2005 Commencement Address

[Dave Monroe]

May 29, 2005
Commencement Address
Cornell University
President Jeffrey S. Lehman
May 29, 2005

Members of the Class of 2005, candidates for advanced degrees,
families and friends of the graduates, Chairman Meinig and other
members of the Board of Trustees, honored guests.

On behalf of my colleagues on the faculty, it is my privilege to
welcome you to Schoellkopf Field for this morning�s celebration of
those students who are completing their degree requirements here at
Cornell University. Twenty-eight years ago, I was sitting where
today�s graduates are seated for my own Commencement ceremony. You
cannot imagine how thrilling it is for me to be here today, as
Cornell�s President, addressing today�s graduating students.

At the outset, I think it is important for us all to recognize that
none of these graduates made it to this day alone. Others provided the
emotional, intellectual, and financial support that was necessary to
make their education possible. So let us take a moment to ask those
who are not wearing caps and gowns � the parents, grandparents,
spouses, partners, siblings, sponsors and friends, all of whom have
sustained these graduates � to stand now so that we may acknowledge
you and your contribution to their success.

Graduating students, I want you to appreciate just how carefully your
beloved Cornell has prepared you to enjoy this moment. It is the
moment of your commencement. And we have placed you on Schoellkopf
Field, facing west.

West. The direction of the sun as it traverses the sky. By day it is
the destination of the celestial body that energizes our planet. By
night it is the destination of the other stars that illuminate our
sky.

http://www.cornell.edu/president/speeches_2005_529.cfm

Video

http://www.cornell.edu/video/viewer/video_preferences.cfm?vidname=commencement2005

When we look out towards the western horizon, it is natural to ponder
our own destinies as well. For the horizon marks the limit of our
capacity to see, the boundary between what we know with confidence and
what we can only imagine.

Your time at Cornell was always oriented towards the horizon of this
graduation day. Today marks the boundary that separates your student
life, a life which � at least by your final year � you more or less
understood, from life after graduation, a life which lives in the
domain of imagination, of aspiration, of hopes, and of dreams.

When we, your teachers, contemplate the boundary that you are now
crossing, we know some important things. We know that during your time
here at Cornell you have learned much. You have developed expertise in
at least one field of study and gained comfortable familiarity with
others. You have proven your ability to swim � at least a little. And
you have nurtured qualities of mind and heart that transcend any
particular body of knowledge or academic discipline. Members of the
Class of 2005, the Force is strong with you.

It is clear that "special powers you have." You have the power to do
good in the world. You have the power to create the magic that will
make our lives better, to make constructive contributions to all
humanity. We celebrate you and all that you can accomplish.

But we also know that at this moment you might also be feeling a wee
bit anxious. You might be wondering, "What if I fail? What if I don�t
live up to the expectations that others have for me, or that I hold
for myself?"

Think of the Star Wars movies. We know that, just as the Force is
strong with you, it was also strong with Anakin Skywalker.

He too had special powers. But he ended up as Darth Vader. How could
that have happened?

So let me begin by reassuring you. None of you will become Darth Vader. Really.

But perhaps your anxiety might present itself in a slightly milder
form: how can you be sure that you do not go over to the Dark Side?

And here I think that I can be of some service to you. This morning I
will take a little bit of poetic license and extend the metaphor of
the Dark Side to explore some of life�s moral complexities � the
traps, if you will � that await you on the other side of graduation.
These traps might not be so serious as to put you on the road to
becoming Sith Lords, but they might nonetheless make it harder for you
to realize your full potential.

Let me begin by discussing what I mean, and what I do not mean, by
"the Dark Side."

First, when I speak of the Dark Side I am not talking about anything
like �unwavering devotion to the cause of evil.� That narrow a view
doesn�t work even in the world of George Lucas. Lucas takes great care
to indicate that, as Anakin Skywalker turns into Darth Vader, he does
not believe that he is embracing evil. He believes that the Jedi are
the ones who have been corrupted; he is committed only to knowing the
truth and to saving the life of someone he loves.

Nor can we say that the difference between the Sith and the Jedi is
that one pursues its ends through intolerable means and the other
restricts itself to benign means. Each side is equally willing to be
violent to promote its cause.

The Dark Side I am interested in is more subtle. Think of it not as
evil, but as good people run amok. Yielding to a certain kind of
wholly understandable temptation, in a way that ends up being
counterproductive for the individual or damaging to the larger
community.

In your lives after graduation, what forms might that Dark Side take?
How might they tempt you? How can you successfully resist them, so
that your lives are maximally successful, fulfilling, and beneficial?

Rather than approaching those questions head-on, I would like to
examine them indirectly, as they are refracted through the lens of
fiction. To do so, I will make use of two different works by one of
the great writers of our time, Thomas Pynchon.

Pynchon came to Cornell to study engineering physics in 1953. He was a
talented science student, but he was also good in other subjects, and
in his sophomore year he decided to major in English.

Pynchon had some wonderful teachers in the English department � people
like M.H. Abrams, Baxter Hathaway, James McConkey, Arthur Mizener, and
Walter Slatoff. They recognized his prodigious talent early on. One of
them saw the potential in a paper that Pynchon wrote for class,
entitled, "Mortality and Mercy in Vienna." The literary journal Epoch
was edited by Baxter Hathaway at the time, and he decided to publish
"Mortality and Mercy in Vienna" in the Spring 1959 issue, just before
Pynchon graduated. According to a letter from Pynchon 25 years later,
having that story published in Epoch was a major factor in his
decision to try to make a living as a writer.

The story concerns a man named Cleanth Siegel who attends a party in
Washington, D.C. Siegel finds himself cornered, one at a time, by two
different members of an extended, interdependent social group, both of
whom regale him with details of their lives, from the petty to the
bizarre. As they drone on and on, Siegel feels himself getting fed up
with them, and with the entire lot of partygoers. He comes to see
himself as a kind of father-confessor to this self-styled �Group.� And
then, oddly, he comes to see himself as their savior.

Late in the story, Siegel meets one of the newer, more marginal
entrants into the Group, a man named Irving Loon. And Siegel develops
a hunch that Loon suffers from a mental illness called Windigo
psychosis. A person suffering from Windigo psychosis has a deep
identification with the Windigo, a mythical Canadian ice monster that
craves human flesh. This identification can often lead the psychotic
to become homicidal as well. Pynchon writes, "[I]f this hunch were
true, Siegel had the power to work for these parishioners a kind of
miracle, to bring them a very tangible salvation."

Now the salvation that Siegel has in mind for them is horrifying. He
goes up to Loon and says the word "Windigo," hoping that it might
trigger a psychotic break and prompt him to violence. And it works.
Loon flips out. While Siegel watches, Loon takes a Browning Automatic
Rifle down from the wall, and loads it with ammunition. Siegel
casually leaves the party and walks downstairs, whistling as he goes.
He hears screams. He shrugs. And as the story ends he hears the first
burst of gunfire.

All of us would say that Cleanth Siegel went over to the Dark Side. He
would presumably argue that the damage he caused was in some sense
necessary to promote a larger good, the overall good of his flock. But
this is nothing more than the familiar claim of a fanatic.

Unfortunately, the daily news reminds us that fanatics remain all too
present in our world today. In pursuit of what they consider a greater
good, they do horrible things. Even murder feels warranted to them,
they are so obsessed with achieving their objective.

But in speaking of what I will call the Windigo Dark Side I do not
want to limit our attention to this kind of fanaticism. That feels too
remote, too distant from our lives. I want to make the challenge more
relevant, more difficult, by having the Windigo Dark Side also
encompass fanaticism�s much milder cousin: tunnel vision.

People afflicted with moral tunnel vision recognize a good, something
that carries a positive benefit for the world. They see a path to that
good. And they become so committed to pursuing that path that they
lose sight of the costs to other values that might be associated with
going down that path. These are the kinds of blind spots that can
undermine communal life and collective progress.

The temptations of moral tunnel vision are everywhere we look. Think,
for example, of the soldiers who, in their efforts to defeat a
dangerous enemy, are tempted to slip into torture. Think of the
campaign workers who want to help their candidate, and are tempted to
caricature the opponent unfairly. Think of the advocates for a cause
who are tempted to use tactics that are disproportionate to the goal
they champion. Think of the business leaders who are tempted to be
stingy about workplace safety in order to improve their price position
in a competitive marketplace. Think of the university leaders who are
tempted to deform their institutions in hopes of rising in the
magazine rankings.

In the world of action you will find that it is surprisingly easy to
become convinced of the paramount importance of your cause. It is a
short step to see those who oppose you as evil or immoral, or maybe
just stupid or naive. And another short step to tell yourself that the
harm you inflict on them is necessary to promote a greater good, or
might even be, in some way, for their own good.

When you leave Cornell, I know that you will use your Jedi powers to
promote noble ends. And I know that most of the time, you will not
find it difficult to remain clear-eyed about the relationship between
the goals you are pursuing and the means that are appropriate to them.
But you should also be prepared to face the temptations of the Windigo
Dark Side.

The second Pynchon work that I would like to discuss is his second
novel, The Crying of Lot 49, published in 1965. It tells the story of
Oedipa Maas and her struggle to make sense of a world in which nothing
can be known with certainty.

The book begins when Maas receives a letter informing her that she has
been named co-executor of the estate of her ex-boyfriend, Pierce
Inverarity. Her efforts to sort out the estate lead her to meet a
series of alienated young people, one of whom directs her to attend a
play entitled, The Courier�s Tragedy. The play feels like a bad
imitation of Shakespeare, a senseless mixture of sex, betrayal,
torture, and killing. In Pynchon�s words, it is "like a Road Runner
cartoon in blank verse." Late in the performance, Maas is struck by an
obscure reference to "Trystero."

Maas sets off to understand this reference. She traces the evolution
of the play�s text through different publications, finding many
changes associated with the Trystero line, but none that offer any
realistic account of why the changes were made. Her odyssey leads her
into an increasingly bizarre world. To take just one example, she
encounters a man who claims to have built a machine incorporating
Maxwell�s Demon. Those of you who, like Pynchon, studied physics, know
that Maxwell�s Demon is an imaginary creature who was invented to get
around the second law of thermodynamics. And part of Maas�s growing
frustration in The Crying of Lot 49 derives from her inability to get
the machine to work.

She comes to believe that a conspiracy has created an underground
postal system in California, going by the acronym W.A.S.T.E., "We
Await Silent Tristero�s Empire." As her obsession with the putative
conspiracy deepens, Maas finds herself more and more isolated, cut off
from her husband, from her psychiatrist, and even from the lawyer she
thought was helping her.

Towards the end of the book, Maas is led to an obscure historical
source which suggests that Tristero [sic] really existed � as a man
who, in 1577, set up an underground postal system to challenge the
existing postal monopoly in sixteenth century Europe.

And then, just when the reader is tempted to believe that the puzzle
has been neatly sorted out, Pynchon shows how W.A.S.T.E. and the
entire Tristero postal conspiracy might have been an elaborate hoax,
constructed by Inverarity himself in order to torment his
ex-girlfriend. But we really cannot be sure. Because this is, after
all, a world in which nothing can be known with certainty.

In The Crying of Lot 49, Pynchon has again given us characters who do
not feel quite like us. Cleanth Siegel was a fanatic. And Oedipa Maas
seems to be a bit too easily drawn into the world of conspiracies.

But in speaking now of what I will call the Tristero Dark Side I again
want to broaden our view. Rather than restricting our focus to
conspiracy theorists, I would like to define the Tristero Dark Side by
reference to a related but more familiar idea, the rush to judgment.
This is the temptation to see too quickly a pattern emerging, to infer
too soon an organizing principle, and then to become unable to
assimilate contrary evidence into your worldview.

After you leave Cornell, you will have the opportunity to take
positions of authority and responsibility. In those roles you will be
required to act under conditions of uncertainty, to use your best
judgment about what is going on when you have little information.
These will be wonderful opportunities for you to do good in the world.
They will invite you to draw on your very best qualities � your
compassion, your intelligence, your intuition.

And at these moments you will also have the opportunity to negotiate
the temptations of the Tristero Dark Side. It will be surprisingly
easy to believe that you know more than you do, to see more order in
the universe than is really there, to see less entropy, to see
conspiracies where there is only coincidence. It will take hard work
to remind yourself of the limits of your own knowledge, to stay
receptive to new evidence, to keep an open mind, especially when you
feel very real time pressures weighing on your decision.

Think, for example, of the national leaders who must assess the danger
posed by other countries. The journalists who must decide how much
credence to give an anonymous tip. The labor negotiators who must
decide whether to trust the latest representations that management has
made to them. In these contexts, people are naturally tempted to
connect the dots. It is more satisfying to know the answer than to
live with ambiguity. And often it is easiest to have that answer take
the form of malevolence, or conspiracy. It is so tempting to rush to
judgment.

And yet, you can defeat the temptations of the Windigo Dark Side and
the Tristero Dark Side. You do not have to develop moral tunnel
vision. You do not have to rush to judgment. I am happy to provide you
with five strategies for staying true to your best selves. Think of
them, if you will, as the five virtues of a Jedi Master: a love for
complexity, a patient spirit, a will to communicate, a sense of humor,
and an optimistic heart.

First, a love for complexity. Fanaticism is anchored in the belief
that one has discovered The Truth, a master key that explains the
world. That same kind of belief can generate both tunnel vision and a
rush to judgment.

When you feel yourself developing that kind of certainty that you have
access to a master key, push back. Use all of your intellectual and
sympathetic powers to seek out multiple perspectives. See the world
through your critics� eyes. Feel your adversaries� pain. When it seems
as though you�ve got it all figured out, ask yourself whether Pierce
Inverarity might have led you astray, and whether you might be missing
something important.

Second, a patient spirit. When the stakes seem highest, it is natural
to believe that only swift and decisive action will do. When you feel
that impulse, wait. Take a walk around the block. Review in your mind
the foreseeable consequences of your decision � the outcome you hope
for and the collateral damage that might be avoidable. Remember how
much you do not know. Then you will be able to act, and to do so in
ways that enable you to keep on learning.

Third, a will to communicate. Pynchon�s writings are filled with the
communicative failures of his protagonists. Characters have insights,
but they fail to share them with others in a way that is intelligible,
in a way that can be helpful. And those failures make it easy for the
Dark Side to move in. In these circumstances your rule of thumb should
be that responsibility lies with the speaker. It is up to the person
with the insight to find a way to convey it so that the audience
understands.

As you assume greater leadership roles, having acquired special
learning, knowledge, or expertise, that rule of thumb will become more
and more important. It is not enough to have such learning. And it is
not enough to bombard your listeners with data. You must come to
understand what the linguist George Lakoff has called "frames" � the
ways in which your listeners structure their perceptions of the world.
And you must help them to develop frames that will allow them to
appreciate the importance of the learning you have to share.

Fourth, a sense of humor. Humor is the great enemy of the Dark Side,
and the most powerful form of humor is self-deprecation. And here
Thomas Pynchon has offered us a priceless example.

After graduating from Cornell, Pynchon emerged as one of the great
writers of the twentieth century. His five novels have each won wide
acclaim. But he decided early on that he would not accept the
celebrity that success can bring. He chose instead to do what he could
to preserve normalcy in his life by preserving his privacy. In
particular, he avoided cameras. He would not allow his photo to be
taken. He declined to give interviews.

But then, to the shock and amusement of a literary world that had
become somewhat obsessed with finding Thomas Pynchon, along came the
January 25, 2004, episode of the television show, The Simpsons.

In that show, Marge Simpson writes her first novel, The Harpooned
Heart. Eager to promote sales of the book, the publisher seeks blurbs
from Thomas Pynchon and Tom Clancy.

So picture, in your mind, the following scene. Imagine a Simpsons
character. A man wearing a paper bag over his head, with a question
mark painted on the bag, above the eyes. He�s standing in front of a
house, near a big neon sign that reads, "Thomas Pynchon�s House. Come
On In." The Pynchon character makes a call on his cell phone to
Marge�s publisher.

And here is what the Pynchon character says. (By the way, this really
is the voice of Thomas Pynchon):

["Here�s your quote. Thomas Pynchon loved this book. Almost as much as
he loves cameras." ]

The Pynchon character ends the call and hangs a big sign around his
neck that says "Thomas Pynchon," with an arrow pointing at his head,
still covered by a paper bag. He starts shouting at passing cars:

["Hey, over here. Have your picture taken with a reclusive author.
Today only, we�ll throw in a free autograph. But wait! There�s more!"]

A self-deprecating sense of humor will take you far indeed, perhaps
all the way to the Simpsons.

And finally, an optimistic heart. When we reflect on Anakin�s fall, we
recognize that the Dark Side�s greatest allies are fear and despair.
Those are the emotions that fuel tunnel vision and a rush to judgment.
To fight them you must arm yourself with realistic optimism. Not
Panglossian denial of the problems in our world. But a kind of working
faith that, on balance, over the long haul, things will work out,
justice will be served, progress will occur, success will be achieved.
That kind of attitude seems to be a predicate for most forms of
collective achievement. Think of it, if you will, as the spirit that
underlies Episode IV: A New Hope.

* * *

New graduates of Cornell University, as you face the western horizon
of your lives, I ask you to think about this moment in the way that
Pynchon had Oedipa Maas think of a critical moment in her own life.
"She thought ... of a sunrise over the library slope at Cornell
University that nobody out on it had seen because the slope faces
west."

This is your sunrise. You are about to embark on lives of service to a
society that desperately needs you. And as you go, let me conclude by
sharing a few hopes that we, your teachers, hold for you:

May you enjoy the special pleasures of craft � the private
satisfaction of doing a task as well as it can be done.

May you enjoy the special pleasures of profession � the added
satisfaction of knowing that your efforts promote a larger public
good.

May you be blessed with good luck, and also with the wisdom to
appreciate when you have been lucky rather than skillful.

May you find ways to help others under circumstances where they cannot
possibly know that you have done so.

May you be patient, and gentle, and tolerant, without becoming smug,
self-satisfied, and arrogant.

May you know enough bad weather that you never take today's sunshine
for granted, and enough good weather that your faith in the coming of
spring is never shaken.

May you always be able to confess ignorance, doubt, vulnerability, and
uncertainty.

May the Force be with you.

May you frequently travel beyond the places that are comfortable and
familiar, the better to appreciate the miraculous diversity of life.

And may your steps lead you often back to Ithaca. Back to East Hill.
For you will always be Cornellians. And we will always be happy to
welcome you home.

Congratulations, one and all.

http://www.cornell.edu/president/speeches_2005_529.cfm

Video

http://www.cornell.edu/video/viewer/video_preferences.cfm?vidname=commencement2005