On Equality
Citadel Commencement Address
May 6, 2001
General Grinalds,
members of the Board of Visitors, distinguished guests, graduates, family
and friends, it is a great honor for me to join you today. As someone
who has listened to many commencement speeches, it is a privilege to reverse
the roles today and deliver one instead. I do so with some trepidation,
however, recognizing that most graduation speeches are easily ignored
– before, during, and after they are delivered. In the words of Thomas
Carlyle: "Silence is deep as eternity, speech is shallow as time."
For the benefit of all concerned, I promise to keep the shallowness of
this speech as brief as possible.
Let me begin with
a salute to the graduates. After all, this is The Citadel, so a salute
is in order! Each of you has completed a rigorous course of study. Many
have done so while simultaneously balancing the demands of jobs and families.
No doubt, countless sacrifices have been made to pursue these degrees
– some by the graduates themselves, others by their family members
and friends. So, as we pay tribute to the achievements of the graduates,
we must also recognize the contributions of the loved ones who have helped
to make this graduation possible. To the parents, spouses, children and
other supporters assembled here, we thank you for your encouragement,
understanding, and patience.
Today marks a milestone
in the lives of the graduates. For you, the year 2001 will always have
special significance. You will remember it as a year of personal accomplishment,
and it will be recorded as such on your diplomas. It is worth noting,
however, that this graduation is not the only important event during the
year 2001.
This discovery was
the product of a decade of intense, fiercely competitive work. The enormity
of this task is almost beyond comprehension. Let me try to put it into
perspective for you. If you were to try to read this sequence of nucleotides
out loud, and if you could enumerate one base pair each second, it would
take you about a hundred years to complete the recitation. Of course,
that is not allowing for bathroom breaks, meals, or even the occasional
siesta. Even more remarkable is the fact that every time one of the 3
trillion cells in your body divides, this complete DNA sequence is replicated.
Indeed, every human being is a living, breathing supercomputer for processing
genetic information.
One of the great surprises
of the Human Genome Project is that we are carrying around fewer genes
than we once imagined. When the race to sequence the human genome began,
it was assumed that about 100,000 genes would be detected. It turns out
that we have only about a third that number. This is pretty humbling when
you consider that the lowly roundworm possesses more than half of our
number of genes. From a genetic point of view, there is an awful lot of
overlap between the recipe for fishing bait and for you. Sobering, isn’t
it?
Of much greater significance
is the fact that any two human beings share 99.9 percent of the same genetic
information. The difference between you and me, for instance, is little
more than genetic dust. We have a thousand times more in common than we
have differentiating us. This rule applies across the full spectrum of
humankind - from the aboriginal Australians, to Asians, to Native Americans,
to Caucasians, to Africans. When it comes to our genetic wardrobe, we
are cut from the same cloth.
At the same time,
it is obvious that human beings come in a pretty diverse set of packages.
Each of us defines our identity by the features that differentiate us
from other people. We may be a bit taller, or possess a somewhat darker
complexion, or a more prominent nose, or brow, or jaw. Beyond our physical
selves, we also are delineated by emotional, intellectual and creative
characteristics. Together, such features paint a portrait of our individuality.
In the words of Bernard Malamud: "You see in others who you are."
As a society, we tend
to celebrate those who manifest certain features to extremes. We are awestruck
by those who excel in beauty, or intellect, or creativity, or athleticism,
or compassion. What is easily forgotten is that these differences operate
at the margin. For every one of these distinguishing features, there are
a thousand similarities to our fellow human beings. You and I are far
more like Marilyn Monroe, or Albert Einstein, or Yo Yo Ma, or Michael
Jordan, or Mother Theresa, than we are different from them.
Personally, I find
it reassuring that Michael Jordan and I are so closely related. He may
find it disturbing, but to me it is comforting. It makes him seem a little
more human. Yes, I have to confess that it also makes me feel a little
more godlike. Of course, I still cannot slam-dunk a basketball, but in
the big picture, I am just like Mike.
At this point, you
may be concerned that I have lost complete touch with reality. While my
oneness with Mike may be hard to accept, it would be a grave mistake to
think that you or I are fundamentally different from other human beings.
Although our parents may pass on to each of us widely disparate worldly
assets, they are far more uniform in their genetic bequests. In terms
of biological inheritance, when the last will and testament is read, we
are heirs to remarkably similar estates.
Of course, with about
6 billion members, the human family is large enough to accommodate a few
outliers. Some exceptions can produce remarkable genius - others can result
in tragic illness. Still, these are the exceptions and not the rule.
If this concept does
not seem radical today, it is partly because social philosophers came
to the same conclusion about 350 years ago. In 1651, Thomas Hobbes wrote
that: "All men, among themselves, are by nature equal." Our
country’s founding fathers endorsed this same concept a century later
when they wrote that: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that
all men are created equal." Looking back, we can only wonder whether
or not they truly meant to include all men, regardless of race, and whether
they had in mind women as well. Nevertheless, their thinking was far ahead
of the scientific community.
In the 1981 book The
Mismeasure of Man, author Stephen J. Gould describes scientific attempts
during the 19th century to advance the theory of biological determinism.
Under this paradigm, societal differences between groups were believed
to arise from genetic differences. For example, the inheritance of inferior
cognitive ability was thought to be responsible for the lower social and
economic position of certain groups. In order to measure intelligence,
these Victorian scientists relied upon physical dimensions, such as the
size of the cranial vault within skulls.
We now know that the
size of the cranial vault does not correlate with intellectual performance.
Although the science underlying biological determinism has been debunked,
some advocates still remain. A case in point is the 1994 book The Bell
Curve, subtitled Intelligence and Class in American Life. Here, cranial
measurements were replaced by standardized intelligence tests, but the
underlying hypothesis remained the same. That biological determinism should
persist in the minds of some is a testament to the difficulty of accepting
such gross inequities in our society on any other basis.
The most invidious
consequence of biological determinism, in my opinion, is that it assigns
to nature prejudice that can only be of human origin. In the final analysis,
achievement is as much about opportunity as it is about ability.
Whatever intellectual
endowment we bring into this world, it all comes to naught without the
benefit of proper cultivation.
This Commencement
is a tribute to the proper cultivation of intellect. We celebrate today,
not the blessings of inheritance, but the fruits of labor. In the words
of the ancient Chinese proverb: "By nature all men are alike, but
by education widely different." The question, then, is what difference
will be made by your education?
Whatever purpose calls
you beyond this day, let us pray that it is in the service of a greater
good. I leave you in that spirit with the words of Edward Everett Hale:
"I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."
Thank you very much. |
