdom of
his advice. In the next nine minutes and thirty seconds. An interesting tidbit from a recent survey done by the
Barna Research Group: fully a tenth of Christians and 14
percent of non-Christians report seeking their spiritual
solace over the Internet. And while only 4 percent of
teenagers currently turn to the World Wide Web for
religious or spiritual guidance, more than 15 percent of
teens polled said they expect that the Internet will take
the place of their current church-based religious
experience in the next five years. Consider the implications in terms of national events. In
the past week we've seen pictures and news stories of
families whose homes have been entirely destroyed in an
out-of-control fire near Los Alamos, New Mexico. Over the
years, a certain ritual of activities has come to surround
such natural and man-made disasters, whether it's a fire in
the Southwest, a hurricane along the Eastern Seaboard, or a
California mudslide. For many of these disasters, a sophisticated system of
weather forecasting, data tracking and alert civil defense
authorities prevents a wide scale loss of life. Warnings
are sounded, evacuations ordered, and soon we see the
familiar spectacle of entire families, with some few of
their possessions loaded into the family car, camping for
days or even weeks in the gymnasium of the local high
school. Eventually the danger passes and the families are allowed
to go back. Some are lucky and escape unscathed. But some
go back to scenes of utter desolation, like the Los Alamos
residents who have nothing left but a lone chimney and the
cinders of a lifetime of photographs, family heirlooms,
dreams, hopes and memories. This is the difficult part of the public ritual of
disaster, the moment of tears and disbelief and often,
despair. But among the rubble of ruined lives there is
always a small glimmer of hope. Often, it comes in the form
of the ubiquitous Red Cross volunteer, the man or
woman — usually a total stranger — who is on the scene with
a cup of coffee and a sandwich, with donated clothing and
temporary housing vouchers. It's the person who reaches out
and touches the victims of catastrophe in the most
meaningful way possible. This is reaching out and touching, not with a long distance
phone call, as we have so often been told is the way it's
done, but in person, with hands and hearts, and sometimes,
hugs. In an era when we are told we must "get connected" or
perish, these are some of the most connected people on
earth. And yet they do it without T1 connections, without
ISDN, without VGA super graphics. Another tidbit to consider: all across American one of the
greatest challenges facing the community service
organizations has been a steady and continuing decline in
the number of available volunteers. More and more often,
when a major disaster strikes, it is nearly impossible to
find available disaster relief volunteers. At the turn of the new century, we are wired, we are
communicating, we are in some sense connected as never
before. But the connections between us that are most
meaningful, the everyday face-to-face human interactions
that are the basis of community, have unmistakably eroded.
How can a person with a pager, a cell phone and an e-mail
address possibly feel isolated? It doesn't seem to make
sense. On the other hand, how can she or he avoid feeling like
anything more than a bumper in a pinball game, lighting up
for that brief nerve-jangling second when struck, but then
just as quickly returning to the bump and jostle of
everyday existence, where meaning is measured only by the
highest score, or the longest game played. I don't know
about you, but if I get jostled much more, my "tilt" light
is about to be permanently illuminated. Alan Marcus, history professor at the University of Iowa,
suggests that our current state of disconnectedness is not
the result of new technology. Computers and cell phones and
the Internet are not the reasons we are losing community;
rather, they are simply the means to that end, the tools
that enable us to effect our isolation. We have home offices not because faxes and phone lines
enable us to do so, but because we want to work at home. We
shop on the Internet because we'd rather be in cyberspace
than human space, standing in line or confronting an
unhelpful salesperson. It's all about increasing our
autonomy and reducing our dependence on others, says
Professor Marcus, a preference for temporary associations
renegotiated periodically — or even daily — as opposed to
long-term relationships requiring patience and compromise
and work. Consider employment in the twenty first century. Or
marriage. What was once thought to be perpetual, enduring
and permanent, has become transitory, ephemeral and
all-too-often, short-lived. We plug in. We get connected.
But just as quickly and just as easily, we seem ready to
pull the plug. Perhaps this is the appeal of religion over
the Internet. If moral strictures become too confining and
personal obligation too onerous, the next Messiah may be
only a mouse click away. Hopkins Anthropology Professor Sidney Mintz has cited the
fast food restaurant as yet another symbol of our society's
interest in fostering autonomous behavior. Fifty years ago,
a family not only had to eat together, the menu was the
same for each family member. Not so with McDonalds, where
junior can have a Big Mac, Mom a salad, and Dad a chicken
fajita. Eat and run; or perhaps, eat while running. Impermanence is the legacy of this new hyper culture, a
society in which, we are oppressed by urgency. As more than
one social critic has decried, we are witnessing the death
of permanence. Or are we? Charles Handy, in his book, The Age of Unreason,
notes the typical marriage in America today lasts about 15
years and ends in divorce. But, he goes on to point out,
the typical Victorian marriage, which usually ended with
the death of one partner, lasted about, you guessed it, 15
years. Which of the two was more permanent? One hundred and seventy years ago, de Tocqueville noted
that personal autonomy was an American preoccupation. "The
Americans are wont carefully to separate into small
distinct circles," he wrote, "in order to indulge
themselves the enjoyments of private life." In fact, so
pronounced was this tendency that de Tocqueville coined a
new word — individualism — that he defined as the feeling
"which disposes each member of the community to sever
himself from the mass of his fellow-creatures, and to draw
apart with his family and friends." From de Tocqueville's perspective, individualism was a good
thing, the inevitable consequence of democracy. In Europe,
associations were of necessity made by class, which
provided a permanent and inescapable network of peers. In a
democracy, where each person considers herself no more or
less worthy than any other, associations are made by
choice, not birth. And so to some extent the need to
withdraw from the civic sphere, to nurture "unum" at
the expense of "pluribus," has a sound basis in
practical reality. If your friends and associates are not
chosen for you, then you have to pick them yourself. But even though de Tocqueville felt that the advent of
democracy was "universal and irresistible," he was
observant enough to recognize that not all its features
were equally laudable. Withdrawal into the private sphere
is commendable only insofar as it nurtures self-reliance,
integrity and humility. When it instead becomes an
incubator of narcissism, contempt and self-aggrandizement,
then it quickly threatens not only the individual, but the
society comprising such individuals as well. Is this the path we are following? And in particular, have
the highly educated, the wealthy and successful, opted out
of civic life? The symbol of this new disconnection is the
gated community, an enclave of the highly affluent who seem
to have shut themselves off from all others less fortunate
than themselves. In the words of former Labor Secretary
Robert Reich, we are witnessing "the succession of the
successful" from civic responsibility. We cannot treat this accusation lightly, for we know it is
we who are being discussed. This is about the graduates of
a prestigious university like Johns Hopkins. You will earn
more, accomplish more, and have more opportunities in the
years ahead than the great majority of your fellow
citizens. The question I ask you to ponder today is, will
you give more as well? Will the privileges afforded by your
education at an elite institution, by being counted the
best of the best, become an opportunity for taking or for
giving? For avoiding or embracing? Despite our prosperity, in the face of this new economy,
there is still unconscionable poverty. There is want amidst
plenty; need crying in the shadows of extravagance. This is
the world you face. I have no doubt you will be wired, you will be plugged in,
you will be Internet accessible at almost every waking
moment. But will you be truly connected? In the years
ahead, there will be more fires like the one at Los Alamos,
more hurricanes and floods and other natural disasters. But
will there continue to be strangers there the next day,
offering a sandwich, and a cup of coffee, and most
importantly, the touch of another human hand? I hope so. I think so. And my fondest wish is that you will
be among them. Godspeed graduates, and may all of you fare
well on the journey ahead. Thank you. |
