Dr. Charles Lamb
If you don't know me, my name is Charles Lamb and in addition to being a science professor,
I serve as the chief research officer here at 麻豆传媒映画 State. I'd like to welcome
you to the 27th annual 麻豆传媒映画 Research Symposium keynote address. Thank you all
for attending today and I hope you had a chance to attend the poster or oral presentation
sessions yesterday. They are a stimulating reminder of the scholarly activity that
thrives here at 麻豆传媒映画. Before we start today's presentation,
I'd like to thank the 麻豆传媒映画 Research Symposium organizing committee for putting
together another great symposium. Special thanks go to the committee co-chairs, Dr.
Rudia Kihura and Dr. Michael Hollingsworth along with Dr. Parthasarathi Nag who is
our undergraduate research coordinator. They do a thankless job to put together the
symposium and work behind the scenes throughout the year to make the event what it
is. I'd also like to thank President Steve Elliot and the academic affairs office
for the support that they provide each year so that we can put on this symposium.
Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who presented their research activities yesterday.
We often don't get to hear about all of the scholarship that goes on across the campus
and this venue is a great opportunity to see what our colleagues and students are
doing across the disciplines. It's my pleasure to introduce our keynote speaker, Dr.
Ruben Steves, Lieutenant Colonel, US Air Force, retired. Dr. Steves is an educator,
an author, a consultant, as well as managing director of HP Advisory. As a former
member of the senior military faculty at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado
Springs, he served for 15 years as associate professor of humanities and the director
for the study of statesmanship in the Martinson honors program, teaching in the departments
of foreign languages, political science, and philosophy. A native German speaker,
he earned his master of arts degree in national security affairs from the Naval Post-Graduate
School and his doctorate in political philosophy from Georgetown University. A 2001
presidential fellow and 2007 recipient of the Bronze Star, he has served as a political
military adviser and negotiator in Iraq and worked on the NATO Just War doctrine for
the Kosovo intervention. A renowned international scholar, his most recent publications
include The War on Terror and Afghanistan, published in America and the Just War Tradition.
He is the 2015 recipient of the US Air Force Academy's Robert F. McDermott Award for
Research Excellence in the Humanities and most recently a finalist for the Dr. William
H. Heiser Award for Teaching Excellence. And now with a particularly timely presentation
titled Grand Strategy: American Statesmanship in Light of the Prospects and Problems
of Contemporary Geopolitics, I give you Dr. Ruben Steve.
Dr. Ruben Steve
Thank you very much.
Applause
as I appear, disappear off stage. I have to say I've done this a few times, introductions
are a killer. They...
Microphone cuts out
Maybe that will be a little bit better. Everybody can hear me now. It's an honor to
be here. I would like to thank again everyone that, not only for attending but Black
Hill State University, the committees who have been involved in one way or another
in the research and inviting me here this day. I have particular thanks to Mike, in
the audience Hollingsworth, who was the one who kind of extended this invitation originally
to me and I really appreciate the honor of doing and being here today. Looking around
the audience, I gather, having been an educator myself, oops, that some of you are
here because there's extra credit involved, right? Um, which I told uh Mike, I said,
well, if that's the case and we can drone on for three to four hours, right? You know,
no, I'm joking. Um, we're going to try um but...I hope there's not too much Is there
too much feedback on the mic? You got it. All right. Um, I'm going to...I'll try to
speak softly. All right, be very very quiet. Um, my hope in our time together is to
give you a little bit of a background. I'm going to adjust to see how this goes with
the audience as we flow. The end of it is a little bit heat-y and heavy, but if we
uh if I see people kind of passed out, you know,and uh starting to drink heavily,
we'll uh we'll try to cut it a little bit short. So, uh let me let me get started
with this and let's see if the clicker works. Let me start with a little story. Uh
at the first part of the uh millennium, first part of the decade of that millennium,
I found myself in in Baghdad uh among other garden spots. And uh I was working out
of the embassy and my portfolio entailed a lot of members of uh Prime Minister Malake's
cabinet and one particular evening I was asked by some members of his cabinet to kind
of explain in a little bit more depth because they kind of knew what I was doing.
I was teaching at the counterinsurgency academy in Taji Iraq. I had done some other
stuff and always being an educator uh you know even when we had diplomatic encounters
I'd always make book recommendations. So as we were talking I said hey would you mind
coming over to our dasha to the to our house in the green zone and and kind of with
my staff having a discussion. And so I went over that evening and uh the discussion
was meant to just be broadly about Iraqi politics about the nature of US intervention
what we're looking to achieve. But as the discussion unfolded one of the things that
came up was a question that had to do with the fact of what does America really stand
for? Now, for those of you who uh ever looked at some of the more probably historical
footage for a lot of you post 911, the average impression of the American soldier
was a young tattooed uh heavily armored, Eminem blaring, you know, sex, drugs, and
rock and roll kind of imagery, right? Uh stay back 500 feet or we will shoot you.
And one of the things that I had to try to communicate was that is part of America,
but that's not really the roots of America. But one of the things that may some of
you know the most widely syndicated show I think even of this year still in the world.
Anybody have a guess? Anybody want to guess what the most widely? It's because of
China dominantly. Anybody? This is the audience participation part of it. What? Who
said what? Friends. No, you know that would be kosher. Uh that would be actually nice.
No, it's actually Baywatch. Um andI'm not talking the new revised version. I'm talking
David Hasselhoff. It's not just my own Germans that have this thing for David. It's
China. Um, most widely can. But for those of you who've been around the world a little
bit, Baywatch is pretty risque by a lot of cultural standards. Uh, some might even
say pornographic. So, here I am having this conversation with devout Muslims uh, who
are part of the Maliki, again, a Shia government. Most of them were Shia. There was
one Sunni involved in well in the conversation. And I'm trying to explain to them
the nature of what we're actually trying to do. that the ideals of America are not
necessarily the young punk in the car in the Humvee, Eminem blaring. There's something
more robust. And matter of fact, I decided to introduce the conversation that most
of you are probably familiar with from the Declaration of Independence. I said, "Listen,
the American founding is rooted in a concept of life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness." I said, "Let me explain to you what that really means." And I'm going
to do the same for you as I did that evening. Now, I said, "Life, life is the prerequisite.
Every government can avoid taking the life of its citizens. That's a negative right.
It doesn't have to be a positive structure. What it can provide just avoid killing
people, right? It's a pretty simple phenomena. Matter of fact, it's the prerequisite
for any conversation this side of eternity is that we have the ability to be alive.
I said that's kind of why we have the prerequisite. All men are endowed and women
and all people are endowed by their creator with certain valuable rights among these
life. Okay. Liberty. Here's where it gets fun. I said liberty, strangely enough, is
so confused even in America these days. And I said because the founders the most widely
cited philosopher was a gentleman by the name of Montesquieu, frenchman, who wrote
a book called the spirit of the laws. And in the spirit of the laws Montesquieu says
freedom pay close attention to this. Oh you know this is where the conversation usually
ends. Freedom is the right to do what you ought not what you want. Freedom is the
right to do what you ought not what you want. That caused a lot of consternation because
the image of America's freedom is again back to sex, drugs, and rock and roll, is
we'll do whatever we want, man. Whatever feels good, right? Smoke some righteous weed
uh and everything will be better, right? I mentioned then I said, well, what ought
we to do? Well, the last part of this is the pursuit of happiness. And this is really
I could spend an hour just talking to you about the confusion of happiness here. But
the Greek term that the founders had in mind here was a term called eudaimonia which
means completeness and wellness of soul. It means what Aristotle says doing the right
thing at the right time in the right way for the right reasons. So what a person ought
to do you have life you have a prerequisite you have liberty the freedom to do what
you ought but ought you to do is to pursue happiness and completeness of soul. Now,
every now and then you have a moment. Your teachers will appreciate this. Maybe even
some of you who have been in a lecture or given a lecture, you have a moment when
there's people looking at you and you feel like this is it. This this was my moment.
I looked around. I looked up as we were talking and everybody there, we're sitting
outside. It was a beautiful Iraqi evening. Everybody and their aunt was wrapped in
attention. I'm like, "Oh, this is my moment. This this will be my mark. I've done
something good for America far more important than I ever could have done. I've educated
the Iraqi cabinet or key members of the cabinet on the nature of American founding
just then and you can't make this up. So the green zone for those of you who watched
the movie Green Mile with uh Matt Damon or read the book Emerald City which it was
based on. The Green Zone was a hot pod. We had no idea who was where, when, what,
or why. Right? So here's the dash of a very high ranking Iraqi official. And next
door I found out much later was a contractor. And this contractor decided to have
a party on this particular evening unbeknownst to me. And all I remember is as I was
giving this talk and I was just right here and they're like everybody's like just
like you all are looking at me like I'm like this is it. I'm going to break through.
All of a sudden I hear this scratch table. I hear woo. I hear a disco lights going
on and the first words out of the contractor's mind. Hey folks, we're going to party
Rocky style. Ladies, take off those shirts. Now I don't know how you feel. Now first
of all, a lot of the members spoke English. I had my translator with me. Now failure
I told my translator always keep up do not wait do not but that that moment I wish
they had waited but they decided to literally translate. So there's this uncomfortable,
uncomfortable moment. Um my credibility at that moment of what America stood for was
not at its high point. All I remember and this by the way I told my children and a
lot of my colleagues know this. I will die with these words in my mouth. The individual
reached over grabbed me on the knee and said, "Habibi, habibi my friend, we would
love to believe you. We're just not sure America believes you. And I think that is
kind of where I want to take our talk today. What really is America in light of our
foreign policy dynamics, in light of grand strategy, which is the ostensible purpose
of this talk. What does this mean to us? We're going to take a look at a couple different
things. I want to first of all address America and a little bit more about this life
every pursuit of happiness. Then I want to get into the concept of grand strategy
through looking through the lens first and foremost of a brief survey because you
guys can all read the news of what are the kind of geopolitical implications and realities
that we're facing right now. This is meant to be thematic, not in an in-depth analysis.
We're not going to get into Fox News or CNN and try to analyze it all, nor are we
going to try to read signal messages, um, which was probably not an ideal thing to
do anyway. But we are going to get a little bit into what America is. So, America
is a representative, responsible, moderate republic, right? And when we talk about
this, uh, I hope you all like my artwork. That's inspirational, I hope. Right. Yeah.
Um, I want to illustrate this a little bit for those of you. There was this dude so
crate, Socrates, right? If you ever watch, sorry, someone in the audience will appreciate
Ted, Bill and Ted's excellent adventure. Um, Socrates, Socrates made a point. He said
to understand what it means to be human. This goes back to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. To understand what it means to be human, first of all entails
to understand what we are not. It's much easier to get rid of the what we're not than
what we are. For those of you like Sherlock Holmes, any CS Lewis fans, Chronicles
of Narnia, if it's not this, it's not that, it has to be this, will appreciate this.
It's a cornerstone of all civilization, but especially Western civilization. What
does it mean to be human? Well, the first thing to know that what it means human is
that we are, if anybody is, please come afterwards and let me know are divine or gods.
We are not. We are bound by time and space. We are not omnipotent, omnisient. If anybody
in the audience says a god, please come talk to me. We we definitely need to buy a
beer and uh and get that sorted out. But we are limited, right? We are mortal. And
yet in the other hand, we're also something more than just animals, right? We can
create. We we reason. We have conscience, right? Whatever animal feelings, my biologist,
right? Uh we are also in the way that we are creative andconscious in a way as far
as we can ascertain that animals are not. So to be human. Whoa. That is not what I
wanted to do. I thought I might have a pointer. I have a pointer. Oh, we do have laser
pointer. Um that we whatever it means to be human is between those two. So the first
thing to recognize about being human is knowing what we're not. And therefore
the pursuit of our humanity by definition becomes a moderate pursuit. Now what do
we mean by representation and responsibility? We talk about representative government.
We talk about government being responsible. But both of those terms are critically
important because they have a duality about them which fits right with the moderation.
And we'll get us to the republic in a second. When we talk about represent, we represent
two things. We represent our intrinsic humanity. Again, neither God nor animal gods.
And we also represent the people who elect us if we aren't elected officials. And
even if we're not elected officials, for those of you who have families, in many ways,
you represent your children until they're of age. We have people here who have department
lead. They represent their departments. You might be a member of...there's representation
as a part almost every aspect of life. So the idea of representation by definition
and its historic kind of etmological roots entails both the representation that there's
something more than us even as we look to try to represent and take care of the people
that we're with. Responsibility is the same way. The core Latin term is spondoa which
is a divine oath you make. So when we talk about representative responsible government,
it's not merely I represent you and do as you wish, but I also have an accountability
to kind of keep in mind other obligations which might transcend the particularities
of what you desire at this particular moment. For those of you who ever been frustrated
by the electoral college, that's the purpose behind it. A second attempt to give us
a pause to think about what we're actually doing. It's why we have such a convoluted
complicated system of government. What we call federalism for that reason. Republic.
It's an important concept. A republic by definition is representative. It has a responsibility.
We are not a pure democracy. Specifically, not in the Athenian variety. Little bit
of caveat for those of you who ever want to research this. It's absolutely fascinating.
The average person says, "Oh, you know, our democracy comes from the Greeks." There's
not a founder on the federalist or anti-federalist side had anything positive to say
about Greek democracy. Matter of fact, they followed Montesquieu and said democracy
as it's practiced in the Anglo-Saxon world comes from the Tutonic Force, which was
a very elected representative type of democracy. Something worth keeping in mind.
Republics by definition are mediated. They are mediated by this idea of representation
and responsibility. And of course again recognizing who we are as human beings we
end up being quite moderate in what we try to pursue. All right. So this is kind of
the American dynamic. What this leads us to is a type of citizenry that understands
kind of the tension within themselves. Uh to put it in simple terms when we think
about this in a different context, Aristotle makes the statement and says man is a
political animal. Now what that doesn't mean that was how we vote our voting behaviors
or how we go about adjudicating exit polls. It means we are social beings. If anybody
here has been loved by anyone you know I always point out to you when I teach my class
I said
everybody has probably been in a relationship at this stage. Everybody has some friendship
right mom, dad, a puppy. There's always a relationship dynamic involved in which decisions
are made in one capacity or another that are political. Right? How do you decide you
and your significant other on a Friday night what are you going to do? Is it power?
Is it who has the better argument? How is that decision made? There was a comedian
once said, you know, my wife and I, we are perfect democracy. We each get 50% one
vote. She gets the tiebreaker. It's worked out for 20 years. We're going to keep going
with it. That would be kind of the dynamic involved when you think about that all
of life in that sense. When says man is a political animal, man has this social dynamic
about him. And the purpose of that social dynamic informs us as citizens who are representative,
responsible, moderate, and first and foremost a republic to ourselves. Ever been on
that Friday night when your brain says you should do X and you call it your heart
says you should do Y and then there's probably another part of you that says Z. It's
kind of schizophrenic, right? The idea is you have to somehow adjudicate how you're
going to make those decisions. and American government going back to the ethos the
first principle of republican government gone all the way back to Plato in his book
on the republic it's not about government first and foremost it's about the republic
of your own soul how do you take your mind and your spirit and your appetites and
bring them into harmony with each other. All right that's kind of way of...big lots
of words. There's a reason at the end of this there's going to be a little test. I
don't have too many wordy slides but there's going to be a few and I'm going to indicate
why at the end that these are important. Publius and the guys, Federalist 55 makes
this statement. He says, "No offices, therefore, can be dealt to to existing members,
but such..." Oops. So, ah, well, that didn't work. Excuse me. Wrong button. All right,
there we are. There we are. There's the laser. Ordinary cash. And to suppose that
these would be sufficient to purchase the guardians of the people selected by the
people themselves is to renounce every rule by which events ought to be calculated
and and to substitute an indiscriminate and unbounded jealousy with which all reasoning
must be in man. Okay. The bottom line to all of this is if we believe that we could
find ways to corrupt the American political system, right? If men were angels, there
would be no need for government. Federalist 51. But men are not. So we need government.
But if we believe that those checks and balances, if the virtue was insufficient,
there would be no possibility. And so what what Publius says in 55, he goes on. He
says, "As there is a degree of depravity in mankind, pay close attention to this,
which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust, so there are other
qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence."
Now pay attention. Think about the moderation. Think about representation. Think about
responsibility. Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities
in a higher degree than any other form. were the pictures which have been drawn by
the political jealousy of some among us, in this case the anti-federalists, faithful
likenesses of the human character, the inference would be that there's not sufficient
virtue among men for self-government and that nothing less than chains of desperatism
can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another. If you pay attention
to that wording, you see the tension between the limitations of human beings being
but human and not therefore more than animals striving towards the divine but yet
never being able to attain it. Matter of fact, one of the greatest horrors, as we
will see in a few slides, is human beings. When we fail to keep that moderation in
check, when we think we can transform the world because we have god-like powers, we
don't cease to be human. Well, we cease to be human. We also cease to be animals.
We become beasts and the world turns out to be a pretty ugly place quite quickly.
When we
talk then about grand strategy, the basis of the precursor of this dialogue is to
situate the fact that in a republic, a government of the people, by the people, for
the people, of the of the people, by the people, for the people, right? Gettysburg
address, Lincoln, we are all statesmen. We are all responsible. That is what makes
a republic. We in the sense of that we have the virtue in ourselves to order our own
soul, but we're also aware that sometimes we're going to elect folks to represent
us hopefully who might be a little bit more continent than we are. Now, whenever I
use the word incontinence, my biologists will always remind me we're dealing with
bowel movements or something to that effect. I would like to point out the philosophical
origins of that term before biology ever hijacked it meant an inconsistency of character
by which we fail to live up to our ideals. One of the big things you all need to differentiate
is a hypocrite from an incontinent person. They both look the same. But the one believes
in their ideals and they just fail to live up to it. The other one never believes
it in the first place. They just want to be seen as such. Hypocrites I have no patience
for. But in continent people that's each of us unless again we have a god among us
in which case please come up afterwards and talk to me. So when we talk about grand
strategy, grand strategy as the instrument by which we take all of these social, economic,
social, cultural, political, military means to formulate our foreign policy to in
the words of the oath of office protect against enemies foreign and domestic. We formulate
the big picture. But here's the thing, who's formulating that big picture? We always
like to say government is doing X or Y to us. But the reality is each of us here is
the government because we elect. We each represent and are represented. We each are
responsible even as others respond to us and each of us if we are striving after coherence
are pursuing moderation because we are aware of the limitations of who we are as human
beings. Grand strategy. Uh this was actually on the poster so I don't need to spend
too much time but as John Lewis Gatis on a book appropriately titled on grand strategy
says is to see the world not as you wish it were but as it actually is. This fits
really well with what Isaiah Berlin in an essay a long time ago says, "Statesmen know
what to do and when to do it if they are to achieve their ends, which themselves are
usually not born with some private world of inner thought
or introverted feeling, but here's that word again, represent the crystallization
of what a large number of their fellow citizens are thinking in some dim, inarticulate,
but nevertheless persistent fashion." See, when we talk about representative government,
the idea would be if this if this were a New England town hall, if this was our community,
right? Black Hill State has about 3,500 students, I hear, or 4,000 is what I was told,
somewhere in there. But if this were a community, and all of a sudden I said, "Hey,
to pay for this conference, we have to pass a, like in a church, we're going to pass
a hat around." And I recognize that our biologist doesn't put any money in. And
you three, well, you just kind of pass it along as well. And this section over here
takes money out, right? And they're like, it's time to get some money. But somebody
right there, that gentleman right there, all by himself, isolated sitting there, he
puts what little money he has into it. Who are you going to want to be your treasurer
for our little community? Probably this gentleman. But are you going to trust him
with all your money? Because what is that classic statement? Power corrupts,
right? Absolute power corrupts. Absolutely. The reality remains we always keep a watchful
eye. So when we talk about grand strategy, the formulation is of those that we elect,
but we need to be attuned enough and aware enough of what's going on so that the people
we elect represent us, but also represent the larger vision of what needs to be accomplished.
Brings me up to the geopolitical realities. What I want to do briefly is go through
the geopolitical realities before returning to the question of how we respond to it.
When we talk about current conflicts, we talk about geopolitical military engagements.
We have the war in Ukraine. Obviously, I think everybody's seen that in the news.
We talk more about China or Sino-American relationships. We talk about the nature
of trade wars, but we also talk about the fact of kind of another arms race. And then,
of course, we have the Middle East, which hasn't a problem that's gone away, and it's
going to persist into the foreseeable future, however defined. Not only are the religious
divisions and the tribal divisions, the cultural divisions, it is a complex part of
the world. I would like to point out for those of you when you ever think about it,
the space what's called you historically transoxania from roughly Turkey all the way
to China is kind of if you look at the geography of this planet, the heart of this.
I mean, if you think about it, America was unknown for most of human
history. And it's also a little bit of an oddity that a small peninsula known as Europe
of the Asian landmass has dominated global politics for as long as it has. It's worth
keeping in mind the tensions of this world and we'll explain a little more why the
regional nature of some of these things can blow up. When we talk then next we talk
from the standpoint of economic warfare and world trade. The first kind of just is
a visual representation of trade networks. The second kind of shows you in no great
depth and again this presentation is not meant to go into the depth of numbers. But
if you look at this you recognize when somebody says what is an American company versus
what is a global company. When it says produced in America it's really difficult to
find all products that go into the components being made in America. So we talk about
the stressors of geopolitics. We have warfare. Warfare we're going to get back to.
But this is also a form of warfare. And matter of fact, it can lead to warfare of
a far more violent variety when economics are in tuned. Right? All of a sudden people's
livelihood is at stake. Climate change whether you are for or against the reality
is the environment plays a part in our calculation as do pandemics. We just went through
the COVID
19 pandemic as an example. All right. uh there are great concerns in that realm that
when we talk about diseases and given the nature of globalization communication these
things have global outreach and global effects in the way they have not had before.
This is what keeps me up at night. ABC atomic uh biological chemical also NBC nuclear
biological chemical is another way of terming this. When we talk about this, this
should give you pause just from a nearly number standpoint that when we talk about
the security market going from 18.2 billion to 29 projected, that's a five roughly
five to six% growth rate annualized in a market. Now, what are we what are we doing
when we go back to the COVID vaccine as an example of this? For every vaccine, once
you know how to fight a disease, you also have the ability to weaponize it, right?
And that's one of the kind of grand horrors you need to keep in mind. Why do I bring
all this up? I'm going to pause here real brief to point out that these problems that
we're discussing are no longer merely regional. Right? The the 20th century, Paul
Johnson, in a wonderful book called Modern Times illustrates the fact that when we
think about the world as it is today, it's no longer that I have to just worry about
somebody launching some diseased cows into my castle and trying to wipe me out. Any
one of these things can destroy the planet quite easily. We'll get into a little bit
more than that in a second. We talk next about cyber warfare. Cyber warfare and the
ability to infrastructurally destroy and take out targets whether it's your phishing
attack on your local computer, identity theft or on a global phenomena is something
that is only increasing and it's increasing because of AI. Right now we have in some
sensibility this kind of idea of a generative AI model but we are moving to agentic
AI in which now the ability for in machines to think for themselves could actually
result in machines programming machines, full constructive AI. Now we're not there
yet but I want to be clear there is something here that needs to be kept in mind as
far as a gamechanger in the way geopolitics is formulated. If you take all of these
threats together and possibilities because every threat is also a possibility and
every possibility is a threat, you get grand strategy and grand strategy for America
is formulated in the national security strategy. Uh we don't...I picked the one from
2017 from the previous Trump administration because the current administration has
not yet posted its new and revised version, but I doubt it's going to be marketkedly
different. The national security strategy feeds into two documents. One is the national
defense strategy and then of course the national military strategy. Without getting
into the details of when they're formulated, be aware that these three documents together
constitute America's grand strategy. Specifically, the national security strategy.
If you look
at those slides though, you notice something. Of the three important documents that
dictate our grand strategy, two of them focus on what? Again, this is that interactive
portion since we're...it's almost like a class at this stage, right? I mean, I'm,
you know, you have the professor sitting up
front, the buffer zone, everybody in the back, right? Uh, trust me, I'm a back bencher.
Uh, I'm back there sitting there, you know, doing something else as well. Um, or listening,
but doing that sounded bad. Anyway, moral of the story is what is the idea? What do
you see here? What what two documents? What is the theme that dominates these documents?
We just went through an entire uh brief discussion of the various threats we face.
What what component is being addressed at least especially in the latter two? Military.
Here's here's the horror. Why military? Okay. You and your friend have an argument
on a Friday night. Okay. Well, I wasn't trying to make it personal. So if you um if
you argue with that person most the time I hope violence doesn't ensue because we
live in a legal structure and if violence were to ensue police and other individuals
would interfere, but on a global scale there is no policemen. Whatever you might think
of the United Nations whatever you might think of the uh criminal courts we do not
have an agreed upon authority on an international scale. That means when we cease
talking and the issue remains, all we have resort to is violence. Um my students always
mention the purge to me. I said what would happen if you think about and I guess it's
a you know movie I haven't seen it but the idea of I looked up enough at this stage
if we were to abolish all government for 24 to 48 hours. when we could talk about
speak the way you know federalist 51 says if men were angels there would be no need
for government. One of the key things that Federalist says, all of politics is a reflection
on human nature and you have to get human nature right. And when students tell me
or when colleagues tell me, "Hey Ruben, I think the world is a really kind and gentle
place. We just make it awful." I said, "Perfect. All right. I don't know, who's your
uh... who is your chancellor? Who's the highest authority at Black Hill State University?"
President Elliot. Okay. The president says, "Uh, folks, to show the beauty of Black
Hill State University, whatever happens at 麻豆传媒映画 University from Friday night
to Sunday night, we'll have no accountability." I wonder how many of us are going
to put a bonfire, play some disc golf, do a little grilling, and how many of us are
going to vacate the campus. It is a dangerous phenomenon that I can tell you, I've
been on two civil wars on the ground, and I can also speak from history. The 20, 20,
60% rule applies more often than we like. And the 20, 20, 60% rule is simply this.
In any moment when there's a failed state, when any there's an absence of law, there
are 20% of the people who have waited for whatever reason to do great violence. And
there's also 20% for whatever reason, usually habituation, who want to avoid all violence,
who want peace. And
then there's 60% who are not sure what they want, who are uncertain, who never really
gave some thought. Now I don't think it takes much imagination. If 20% want violence
are approaching with weapons and the 20% who want peace are raising their hands, what
what what happens to the 20% who want peace? They die. They die. Thank you, Mike,
for reaching out as a colleague, right? Um yes. Um not leaving me hanging like that,
you know, moment. Um so the idea comes across they die. Then the 60% have a choice.
They either become victims or they become collaborators until the orgy of violence
exhausts itself and somebody from the outside usually steps in to take whatever mess
there is and try to separate the parties out. When we talk about military, that's
why this plays into this. This gentleman by the Don Rumsfeld, this quote, whatever
you might think of Rumsfeld is an important quote. There are known knowns. There are
things we know that we know. We know of what I just talked about. Those are threats
we know and those are opportunities we know. But we don't even know all of that because
there are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know.
In other words, nobody knows what agentic or full AI is going to look like. Nobody
knows what a nuclear attack. Uh and a matter of fact, for those of you who are familiar
with the Cato Institute, well, about two decades ago, it's called the Green Glass
Club. They started formulating the idea that maybe a tactical nuclear war is actually
viable. I'm not so necessarily sure that's a healthy way of thinking about politics
or the weapons that we have. Um there also unknown unknowns and that's what scares
me. When you look at that quote right there, the theme of moderation, the remembering
of what it means to be human is going to be critical for your ability to not only
elect individuals who understand this, but also be involved in a construction of what
can be foreign policy because war and sadly is inevitable result. Anybody ever heard
of Tadrat Akakus? Tells you a little about our human condition when people say, "Oh,
we fundamentally changed." This is uh 10,000 BC. It's on a cave in this region right
there. And when you take a look at the that painting, it's one of the first illustrations
of war. So from Tadraakus 10,000 BC to the contemporary moment, it seems like there's
always been. But the difficulty is here. The damage done, although great, is nothing
in comparison to the weapons that are now at our disposal. If this conversation I've
had this in numerous instances I've had it with undergrads. I've had it with grads.
I've had it with professionals. My argument to you all is for those of you who are
doing and enduring this right is to think through that does this argument have some
validity that if we are not careful what will this planet look like? Because it won't
take much for this to be quickly destroyed. the Indiana. Well, Indiana. When India
and Pakistan first achieved nuclear weapons, I remember a conversation from a Pakistani
general who said, "We are okay if we have a
nuclear war with India. For if they do, they will only destroy one nation of the prophet,
but we will eliminate most of the Hindus on this planet." We have to be very careful
with language. We have to be very careful with our responsibility as a United States
because we remain at this moment still the fulcrum actor on the world stage. Here's
the sad reality. Of the past 3,400 years of humans have been entirely at peace for
only 268 or just 8% of recorded history. When we talk about this, the last century
especially was particularly bloody. If for those of you who don't remember the war
to end all wars, right? Kind of a biblical metaphor, right? How many points of light
did Wilson carry to to Versailles? Somebody said it. Somebody say it louder.
Audience Member
14.
Dr. Ruben Steve
14. Thank you. Who was who was it? Oh, Zeke. God, come on. I need We need some students
who are undergrads who are saying this. 14 points of light modeled off of the book
of Revelation. It's a reality that we thought this was going to be it. You got to
understand the 20th century dawned. Man has become rational. We have scientific means.
We're going to find a way to make peace. And it's going to one last war. It's like
uh watching the third part of the Matrix, right? We're going to get rid of Agent Smith
once and for all and all peace will ensue. Well, that didn't really work out, did
it? The 20th century, over 38 million people died in wars and civil wars. That's pretty
horrific. But when we go back to the theme of moderation, if we fail to take human
beings into account who we are, if we fail to be modern, if we forget the responsibility
and representation, if we think that we somehow can transform human beings into our
image, that we can create a better world, something that a philosopher by the name
of Eric Vogland in the 20th century referred to as secular messiahs who wanted to
transform. We're talking here about Hitler and Marx, Hitler and Stalin and we're talking
about uh the killing fields and and and Pol Pot, right? When we talk about people
wanting to create a better world who get tired of what immanuel kant philosophy referred
to that man is a crooked piece of wood out of which nothing straight can be made.
When we do that, then we have the horror that 169 million people were killed by government
programs of one kind or another. The century in which rational human beings were finally
going to overcome their barbarism that there wasn't going to be another war painting
didn't quite turn out. Hope springs eternal. Anybody ever hear of Francis Pukyama?
Yes. Oh, where did you, if you don't mind me, I know you raised your hand and now
you're being called out. Uh, where army? Is that an army shirt?
Audience Member
Yes!
Dr. Ruben Steve
Oh, army strong. That's good. Hoorah! I love my army colleagues. Where did you hear
about it?
Audience Member
Well, I was in the air force actually. I got this at a friend's house, but [indistinguishable]
Dr. Ruben Steve
Okay, excellent! Wonderful! Francis wonderful human being he wrote this book called
the end of history in the last man in which he says what we may be witnessing is not
just the end of the cold war or the passing of a particular period of postwar history
but the end of history as such that is the end of pont mankind's ideological evolution
and the universalization of western liberal democracy in the final form of government.
Now, Francis has been rewriting this thesis a couple times. Sadly he's getting older
too and he's becoming a little bit more pessimistic. It's almost heartbreaking for
me to see. But the reality remains that from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to
1990s first Gulf War and the 60 plus conflicts in the 1990s all the way to September
11th, which then gave us this beautiful thing war and terror explained. Guess what?
It's an infinite loop because you can't fight a war on terror and win. It's just not
possible to the present moment when we look at the current conflicts raging on the
world. This idea is not to be an eye chart that you memorize the idea. It's only to
give you a smattering that we are in a very violent planet still. When we deal all
of that, I like my man Einstein when he says the release of Adam power has changed
everything except our way of thinking. I think this is an important point. Paul Johnson,
I mentioned that book earlier, Modern Times, the 20th century has changed the nature
of weapons. It's no longer merely something that we can contain. If we unleash any
of these weapons on a global scale, it could be the end. A virus, COVID just gave
us a small taste of that, right? Shut us down. Even though, again, it could have been
a lot more deadly had it actually been a lot more contagious. Um, the release of the
atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking. The solution to this
problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a
watch maker. You know, that that is kind of an interesting concept. Two things are
infinite, the universe and human stupidity. I'm not so sure about the universe. So
warfare, warfare seems to be a perennial problem. It means that the national instruments
of power when we talk about grand strategy if we can't convince our interlocators,
our partners, let alone our potential opponents of the prudence of finding a more
moderate and sane world, all we are left with is war. You might have actually seen
the fact that Plato's attributed to this. I always like to point out no it's actually
George Santiana poor play. I mean, I have no problem. We can give Plato credit for
everything. Alfred North Whitehead says, "All of philosophy is a footnote to Plato.
I can live with that." So, here's the problem, right? That's not what we want. That's
not what we need. Where does this leave us to bring it back to the issue of statesmanship?
A nation's interests drive its identity. National uh identity, national interest,
national interest is predicated on who we are. What you do is predicated on who you
are. I think most of you if you're undergraduates will appreciate the analogy on a
Friday evening. If you and your friend are sitting at whatever dorm or wherever and
like, hey man what do you want to do? And if he goes dude whatever man, what about
you? Man I have no idea whatever. Two people, Friday night, whatever nothing good
happens. That's universal anywhere. So when we talk about this idea who are you think
about it this way if you want to have a meaningful relationship just with another
human being sit down and say, "What do I really want? Who am I?" What applies to interpersonal
relationships applies even on that same scale to global politics. Who are we as a
people? Who are we as Americans? I'm not going to get into the present political landscape,
but I will tell you it's a little bit troubling to me the number of times I hear references
to civil war, to divides that cannot be breached, to fundamental disagreements. I
gave the analogy that if you we the military has never had an instance where it's
received counterveiling orders, but I'm not going to go do the exercise I do at other
in institutions. I'm going to ask you this though. If the president of the United
States said the military should do X and the speaker of the house, let's say under
a democratic authorship said you should not. This is an unlawful order. You the military
need to make a decision. That is the end because at that stage every general will
tell you a civil war ensues because now you have and we've never had this happen.
So that civil military relationship that importance of understanding who we are it's
critical. I will tell you this republics are not the norm in human history. They don't
last for long. And the reason they don't last for long is because we by definition
are immodderate souls. We want answers. The last thing you want to hear from me is
well what's the answer? Oh it's like a little this and it's a little of that. Oh you
wishywashy. You know quit vacasillating. give me an answer. Well, no. This is the
reality of where you need to stay. But it's very uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable.
And a result of that, we cater to one or the other. The result of that is we fail
to live up to what ehar by the way for those of you who never read this book, this
is one of the best books on the cause of World War II. Any sound political thought
must be based on elements of both utopia and reality. Where utopianism has become
a hollow and intolerable sham which serves as a disguise for the interests of the
privileged, the realist performs an indispensable service in unmasking it. But pure
realism can offer nothing but a naked struggle for power which makes any kind of international
society impossible. Having demolished the current utopia with the weapons of realism,
we still need to build a new utopia of our own which will one day fall to the same
weapons. The human will continues to seek an escape from the logical consequences
of realism in the venision of an international order which as soon as it crystallizes
itself into concrete political form, becomes tainted with self-interest and hypocrisy
and must once again be attacked with the instruments of realism. It's this tension.
Um if you've been in love, how often do you tell the person you love, I love you?
Is it as the comedian says, I told my wife I loved her when we got married. If anything
changes, I will let her know. Does that work? How many of us would enjoy that type
of dynamic? How often do we have to repeat things? Think about the rituals of our
lives. Apart from the biological reality that we have to sleep and eat every day and
drink every day, think about other things that we do, whether it's of a religious
or personal persuasion, the habits that we have, the things we do, the meetings we
have, the classes we go to. When we talk about this, my encouragement to you as we
reach the end of at least the discussion part before I open it up for a talk, there
are two key works that every American should read. One is the Federalist Papers. It's
the one true work of American political thought. If you want to get your head around
this, now here's the fun part. The Federalist Papers, where were they published initially?
It wasn't like Madison, Hamilton and Jay, who was sick, got together and said, "You
know what? We are going to bond this book and we're going to torture undergraduates
in introducing government courses for the next 200 to 300 years of American civilization.
Where was this? Anybody know where it was published? This is that interactive portion
again. Nobody. Who's...somebody said it. Who's that? Where? Yeah, there we are. Uh,
are you...no, you're not an undergrad, are you? No. No. I can't quite tell from here.
Darn it. New York City newspapers. These were read in dockyards in coffee shops and
pubs. Think about the literacy rate, right? Um a gentleman uh uh Edmund Burke
who was a parliamentarian on the eve of American Revolution was giving a speech in
parliament and he tells the British you think you're going to win this war very easily.
You think there's a bunch of yokels in the colonies who don't know anything. He says
British book sellers sell more books in the American colonies than they do in all
of England. We were very well read people. Federalist papers is one. The other one
is Democracy in America by a frenchman, Toqueville, who traveled over here for reason
study the the criminal uh uh courts uh the prison system, penal system, ended up though
being fascinated and this book is really important. If you were to say two books that
you should read to get your head around the problem set and that will inspire you
to be moderate it would be these two.Here's what Toqueville says and I know it's another
long one but I want to get I'll explain to you why I have the long quotes which usually
again PowerPoint is not amenable to text but there's a sensible reason why I'm including
this in this talk today particularly. Subjection in small affairs manifests itself
every day and makes itself felt indiscriminately by all citizens does
not drive them to despair but it thwart them constantly and leads them to relinquish
the use of their will and finally to give up on themselves. It thus extinguishes their
spirit little by little and neverates their soul. While the obedience that is due
only to in a small number of very grave but very rare circumstances displays servitude
now only and then it makes it weigh only on certain men. In vain will you change these
same citizens whom you have made so dependent on the central power with choosing from
time to time the representatives of this power. This use so important but so short
and so rare of their free will not prevent them from losing little by little the ability
to think to feel and to act by themselves and from this falling gradually below the
level of humanity. I want you to
think about what Toqueville is saying here the reality means you can't just elect
official and say you know what, they'll take care of it. Think about your classes.
I I would suspect most of your teachers would want you to actually read the text,
right? Otherwise, all you're doing is listening to them and they become your leader.
They become the person who's thinking for you. And you see, I don't need to. I just
need to pass the test. Multiple choice. My professor doesn't care anyway, right? I
don't even care about the subject matter. Fine. But you make those habituated in your
lives and before you know it a very slavish spirit ensues where you just have the
inability to say yeah I can vote, but I really haven't thought through how I should
go about voting.So what is this an appeal to? It's an appeal to moderation. This entire
talk on a foreign policy grand strategy the failures of the last so to speak wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been because we lack kinetic dominance. We can put
bombs on target. We can integrate the hell out of a polomial. We are very good at
that. What it's lacking is an awareness of difficulty that there are no simple solutions
and the spirit of moderation is required which is something we probably also could
benefit from domestically. Responsibility already discussed that and representation.
Where does that leave us? Publius federalist number one. I'm not going to write the
whole thing. I just want to highlight where not they're not even these in introducements
to moderation. Nothing could be more ill judged than that intolerant spirit which
has at all times characterized political parties. For in politics as in religion,
it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword heresies. And either
can rarely be cured by persecution. Here's a little thing. I've given talks to pro-life
and pro-choice groups. Both of them speak in terms of human rights. Both of them talk
about the [indistinguishable] of the individual ability account. They all use the
same language, but the fundamental view of the world is different. For those of you
without making controversial, this is not looking to try to be political, but if just
assume, let's just use that as an example. If everybody from the local county all
the way to the apolitical Supreme Court were for one or the other, were utterly pro-life
or utterly pro-choice and changed every law in this country to reflect the reality
of one or the other position, does the other side go away? If your answer is no, right
there, the spirit of moderation makes you recognize what may or may not necessarily
be possible or impossible. A republic, you guys all seen this. I just kind of most
of you don't really know the story. In essence, on the last day of the convention,
a lady asked Dr. Franklin, "What have we got? A republic or a monarchy, a democracy?
What do we have? You have republic if you can keep it or what is it going to take
to keep it?" I will end with this. Today I shall speak to you of the subject of individual
citizenship. The one subject of vital importance to you my hearers and to me and my
countrymen. Because you and we, a great citizens of a great democratic republics.
A democratic republic such as ours success or failure will be conditioned upon the
way in which the average man the average woman does his or her duty. First in the
ordinary everyday affairs of life and next in those great occasional crises which
we which call for heroic virtues. The average citizen must be a good citizen if our
republics are to succeed. The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main
source and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the
average citizenship of the nation. Therefore, it behooves us to do our best to see
that the standard of the average citizen is kept high and the average cannot be kept
high unless the standard of the leaders is very much higher. If you look at the date
of this, not to test you, it's a year prior to World War I. There's a concept that
Hegel introduced. The owl of Manurva rises at dusk. Does anybody ever heard that or
know what it means? Or do you think we might know what it means? Then we take a shot
at it. The owl of Manurva. Manurva? Is Roman goddess of wisdom. So wisdom rises at
dusk. It
rises when things go south. How many of you have taken the time to ask the person
you love when everything is going well? Hey, what can we do to sustain this love?
When do you talk about what's going wrong in your relationship? What can you do to
sustain, what's going on, how do we fix our relationship? When does that conversation
ensue? When when there's conflict, right? When
things have gone south. So the idea same way with medicine, when do you see a doctor
is when you have a problem rather than taking the preventative approach. Politics
in this day and age more than ever is about the preventative approach. The purpose
of this little chat of ours is to open it up now for those that are so inclined to
dialogue. I want to be clear, lectures only go so far. This is only to situate the
dynamic. I'm hoping that you maybe some of you will be inspired to think through the
hard work that needs to be entailed if we're going to maintain our experiment in democratic
republican government. Because I can tell you again from somebody who's done this
for a while, if the only answer I have is, well, that person is just stupid because
they don't believe as I do that doesn't necessarily work in interpersonal dynamics
to create community and it's sure as heck not
going to work on a domestic scale. And let me be clear, it definitely doesn't work
on an international scale. Those are my comments. Um, at the end of this, I thank
you. And if you want to talk, I'm here to talk. I appreciate your time.
Applause
Extra credit has been served.
Audience Member
First, I just want to thank for your talk. My question is basically what are some
threats to moderation that exists at our time, like right now that that you...? I
mean I know that's a huge conversation but long.
Dr. Ruben Steve
[Indistinguishable] But when you recognize we need to be able to think about through
the complexity of an issue that itself right the number one thing as one, car has
pointed out and you know essay many many years ago because Google making us stupid
um and others have pointed this out, the ability to have an elongated conversation
and to process a multiplicity here's the problem with all communication if I were
to make a statement I cannot think two I cannot make two statements at the same time
right so I can only say..if I were to Say, "Michael, Mike, work with me. I don't know
you super well. I'm going to...Michael is a jerk, but the nicest guy I have ever met."
You don't even know what to do with that statement. All what has happened in that
statement? As soon as I said Michael's a jerk, micro aggression or macro, right? Anyway...and
then, but the but gets lost. So, either you heard the first part or the second part
and then you can't process the two. How can I say he's a jerk but the nicest guy I
ever met? And so the difficulty is because of the nature of our communication approach,
I blame Strunk and White for this a little bit, we end up with subject-verb direct
object and we like the simplicity of the structure of the sentence as Americans period.
But the real ability to deal with the elongated process as a thought, not even the
thought itself just the means by which we think. The second step in this has to do
with a lot of what I was trying to illustrate. Um my dominant experience in in the
diplomatic realm has been people want simple solution to complex problems and I always
try to point out there are no simple solutions period, to any of this relationally
and I always try to bring this back to relationship dynamics right? I always try to
say look when's the last time a couple said hey we solved it all. When's the last...if
for those of you who've been in a relationship for longer than two months, problems
are constantly coming up and this is not an age thing right? I mean think about teenagers
right and I don't know what the age demographic, but I assume 18, 19 year old and
20-year-old, right? You're dealing with the same problem and you're constantly having
to work at it. And I think it's that inability to want to work. Matter of fact, maybe
the best way to illustrate this is the Barnes & Noble self-help section, right? We
want quick answers, five steps, right? Uh men's magazines, women's magazines, you
know, five things to ripped abs, seven things to, you know, be the best lover. And
I always tell everybody, if those actually work, what would happen to the sale of
the magazine? It'd be done, right? It'd be gone. You're right. It would go through
the roof, but then it would be done because we all would have found the answer. The
reality remains, we have to do the hard work. There's two ways, I always tell folks,
you can grow wise before you grow. This is also not very popular, right? One is the
school of hard knocks, very American, right? But for those of you uh I know Mike has
dealt with this. If you deal with victims of trauma, if you deal with abuse cases
or situations, why does a woman, especially a woman, can be men as well, but why does
somebody why does a person return to a violent partner? It's not because the school
of hard knocks hasn't hurt them. It's they have no reflective distance. I think there's
another possibility. They have no escape. So, a school of hard knocks can work if
there's some reflective distance. Well, how do we gain reflective distance? How do
we grow wise before we grow old? Well, historically, we would have a village elder
and a village fool, and we'd learn from both. But that's really where books come in
and books won't save us but having a conversation so we can think through some things.
Now again, we have to have a reading culture which goes me back to Edmund Burke who
also wants to read and this is going to sound horribly uh undemocratic but reads the
right things, right? Reads the idea of the things that sustain if I have an hour am
I going to do Harry Potter or am I doing the federalist papers, right? Maybe the best
way to illustrate this to your question is on a Friday night, students will always
say sir, you know or especially academy sir nobody else calls me sir right? But you
know what are we going to do about this? How are we going to save America? I'm like
hey that's a great question love where your heart is. You're going to save America.
What are you going to do tonight? What do you mean? Well, you just are telling me
I this is really important. What you what you just said, sir, was phenomenal. I'm
like, really? It was phenomenal. Hey, appreciate that. A little bit of love, right?
Not just credit, extra credit. Now, what are you going to do about it? What do you
mean? Like, are you going to go read the fellow? No. What you mean tonight? No, we
got I mean, there's a pub crawl. Got to go party. I'm like, okay, if you're not willing
to do the hard work for your own soul, for your own republic, then you can't expect
anybody else to do it. And I think that would be part of that as well. So my answer
I think the number one thing is the thought process of long sustained thought and
two, just a culture in which we're looking for simple solutions. And I think by the
way this is where the sound bite uh where um uh Marshall McLuhan in this in a long
time ago referred to the medium becomes the message right? Where we have the understanding
that uh mass media in one sense allows everybody to express themselves, but there's
no filter to who we listen to as a result of that, right? Matter of fact to be, sadly,
it's the screed that gets our attention. When's the last time you know anybody looked
at a TikTok video YouTube video that was moderate? Yeah, the average person, we like
the car accident, right? We like the person who's like, you know, Trump is the Messiah
or Trump is Satan, right? And then, you know, whatever, right? I mean, not my I don't
care where you fit, but my point is it's that extremeness that needs and I think,
by the way, this is where I would argue, and I don't think people take this seriously
enough. It's kind of the argument uh you know I had a friend one time say, the problem
Ruben is 99% of Americans still stop at stop lights. And it took me a while to understand
what he meant by that and the reason this is difficult it's al Manurva problem. Hey
the laws are working but what Montesque understood the laws can be a lot more effectual
for a while even when the spirit fades. The best analogy is Valentine's Day, I'm going
to ruin Valentine's Day for some of you. A man, usually a man, but let's just say
whoever gives a bundle of roses to your love. Now, if you thought about what you're
doing, you're giving death. Those flowers are dead, right? They've been uprooted.
They're going to die. But you're like, "Oh, they're going to bloom in a vase." Well,
in many ways, that's civilizationally the same problem. The pox romana at the end
of the Roman Republic after the republic had failed and the empire and the Caesars
had been established experienced the greatest amount of economic flourishing. The
late blooming of economic prosperity is not a sign of the underurning vitality of
a civilization. My concern is and this is really where I as you know, 28 years active
duty in one capacity another in multiple capacities of advisory work, it's a difficulty
that right now the question I would challenge every American with is okay you know
we have our domestic problems but if America is not on the world stage as the fulcrum
actor or one of the fulcrum actors, who replaces us? And I'm not sure it's in a better
world. Not to say that we're perfect now before we whitewash, and know we have all
kinds, but I mean, I want to be clear, in the end of moderation if America's not acting
who is? Would we want China, would we want Russia, would we want Iran? I mean the
countries that, so to speak, India, that are vying, in one sense or another, for a
place at the table um? And should have a place. I want to be clear about that. But
if we remove ourselves, what does the world look like? So that would be my encouragement
and my contention. I hope that answered your question somewhat. All right. Yes. Yes,
sir. Yeah.
Audience Member
So, [indistinguishable] President Nixon [indistinguishable] What you see as, I mean
I'm seeing, as the war on terror, I mean involving the spreading of freedom and that
was [indistinguishable]what you see like that [indistinguishable].
Dr. Ruben Steve
That is a great question. I think, I think this is another thing that we don't do
very well. And and by the way, it's been a flaw. The founders understood the danger
of the of elections. Elections as as the federalist paper says is a revolution every
couple of years, right? Whether it's in the executive branch or in the congressional
branch. The difficulty is the founders did not want, I want to be clear, nobody thought,
they called them factions, right? Um uh if you're anybody speak German, the Germans
actually just use the term faction still to this day positively, which is weird. But
the
founders were very deeply concerned about factions. They knew that you couldn't eliminate
it, but you want to mitigate it. So the difficulty comes that we have to think in
broader contours, which goes back to your question about how do we do that? Well,
you got to see what on the scope, right? Once you recognize the threats that are available,
maybe at that point, you can actually try to formulate a more moderate, a more cogent
uh uh grand strategy in foreign policy because you are aware of the fact. Um, I think
one of the great dangers I've had, I try to avoid muddling into politics. I have many
friends right now and previous administration, this administration. Um, so I, as an
adviser, I try to stay out of the, but I always point out, I said you keep ramping
up the game, right? So you get ticked off. The pendulum like, oh, this party did this
to us, so we're going to do that to them. Uh, I heard a lot of people talking about,
oh, this is our chance for revenge, right? And it makes me cringe a little bit, right?
So the pendulum keeps swinging and my concern is are you not aware that the precedent
you're setting by whatever you're doing can be utilized by those
who may not agree with you in the future and because we do have this. So here's the
thing um I was uh I cannot stress to you enough, I know this is you know difficult,
but the reliability of America as an ally is not always that great because we're not
thinking long term nor do we have the long-term sustaining vision because of the nature
of electoral cycles. Sometimes this pendulum... which is why in the essence you know
the American spirit was always, and gladly I can say you know if you think about somebody
being elected on either side of the political spectrum they have to eventually be
moderate usually by the midterm election the other party wins the house or the senate
or both, if if you know whatever the president is. So there's usually a sense of this
but my concern is is that the foreign policy changes so much,right? I don't care again
where you fit in but it disrupts and it also makes us look a little bit foolish. You
got to understand from the outside, we understand, what America's going through and
we're like you know but from the outside, I go to other parts of the world, I was
recently. Somebody I said oh you know, is it true, true story, is it true that Trump
is interning uh uh Muslims and shooting them? And I go...there's no way to respond
to that, right? I mean, but and it's not...it's just the perception, do you follow?
Just like so often when I talk to American audience about what's going on in the Middle
East and I try to distinguish Sunni from Shia, let alone from Sufi. When I try to
talk Wahhabism and what.. it gets lost. people like okay it's Islam, I'm like no it's
much more complicated than that and I think that same dynamic holds now. Who is the
best representatives is us, which means we can't allow ourselves to be taken in by
the the car accident. Now how do you habituate that? Hopefully this is the university
right, I mean I don't...I'm going to sound horribly academic for a second but isn't
the whole purpose of every class to have the student try to understand the complexity
of their situation, right? I mean, I sometimes professors sadly, I don't know, I don't
want to step on any toes, but I ideologically I'm going to grind my axe. My students
are going to be of my persuasion. I'm like, no, you know, try to think broader. You're
trying to get them to think about whatever the field is so that they hopefully can
be more careful, more reflective about making those decisions in whatever field that
is. So, I think the biggest the biggest thing for grand strategy is is the coherence.
And I think this is where, by the way, the greatest fear I have when it comes to this
is the amplitude variations. Remember, every republic always devolves into a democracy
and every democracy, there's no exception in human history and there haven't been
many to go with anyway, devolves into tyranny and commits suicide, which I mean engages
in a coup or in a civil war. I think we need to be very careful. I know this isn't
very palatable, right? But I always try to remind folks I said it's not a matter of
one instant
moment, but how many of you have had said like two days prior to breaking up with
someone, I love you forever. We're going to we're going to be together forever. And
then two days later, poof, it's done. Right? How many people have you known who have
been married who I mean, you know, prenup notwithstanding, nobody gets married and
goes, you know what, I can't wait till we divorce.
Can't wait for this. I cannot wait for this to be over. So, what happens? Why does
it happen? Well, it's because they're necessarily not doing the hard work to think
about what maybe this life actually entails. Which is why again republics end up failing
is because each of us in this room, right, come to this lecture not because it's the
greatest lecture since sliced bread, but because it
matters and not because of extra credit but because you recognize the dynamic that's
entailed. And if that doesn't work then all bets are off.
[Audience members speaks indistinguishably]
Yeah. Yeah.
[Audience members speaks indistinguishably]
Right.
[Audience members speaks indistinguishably]
Right. No, I I think first of all the the idea of having a binary enemy does help
obviously. No, put it in simple terms. You know, people have asked like how do we
create world peace? I said, "Well, an alien invasion, right? An alien, you know, then
we will unite, you know, as a species, I think we might actually try to survive um
in that." But absent of that, my thought is a couple things. One, there is no golden
age, right? I always try to point out, this is not a theory of decline, there are
moments, and again, by the way, what I try to point out, it's really difficult to
draw conclusions. Cicero in a book called On Duties, which is a key text of statesmanship says in, Skippia is talking to Leilis and they're
talking about the nature of how can we draw any conclusions about Roman history? And
one of them says, "By no means. It's only been 500 years." Right? So the idea of civilizational
change takes time for us to evaluate. If I may though, the difference of I'm not sure
a president could stand up at this moment and say, "Nah, it's not what your country
can do for you, but what you can do for your country." In the same way that Kennedy
without guile was saying that, right? It doesn't mean there was a golden age. There
was a French spot, but the ethos of a people does change waxes and wings. And at this
present moment, I think I, think the cultural dynamic internally to America of somehow
um you know uh [indistinguishable] writes talk we emphasize rights over responsibilities.
You know one of the things I tried to point out you didn't see the word rights anywhere
on my slides. You know it's obviously there's way too many talks we could have but
rights from the standpoint were always supposed under responsibility. It wasn't like
rights were independent of that. Right. So the difficulty I think what you're asking
is yeah no it would help if there was a clarity but what I was trying to point out
by the geopolitical reality the problems are intermeshed and intertwined in such a
way that all the more do we need to tread carefully um who is our friend and who is
our enemy, right? Um and we sometimes do not do a good job of being uh making good
and necessary distinctions and being nuanced especially in our foreign policy um because
we're a big country of course as well I will tell you. It was very hard for my work
in the 2000s uh to try to explain to uh uh any Iraqi that we're a reliable ally because
after the first Gulf War, we made promises to the Kurds in the north and to the Marsh
Arabs in the south um that we would protect them from Saddam. And then when our interests,
again, I want to be clear, never nefariously, but interests change, right? Um and
Saddam engaged in his uh war against the Kurds and then pretty much wiped out the
entire it was an engineering feat. He drained the entire marshes and pretty much killed
every Marsh Arab. It's very hard for me to say, "Trust me, my friend. Trust me, America
is an ally." It makes it a little bit more difficult. So, I do think if you're asking
from the standpoint of, "Yeah, it would be great if we had a simple enemy, but we're
not." That that world is gone, right? Um, in matter of fact, if you take a look at
what's going on now with with generative AI and the arguments of, you know, portable
nuclear reactors, I mean, it sounds great, right? You know, everybody's like, "Oo,
you know, they have nuclear in the backyard." I'm like, "I don't know." you know,
uh, it's a little scary. You know, I don't know this guy that well. And he's got a
little portable nuclear generator, which, you know, he's a biologist, so granted he's
not going to do much, but, you know, all a sudden, maybe dispersal rates with some
kind of virus that I have no idea, but my engineers scare me. They're the ones that
I think I can deploy this much better. But my point is, or my biologist in a lab who
gets very upset, right? COVID vaccine is a classic example. They have made uh uh strains
of that virus with very high, I think 80 some% mortality rates, right? Uh, so because
somebody said, "Oh, now that we know how to vaccinate against, let's let's see what
we can toy it." My biologists love it. And I appreciate that from one standpoint,
but the danger is now you created a weapon that that should scare us. And I think
again, we need to be very careful about the political ramifications of what happens
when we do not do the hard work. Yes.
[Audience members speaks indistinguishably]
Wonderful. Let me let me give you an analogy and if this doesn't answer your question,
just do this and say, "Hey, moron, you're off the wrong track." Um, one of the great,
I didn't get to it in this talk. It's there's never enough hours, right? You know,
so to speak and even though Mike said, "Hey, go on for two or three hours." Uh, we
know, we're good. Uh, no. Um, so Aristotle makes this analogy. Um, and I'm going to
tell you, and hopefully this will help. So, the idea of Tilos, goes back to this idea,
teleology. What Aristotle says is that the human being, a human being has a tilos,
an end, a potentiality which has to become an actuality. He makes the analogy. He
says if you take an acorn and you throw it into the ground, right? An acorn, my biologist,
right? You take an acorn, you throw, it does one of two things. Wonderful. This is
why professor of biology. Wonderful. It either dies or germinates. And if it's nurtured,
it goes up into a what kind of tree? An oak tree. Everybody wants to say acorn tree.
Um, but an oak tree. It grows into an oak tree. Wonderful. Right now, the seed of
humanity, you take the seed of human beings, this goes back to responsibility. You
throw it into the ground, so to speak. It either dies or if it's nurtured, grows up
into a child and grows up into and here's the critical into the form of a human being.
Now, Aristotle says if that acorn had valition, had a will, and the acorn wanted to
be a duck, what would you tell that acorn? You you can't do it, right? And matter
of fact, there's a wonderful fairy tale called the ugly duckling by Hans Christian
Anderson. What's the problem with that fairy tale? The ugly duckling is it's not a
duck at all. So the idea of human teleology and responsibility is that we have to
have some clarity about who we are. That if we try to be other than what it means
to be human, either a god or an animal, we fail and we will never reach happiness
in even the most banal sense of the word of happiness. That is to say, peace with
ourselves. Um, for those of you like fairy tales, uh, George McDonald, the spiritual
mentor of CS Lewis and a wonderful, if you have kids, loved ones, or you just like
a great story, read The Princess and Curdie and The Princess and Goblin. Wonderful stories. In The Princess and Curdie, Curdie is gifted by his fairy godmother. It's a wonderful metaphor gifted by to
touch human beings and find out what's inside. What really breaks Curdie's heart,
he touches human beings and he finds out that most people are cows content to chew
their cud, never really ask themselves questions, right? Just go through life like
a cow. I've been a farmer, so I know my cows, right? They don't really existentially
ask themselves too many questions and then they die. What really broke his heart is
how many times he touches a human being and finds a poisonous creature, a viper or
a scorpion or something inside. And what really made Curdie sad is how rarely he touches
a human being, finds a human being inside. I think that metaphor kind of illustrates
the idea when you talk about responsibility. It's not a matter of first and foremost,
it's the thinkability of a thought. I know that sounds kind of cliche but we need
to spend more time asking what makes a thought thinkable. Gravity has been around.
It was not invented by Galileo Newton but it took something for us to think about
it in a way that we did not think about it before. Humans being has been in society
but it's not until the 19th century really the 20th where we have sociology, right?
What made that thought thinkable at a time when it happened? So when we talk about
your question about responsibility to ourselves, the first question is you got to
do the hard work and say what does it mean to be a human being? All of politics says
federalist 51 is a reflection on human nature. Be clear about who we are. I think
the greatest error I've seen is the inaccuracy about who we are. I think the greatest
political failures happen from those who tend to argue that human beings are one of
two things: intrinsically good in the sense that they've just left to themselves will
create a better world and we get to empower them or human beings are utterly malleable
and I can transform them to make them into something I want to make them into. And
both of those I think are dangerous errors. So when you talk about responsibility
to yourself I would challenge you to say, begin by asking what does it mean to be
a human being and then if you want to particularize it to yourself and I what is your...I
don't even know your name. What's your name?
[Audience member speaks indistinguishably]
Caitlyn. Is it hyphenated? Okay. Caitlyn is...we go by Caitlyn or? Okay so Caitlyn,
is the first question, okay, once you have asked to address the human question what
now is your interest particular? What do you want to accomplish as a human being?
What do you see as your tilos? And it, by the way, when you are doing that it's incredibly...I
always tell when I do, I used to do counseling, I used to tell people be honest with
your other. The key part is is whatever it is be honest now because if you try to
be something you're not, if you really don't genuinely believe it, it's going to come
out eventually anyway. So this idea of responsibility entails kind of the understanding
um fundamentally in Aristotle's term, what is the teleological end? Now the philosophical
sub overlay of that is the one that man or human beings in general are in sold flesh.
There's both a transcendent and imminent aspect. The physicality, what Kant, if you
don't like that language, refers to as noumenoa and phenomena. The spirit, the realm
of noumenoa, the mind, the spirit and the realm of phenomena, the experiences, the
physicality of things. And I think when we begin to think about those categories,
it changes how we address the problem. I think that would be the first step. Does
that in any way answer your question or did I completely miss it?
[Audience member speaks indistinguishably]
Mhm. Wonderful. Yeah. You know, there's the idea, for most of human history that's
called, I mean the vita contemplativa and the vita active, right? The life of contemplation
and action, but here's the important thing. The highest level of action is contemplation
about who we are. Socrates in the Gorgias asks and says, ask him -this is a great question- the Greek is asking what he is,
not who he is. Because the first thing you have to determine is are you a human being.
If you're a human being now, who are you? Right? I'm going to sound like The Who for
a second. [singing]Who are you? [regular speech] But but the idea is you have to challenge
yourself with an understanding of that. It's not so much about the answer. It's really
the Socratic methodology to your point. I think it's perfectly legitimate, is very
much what Arthur Conand Doyle does. It's what CS Lewis does as well. If it's not this
and it's not this, however improbable, whatever humanity is, it has to be in this
because you've eliminated the errors, so to speak. Um, another way to illustrate this
is this. If the wager that Socrates propounds about contemplation and action is to
say, okay, if you know the answer to life is not being an animal and the answer to
life is not being a god, it needs to be a mortal and be a human being, and the answer
is to be found through a discussion of these topics by the exploration of the human
condition. Socrates says, "What can an intelligent human being do but want to do this?"
The wager I always come to, students are like, "Sir, I don't understand." Let me give
you an analogy. I said, "I'm uh 52. I want to play for the NFL now. I want to be a
quarterback in the NFL. I'm from Germany. I never even played football, right? So,
um I want to be in the NFL. The NFL, metaphorically, is the meaning of life, right?
Let's just say again, I've eliminated basketball and baseball. What? Right? NFL is
it. You would tell me, Ruben, give up. No, you wouldn't. You would say, if it's the
meaning of life, you have to pursue it. If I changed everything, my diet, you'd- get
a coach, everything in my life changed. In 10 years, I'm 62. Will I finally be an
NFL quarterback? And you're like, eh probably not. But you have to pursue it because
everything else is a lie. Even if you don't achieve it, the idea is that's the only
way you can be human. And to put in simple terms and what this talk was about, sometimes
we want because we don't like that answer because we want a solution, we end up eliminating
what we don't like as far as an incomplete answer and pursue an error because at least
we can get our head around it. And I don't know how many times that has been a foreign
policy decision that's been made. You know, we sometimes forget that the people we
elect are also human beings. How many of us, uh you know, wake up in the morning,
we're having a bad day because we slept poorly or we had some bad breakfast or had
an argument. I mean, you know, presidents, ministers of cabinets, they're just like
us. My concern there is that the question set sometimes allows us to forget that there
are no simple solutions. And so sometimes just to be... I have to say the number one
difficulty I have in my job has been in the situations I find myself. if somebody's
saying, some general usually, like okay Dr. Steves, enough is enough. We're just going
to kinetically engage. I'm like. "Ugh. Yeah, like that's going to solve the problems
right? Um, Hollywood has made us believe that human problems are easily, you know
this is, if, I don't you know. Hollywood is this: you know what, the way you dress
and the way you look, you are a shame on yourself. And in Hollywood, my interlocutor
goes, "You know what, Ruben? Thanks man it's been really great. Somebody finally spoke
the truth to me." In reality, he goes right up for the top and fights back. So I think
that would be that spirit of moderation that comes in again, but it's also no immediate
answer available. Does that...am I in any way helping? If not, hit me again.
[Audience member speaks indistinguishably]
Fair enough.
[Audience member speaks indistinguishably]
You know, I...here's my challenge. I don't know your background or your interest,
but if you want, take a look. I think people always say like, "Well, how do I get
my head around this problem set?" Read, uh read Plato's Republic. Uh if you have you
read it?
[Audience member speaks indistinguishably]
Have you? Okay. People sometimes read it. Reread it again, but remember, the republic
that he's talking about is not the...it's the city's soul analogy, right? The city
is brought up as an analogy to the soul. It's not that we're looking for politics,
but the republic of the soul. I think when you read that in that light, it changes
the dynamic of how the work is understood because the real interlocutor at the end
when you close that book, when you've been in the house of the dead all along, right?
You crossed over the river of Lethe, you went into the house of Cephalus, you're...everybody
in the dialogue is dead. You recognize that the soul, the judgment part of the soul
that has to live for a day, is you when you close that book. What kind of life are
you going to be beholden to? That's the dynamic. I think that alone can provide any
answers. Now, I'm not going to be able to persuade anyone per se. Trust me. I mean,
uh um, we don't know each other, Caitlyn, but I will tell you, I told my kids this.
I said in the life of Plutarch, one of the great books on statesmanship, in the life
of Julius Caesar, it talks about Cato the Younger having constantly admonished the
Senate about the threat that Julius Caesar would become. And then finally when Julius
Caesar was known to be the tyrant that he was, Plutarch writes and says, "And at that
point, Cato was recognized to be have been a wise, but ineffectual counselor." And
I told my kids, "Hey guys, I think that's what I want in my gravestone." Now my kids
don't miss a beat. They're like, "Dad, wise, really? How about just ineffectual?"
And I said, "Thanks, guys. Appreciate that." But so, I guess what I'm trying to say
is, it's not a matter of trying to convince. It's a dialogue, right? And I don't It's
really hard when we're like sitting on a stage and you know, here I'm producing. But
if we, if the conversation is sincere, I'm always glad to get up a cup of coffee because
to me, I'm not sure what else I can converse about. Um I will say that that, and it's
not a matter of trying to convince. I think sometimes, you know, my students, I always
try to point out and say my purpose of this course is not to get you to hold to some
position. When you read a work of literature, when you read anything, I want you to
be sympathetic that whoever wrote this had an argument that they were trying to make
in their own voice. However much it might go against the grain of your soul try to
understand its own terms. If you do that, you'll be a much more powerful critic of
that work than if you just jump in and say, "Oh my gosh, this must be a moron." Or,
I read a passage and it must not make sense and so therefore it must be unimportant.
Give the author or give your, if they're an author worthy of this, right? You know,
I'm not sure Harry Potter qualifies but, you know, if you're reading something like
Plato or Aristotle or any number of works that have withstood the test of time, whatever
that means, give the benefit of the doubt that maybe you're the one in error. It doesn't
mean you are, it just means, what is the argument being made? And once you understand
that on its own terms, I think you can be a more powerful critic. So the offer stands,
Caitlyn, if you ever want to converse. I am local. You know, Blackbird is, you know,
right next door and I enjoy hanging out.
[Audience member speaks indistinguishably]
Hey, there we are. Look at that. Hey! There's some of the the the folks from Blackbird.
I hang out there all the time. So, more than glad to get a cup of coffee and chat.
Any, any other...Zeke.
[Audience member speaks indistinguishably]
Okay. Yep. No, great question. So, I'm very Tocquevillian in this regard. I think
Tocqueville nails this. Again, uh read the book. Uh, but Tocqueville's point is a
simple one. He says, "Look, I don't know what's going to change." It's like this dialogue
right now, right? We are a small subsection of the university, right? And we are a
small subsection of the community, even smaller if not counting the university. I
have no idea, right? All I can say is that, with the effect of this conversation,
is or is not going to be, right? All I know is that this is the only conversation
that I think is worthy of being had in the end of the day. So the idea comes across,
put it in simple terms, um students, to illustrate this, students have sometimes said,
"How do I change the world?" I said, "Well start by changing yourself and then you
might actually find some traction." Now over the years, it's kind of worked out where
students have grown and some of them have actually taken me up on this, I call it
the wager. They take me up on this wager. So I have an A-10 squadron commander who
you know is...Friday, he does, you have to deal with the military mind but he buys
a round of drinks so long they all read a page of Plato, right? And he's slowly but
surely working through the Gorgias with him. I thought that's brilliant, right? I mean, it's bribery, granted, right?
It's like extra credit but maybe some good will still come of it in the end from the
standpoint that somebody goes beyond the purview of what they immediately hear to
think more deeply about it. So, when you talk about thought and action, my question
is, the conversation like with Caitlyn, I don't know what Caitlyn's going to do with
this, right? Um, Caitlyn might say, "What a moron, right? And forget it and, you know,
get drunk tonight and be happy that this conversation is over." Um, right? Uh, or
Caitlyn might and say, "You know what? I think there's something more there. I might
have a conversation." Now, I'm not sure it's worthy. Let me be clear. This has to
come- it has to be very democratic. But the idea comes across because you think something
more is there, you're going to take the time to explore it. And who knows from that
community? To put it in simple terms, had the American founders, right, not been readers,
there would have been no revolution. I think sometimes people forget how well read
they were. Tocqueville, um, in 1835 goes to the frontier. Anybody know where the frontier
was? 1835? The furthest place America had advanced to. 1835.
[Audience member speaks indistinguishably]
You're getting close. Not quite though. Green Bay, Wisconsin. Anybody here a Green
Bay Packers fan? It blows my mind to think about Green Bay. So, he goes to this log-
true story, he recounts it in volume two- goes to this log cabin in Green Bay and
he goes and he says- it's rudimentary log cabin- but he says, he finds the ecclesiastical
polity of England, along with the Bible and a few other works in a wood cabinet. So
Toppo says you know, the frontiersmen. It's not Willa Cather, the plains living aside.
This was communities going forward. So they're not by themselves in the first place
but the frontier is defined by three things. Bible is axon is newspaper, right? Bible
obviously for, as a metaphor for religious sensibility or metaphysical ethics. Newspaper
for politics, acts both as a weapon but also a means to carve out an existence. It's
that dynamic. I have no idea what's going to happen if you, Ezekiel, decide tomorrow
to sit at the student union with your copy of Tocqueville, right? Who knows what crazy
things could happen by you reading Tocqueville? I don't, I'm being a little bit tongue
in cheek, but that would be the idea. So, your thought and action, start local, start
small, right? What is Black Hill State University? I mean, think about this. I, you
know, I think it was Iowa. I always get Ohio and Iowa mixed up. Sorry, not an American
football fan. But the, whatever, I think it was Iowa. The university is 20,000 or
so, is in a small town though and the students finally wisen up because it was a blue
county at one point. The students wisen up that if they all registered they could
change the laws to make it a alcohol, right? So I mean this is by the way a negative
example of community, but it it works, right? So I have no idea what the repercussions
are going to be, but I will say and this is where I think you have to take, um well
I don't know, the small view of things that might actually explode into larger views,
right? I have no idea what our conversation, Ezekiel, is going to come to, but I'm
not sure what else I can talk to you about unless it were this. And so that would
be the dynamic that in hopes and this is Tocqueville that this will grow into something
more. Um the New England town hall is a classic example of this, right? Um, I will
tell you this, this goes back to the wrong answer. If what I'm saying is possible
or the only possibility then saying, "Well, Ruben, because it's such a slim and maybe
this answers you a little bit, Caitlyn, too. Because there's such a slim possibility
of it actually working, I'm just going to go, you know, and and uh, you know, go to
the club tonight." Well, okay. But the club's not going to give you the answer, right?
It's like a young man once asked me. He said, "Hey, sir, I want to find a life partner."
Like, "Okay, what are you doing?" I go to the clubs. I'm like, "Well, okay, you're
probably not going to find what you're looking for because the people going to the
club, even if you had somebody that was looking for somebody that was like, they're
going to pass each other cuz that's not the environment where you're going to even
see each other. Go to Walmart or Kroger's or Safeway, right? Go to the, you know,
check out fruit or something. Moral of the story is there's other ways of doing it,
but it doesn't guarantee it will work, but it's really the only probability that you
might have of succeeding." Does that help a little bit, Zeke? I am willing to do this
all night long. I mean, this is, this is this is my wheelhouse. Uh, whiskey at this
stage would help. But uh you know, he gave me vodka in the bottle, which is why I
got more animated as we went. But if not, here's the deal. I would say this. Mike
knows me at this stage. This gentleman, what's your name again?
[Audience member speaks indistinguishably]
What?
Audience member
Charlie.
Dr. Ruben Steve
Charlie. Charlie is, I get to know Charlie. But Charlie, I hear is is escaping. Yeah.
So, but so Mike, you're not going anywhere, right? Okay. So, Mike knows me and if
you know Mike, uh Professor Hollingsworth, my apologies. Um, feel free. You have my
contact, anybody. I'm more than willing feel free to pass it out. I think this stuff
really does matter. I do deeply, uh, you know, for those of you who don't know my
background, I'm German American. I grew up in Germany. My father was American, mother
was German, but I came to the United States. I was going to be a farmer in Germany.
Long complicated story, not a bad childhood, just changed. I came to America, went
to the Air Force Academy, and the next thing, it's been 28 years later. I have a lot
of vested interest in the experiment that is the American experiment republican government
and I don't want it to come to an end. To put it in simple terms, look at this audience.
I don't know anybody but we are very mixed group ethnically, gender, I have no idea
about religion or something like that. This is not normal in human history, where
a group as diverse, even as this limitation of diversity here, of sitting down and
having a civilized dialogue without somebody telling somebody else to shut up because
of some ethnic, some gender, or some other criteria. To me, that matters and I would
hate to see that disappear because I've been to a lot of places on this planet where
you cannot do what we're doing here. And sometimes I would encourage, uh you know,
I encourage all my undergraduates do a year abroad but don't go to Europe. France
is cool I love it, so is Germany but get somewhere out. Go to Africa, or, you know,
or Southeast Asia or the Middle East, right? Spend a spend a semester in Saudi Arabia.
That'll change your perspective on on the world a little
bit. And I think that is kind of my encouragement to the undergrads in the audience.
All right. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so very much.
[Applause]
