I read a story recently about a female academic from a European university who chose to settle down in America. When asked why, she explained that, in France, as a woman and a junior researcher, she wasn’t encouraged to push her ideas and to challenge her senior faculty. So she was moving to America — from another very rich country — to be free; free to express herself, free to challenge authority. So when I look at the great universities being built in Asia, I admire them but I still think that America has a crucial advantage, one that will be hard to replicate by building labs and hiring faculty. It sits somewhere in the DNA of this country.
Part of that DNA is we allow a person to be whoever he or she wants to be, to reinvent himself. That’s why The Great Gatbsy — about a man who does just that — is the essential American novel. It’s author, F Scott Fitzgerald, once said, “There are no second acts in American life.” On that point, he was profoundly wrong. In America you can fail in school or college or at your first job or anytime — and still come back. This is the land of second and third acts. And if you are willing to go on Oprah and repent, there is even the prospect of a fourth act.
I think there is a lesson from our national experience for each of you. Be open, be open to people, ideas, and influences from all over the world, from high and low, rich and poor. Don’t shut yourself off. The world has changed so much and is changing so fast; be open to understanding and learning from that change. If you fight it, the world won’t stop moving, but you will stop growing.
I have one final piece of advice that I have given before but I believe it’s worth repeating. When I was a young man I thought that intelligence and knowledge were everything and experience was nothing — a somewhat self-serving view for a young man with little experience. I have, of course, come to a different view. There is a wisdom gained from living life that is difficult to find in books or even on YouTube.
- Full text of Fareed's commencement speech at University of Oklahoma here
Part of that DNA is we allow a person to be whoever he or she wants to be, to reinvent himself. That’s why The Great Gatbsy — about a man who does just that — is the essential American novel. It’s author, F Scott Fitzgerald, once said, “There are no second acts in American life.” On that point, he was profoundly wrong. In America you can fail in school or college or at your first job or anytime — and still come back. This is the land of second and third acts. And if you are willing to go on Oprah and repent, there is even the prospect of a fourth act.
I think there is a lesson from our national experience for each of you. Be open, be open to people, ideas, and influences from all over the world, from high and low, rich and poor. Don’t shut yourself off. The world has changed so much and is changing so fast; be open to understanding and learning from that change. If you fight it, the world won’t stop moving, but you will stop growing.
I have one final piece of advice that I have given before but I believe it’s worth repeating. When I was a young man I thought that intelligence and knowledge were everything and experience was nothing — a somewhat self-serving view for a young man with little experience. I have, of course, come to a different view. There is a wisdom gained from living life that is difficult to find in books or even on YouTube.
- Full text of Fareed's commencement speech at University of Oklahoma here
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