One thing I know for sure – these and other felt needs will never be addressed if you, we fallvictim to the slow suffocation of conventional wisdom.
On Tuesday I sat in the State Department with some young Foreign Service officers at theState Department, and one of them said something to me that I’ve been thinking about,frankly, all week. He wasn’t much older than any of you. He said: “We’ve gone from an erawhere power lived in hierarchies to an era where power lives in networks – and now we’rewrestling with the fact that those hierarchies are unsettled by the new power.”
Every one of you and your parents have mobile devices here today. They represent a lot morethan your ability to put a picture on Fbook or Ins. They are one of the powerful newinstruments of change that makes hierarchies uncomfortable because you can communicatewith everybody, anywhere, all the time – and that’s how you beat conventional wisdom.
That’s what makes me certain that felt needs are not just problems. They are opportunities.And I am convinced if you are willing to challenge the conventional wisdom, which youshould be after this education, you can avoid the dangerous byproducts of indifference,hopelessness, and my least favorite: cynicism.
It is indifference that says our problems are so great, let’s not even try. We have to rejectthat. It’s hopelessness that says that our best days are behind us. I couldn’t disagree more.
It’s cynicism that says we’re powerless to effect real change, and that the era of Americanleadership is over. I don’t believe that for a second, and neither does President Obama. Werefuse to limit our vision of the possibilities for our country, and so should you. Together wehave to all refuse to accept the downsizing of America’s role in a very complicated world.
I happen to love T.S. Eliot’s "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” one of my favorite poems. And Irespectfully challenge you to never wind up fretfully musing as Prufrock did: “Do I daredisturb the universe? In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute willreverse.” Class of 2014: Your job is to disturb the universe.
You have to reject the notion that the problems are too big and too complicated so don’t wadein. You don’t have the luxury of just checking out. And it doesn’t matter what profession youwind up in, what community you live in, where you are, what you’re doing, you do not havethat luxury.
One of the greatest rewards of being Secretary of State is getting to see with my own eyes howmuch good news there actually is in the world – how many good people there are out thereevery single day courageously fighting back. The truth is that everywhere I go I see or hearabout an extraordinary number of individual acts of courage and bravery, all of which defythe odds – all by people who simply refuse to give up, and who start with a lot lessopportunity than you do.
You can see this in the lonely human rights activist who struggles against tyranny and againsta dictator until they are defeated. You see it in the democracy activist who goes to jail tryingto ensure an election is free and transparent. You see it in the civil rights lawyer who suffersscorn and isolation for standing against bigotry, racism, and intolerance.