So, just for fun, I auditioned to be the graduation speaker at SAIS. Though, to be fair, I was a pretty big long shot since I have been gone most of the last 2 years, and I didn't think they were going to have a stranger get up there.
So here, for your pleasure, are Alex Fleming's graduation remarks in an alternate universe...
"Mr. Secretary-General, President Daniels, Dean Einhorn, Distinguished Professors and Guests, and … most importantly… my fellow graduates – I would like to thank you for giving me the great honor of speaking to you today.
I don’t know about you. But I have spent a great deal of my time at SAIS in the library.
I imagine, in fact I am sure, that it warms the hearts of our faculty to see the constant traffic jams in Nitze library, and the surge of energy as young idealists grapple with hundreds of years, and thousands of pages of wisdom.
My classes at SAIS have fueled my dreams for the future. I can see, as I look around this room, a gathering of big dreamers. We are driven by the unseen fire to ‘change the world.’ We are not sure how it will manifest itself, but it burns within us, and our growth in the last 2 years has made it brighter.
Interestingly, the world in the last year has presented us with events that may give us a moment of pause.
Now, since I am a Strategic Studies concentrator, I knew as I was preparing these remarks that Professor Cohen would not let me leave this stage unless I quoted either Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, or Winston Churchill.
Luckily for me, Mr. Churchill gave a speech in 1943, which I believe bears on the subject matter. He said:
“The price of greatness is responsibility. If the people of the United States had continued in a mediocre station, struggling with the wilderness, absorbed in their own affairs … they might have remained forgotten and undisturbed beyond their protecting oceans: but one cannot rise to be in many ways the leading community in the civilised world without being involved in its problems, without being convulsed by its agonies and inspired by its causes.”
Well, the global financial crisis has truly convulsed us, and changed the world into which we are emerging. Many of us, and many people throughout the world, are filled with a great sense of uncertainty. This anxiety compounds with the incredible challenges we already face in all corners of the globe.
It is at this moment in history that we, as SAIS graduates, are taking our first professional steps. Therefore, I would like to offer some thoughts on the new roles and new responsibilities we will have as we go forward.
The last year brought us a chorus of new discussions about the role of capitalism in economic history. Indeed, it is a SAIS graduate who is spearheading one of the largest government interventions into the financial markets in the history of the world. We do not know where this historic shift in tools and techniques will settle, but we will be a part of it, and we must be prepared to take on the new roles that emerge.
Much of the response to world events has been irrational anger, mostly from people who do not understand the underlying factors at work. As SAIS graduates, we have been given arguably the most solid foundation in economic theory and practice that a person can have without getting a PhD; so our role in this crisis is to fight irrationality with logic and reason. We must not stand by and allow others to make decisions based on emotion.
The role of regulation and government intervention in the private sector will be drastically different in 5 years time. The end state of this development will involve hundreds of factors, but we will an integral part of its success or failure. We will be the regulators, the practitioners, the policy makers, or we will be advising the leaders who execute this change.
At SAIS, many of us walk and cross over the line between the public and private sectors. With the new interaction between these areas, our role is to maintain the big picture and step back from our daily work to assess long-term goals and priorities, and apply our unique knowledge to produce the best decision.
Whether we find ourselves in government or in business, the world today holds more questions than it ever has. We are the people who will answer these questions, and when our moment comes to offer a solution, we must be ready.
But, as Mr. Churchill said – “the price of greatness is responsibility.”
Our new roles will bring us new responsibilities, and we must not fail in these.
Despite distractions, we must continue to serve the ideal of making the world a better place. 61 years ago the United Nations proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is a document that gives us a vision of a world without hatred or suffering, without oppression and fear. The realization of this vision has proven … illusive.
It is our responsibility to further the achievement of ideals like this even in times of adversity, and not to lose sight of the horizon as we crawl through the weeds.
It is our responsibility to understand global economics and world markets better then the practitioners. If we chose to become practitioners, it is our responsibility to be aware of and monitor the long-term effects of our actions.
It is our responsibility to understand the people of this world and to make them our brothers and sisters. The isolationism and aggression that drives countries apart is born in the fear of the unknown and in the distrust of the stranger.
We, as the SAIS community, understand that all of us can come together as one world. It is our responsibility to spread this knowledge, and to further the understanding between peoples and cultures.
Finally, it is our responsibility to maintain our moral and ethical compass on our path to greatness. It is seductively easy to make compromises during times of bounty, which in times of hardship lead us to bad decisions. It is our responsibility to use our own moral touchstones, our classmates, our professors and our families to stay on the right path.
“The price of greatness is responsibility.” We have the potential for greatness, and as we achieve it, we must not forget our responsibilities.
Thank you, and congratulations."
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