深切期許
2012 年部份內容 (註 1)
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? ...
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.3 These public investments were the foundation of late 19th century America’s prosperity. ...
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. ...
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.
更多的演講內容
(註 1) Richard C. Levin, Baccalaureate Address: Taking Responsibility, May 20, 2012
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