FACING AMBIGUITY IN TIMES OF CERTAINTY 05-18-2019 Warren G. Frisina Well, here we are. I know some of you students are a bit surprised to find yourselves sitting at table celebrating a day that just a few weeks ago you were unsure would ever arrive. From that vantage point, when you were looking up at the looming mountain of end-ofsemester (and really end of college) work, many of you said to yourselves: “Well, this is it. This is where they finally figure out that I’m not as smart as they think I am. I’ll never get it done! (fill in here under “IT” any of the following: final papers, exams, theses, films, experiments, research reports etc.). Some of you went on to think: “Maybe if I call my parents now, they can get their deposit back on that tent they rented for my backyard graduation party?” And yet, here we are, with you on the easy downward slope leading to that happy valley where graduation ceremonies, parties, family members and friends await. Take a moment. Savor the sweetness of what it feels like to be in this position. You’ve done so much and we are so very proud of what you’ve accomplished. We’ve loved working with you and are proud of playing our small part in enriching these past 4 years with HUHC’s courses, honors options, trips, programs, activities, and of course, our free coffee and snacks. Just so you know, HUHC coffee and snacks are lifetime privileges. So, anytime you happen to be heading up Hempstead Turnpike, don’t bother stopping in Starbucks. They won’t even know you. Come see us on the second floor of Axinn. We’ll always welcome you home, and the coffee will always be hot. Now, I’m reminding you to enjoy this moment because very soon your mind will likely begin to turn to whatever is coming next: graduate school, law school, medical school, a new
2 job, the search for a new job, the hunt for a new apartment, the hunt for someone willing to live with you in the new that apartment you couldn’t possibly afford to rent by yourself! We are strange restless creatures, aren’t we? We find it hard to rest quietly and enjoy any moment, even one as big as this. We’re hardly done with one task when our “monkey mind,” as the Buddhists call it, is off to the races looking ahead at our next problem, our next challenge, our next goal. Maybe there’s an evolutionary reason for our restlessness? Without it, could we humans ever have created great monuments like Easter Island and Stonehenge or cathedrals like Notre Dame? Could great religious and philosophic systems have emerged if we were happy with the answers our ancestors provided? Would we have all the benefits that the natural sciences bestowed on us without that urgent need to keep looking behind nature’s workings to get better control over the things that threaten us? Of course, there are costs to this restlessness, aren’t there? It does sometimes prevent us from savoring moments like today. Moreover, philosophers sometimes wonder whether the deep learning called for by great philosophical systems actually makes life better. Admit it, some of you pondered that very question while sitting in one of my C&E lectures. It’s possible, some suggest, that all that philosophy is just a benign way of filling up our time, sort of the equivalent of a life spent playing backgammon, or Fortnight, or whatever pleases you. And what about the great religious traditions that our restlessness produced? While religions have opened pathways to extraordinary levels of meaning and provided great consolation for billions, they’ve also been the conduits for horrific behavior. And then there’s our faith in science? Where has it gotten us? Sure, science gave us penicillin, but it also gave us global warming, complete with melting ice caps, rising sea levels
3 horrific weather disruptions and a good reason to think that like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice in Disney’s Fantasia we’ve learned how to turn the magic on, but we just haven’t learned, and may never learn, how to get it under control. Our restless monkey minds have led us down so many wonderful, wonderous pathways, but none are without ambiguities. All contain implications that give us pause and make us wonder whether we really are on the right track. In the 1930’s-1970’s, for example, sociologists and city planners worked so hard and spent so much public money attempting to replace dilapidated tenement housing with modern, clean, safe and efficient large-scale housing projects. Such good intentions. What could be bad about providing the poor with decent housing? What they couldn’t see, however, was the extent to which their intentions were enmeshed in a network of assumptions about poverty and race that ended up perpetuating and confirming the very problems they were hoping to resolve. Now, across the United States cities are tearing down those large low-income housing projects and replacing them with low density developments and mixed-income buildings. Are these new developments better than what preceded them? Probably? Will they too have unexpected negative implications? It’s possible, only time will tell. By pointing out the ambiguities that are embedded in virtually all human endeavors, I am not suggesting that you should completely quiet your monkey mind. I’m not saying that having gotten your college degree, you should sit back and savor this moment from the vantage point of your parents’ couch, for the next 50 years. While I do want us all to revel in this weekend’s celebration, I also want on this day to speak directly to how we’ve prepared you to handle the ambiguities that are an essential dimension of virtually everything we do.
4 The first thing we’ve done is cultivate in you the ability to recognize that nothing is as simple as it seems; ambiguities abound in all human endeavors. Good intentions sometimes bring bad consequences. And it happens most often when no one takes the time to step back and think not just about the task at hand, but about bigger framework assumptions that structure how and why we are seeing a problem in the ways that we do. No matter what you majored in, your college education here was designed in part to be certain that when the situation calls for it, you are ready to step back and see those assumptions because only those who see them are in a position to critique them. The second thing we’ve done is help you acquire true expertise in your major field(s). Big picture people are necessary to avoid falling into the trap of acting on bad assumptions, but every project also requires specific skills. Houses can’t be built without carpenters and plumbers. Real problems don’t get solved without a team of individuals who collectively bring to the table all of the many skills needed to address the issue. You are leaving us with the confidence that you have specific skills that are necessary for addressing the issues that your future teams will be facing. Finally, and I want to say this in the nicest way possible, we tried our best to teach you that you don’t know everything. A college education is as much about helping students recognize the limits of their knowledge as it is about expanding what they know. I can’t overemphasize how important this is. The sociologists and city planners I mentioned earlier allowed expertise to overwhelm humility. Assuming they knew all that was necessary, they blundered on, ultimately creating as many problems as they were solving. During your college years we’ve given you a window into how large and complex the universe is. The answers to
5 our problems, whether on the small scale in and through whatever work you find yourself pursuing, or on the large scale regarding the great social issues of the day, can only be found by those who recognize their own limits and are capable of listening to and actually hearing what others have to say. Now this last skill, the ability to listen to others, especially to those with whom we disagree, has been in very short supply lately. These are strangely polarized times. I can’t think of a moment in my lifetime where more people have been convinced that they know not just the truth, but the absolute truth about how to deal with the fundamental problems facing our communities. This misplaced self-confidence would almost be funny were it not so incredibly dangerous and debilitating to the body politic. It replaces a nuanced appreciation for ambiguity with that false sense of security associated with feelings of certainty. And when all sides are “certain” about the validity of their own points of view on a question, they find it impossible to engage in the kind of deliberation and compromise that is needed to bring our limited, finite perspectives together into some sort of coordinated approach to shared problem solving. It doesn’t matter whether you are on the right or left politically. Both sides are engaged in a very dangerous game of chicken with our future. We are hurtling forward unable to address issues like climate change because neither side acknowledges the extent to which its own point of view is limited and incomplete. Even worse, what used to be called political deliberation has been replaced on both sides by the manic pursuit of political purity. Our politics has come to be dominated by a “call out” culture where someone adopts an omniscient point of view that gives them the supposed right to indict some other individual for insufficient
6 loyalty to the group’s goals or mission. It shouldn’t be hard to see where this leads. Our political discourse is devolving into the functional equivalent of the Salem witch trials. How can we ever hope to take seriously the complex issues that we face when any suggestion that we listen to views other than our own is grounds for expulsion? By now I hope my point is clear. We’ve done our best to ready you for a world that is filled with ambiguities. We are in desperate need of your creativity, your imagination, and most of all your dedication to the hard work that is required to bring us past this sad moment. Over the last 4 years I’ve watched as you’ve acquired the ability to see the big picture, as you’ve become skilled and knowledgeable in your fields. But most of all I’ve seen in your openness, your capacity for empathy, and your developing sense of awe at all the world has to offer, the kind of humility needed to make progress on our biggest problems. Looking across this room, seeing all of you together in this way for the last time gives me great hope and confidence that you are prepared for life after Hofstra. We will continue to watch as your careers unfold and savor not just today’s accomplishment but all that is to come. Please stay in touch. You will always be welcomed home here at Hofstra and in HUHC.
Thank you.