Keynote Address 2001'
Wheaton College
2001 Commencement Address
May 19, 2001
Thomas L. Friedman
I always used to say something very modest on these occasions, after being conferred with such an honor, until somebody told me the story of former Prime Minister Golda Meier at a staff meeting with one of her colleagues as going on and on very modestly about himself and on and on and on until she finally cut him off saying, "Stop being so modest. You're not so great."
So Dale, I will just say thank you to you and to the Wheaton community. It's an honor to be honored by you, and it's a treat to be back on your campus with the Wheaton family.
I'm not a guidance counselor and really am not one for career advice. I wish I could give you some, but I really can't. My own career was such a series of serendipitous accidents. It's nothing that could be modeled. So I thought I would talk to you for the next few minutes about something I know a little about, and that is the world you're stepping into, and how one should think about it, how one should analyze it as you shape your own careers. And I broke it down into the nine things I think you should know about the world you're about to step into. (I would have done ten, but Dale said I didn't have enough time.)
The first thing you need to know about the world you're stepping into is that it is a world that will be characterized, whether we like it or not, by this phenomena called globalization. Globalization is not a trend, it is not a fad, it is not a Nintendo game. You didn't start it, neither did I, and you can't stop it. It is the international system that has replaced the cold war system, and it is the world, and it is the system that will shape your life, your career, the company or NGO you work for.
Now, the best way to understand this globalization system is to compare it to the cold war system. The cold war system was characterized by one overarching system, and that was division. Division. The world was a divided place. And in that system all your threats and opportunities as a country, or a company, or university were characterized by division, or were characterized by who you were divided to. And that cold war system was symbolized by a single word; the wall, the Berlin Wall.
The globalization system you're stepping into is also characterized by an overarching feature, only it's integration. In this new system all your threats and all your opportunities as a country, a company, a community are now characterized by who you're connected to. And this new system is defined also by a single word; the Web, the World Wide Web. So basically over the last decade or so we've gone from a world of division and walls to a world of integration and webs.
In the cold war we reached for the hotline, which connected the White House and the Kremlin, a symbol that we were all divided, but thank God at least two people were in charge: the United States and the Soviet Union. And in globalization we reach for the Internet, which is a symbol that we're all connected and nobody is in charge. Yeah. What's really scary about the international system you are going to step into is that we are all increasingly connected but nobody is quite in charge. The internal logic of the globalization system exactly mirrors the logic of the Internet, which is why two Philippino college grads can put the Lovebug virus on the World Wide Web and melt down 10 billion computers and 10 billion dollars in data on seven continents in 24 hours, because we are all increasingly connected and nobody is quite in charge.
The Lovebug virus was to the age of globalization what the Cuban Missile crisis was to the cold war. It was the moment that highlighted our vulnerability. The Cuban Missile crisis showed us our vulnerability in a world divided in two nuclear superpowers, and the Lovebug showed us our vulnerability in a world connected with nobody quite in charge.
The second thing I think you need to keep in mind about this world is what I really found covering the world of diplomacy: that there's basically two kind of people in this world; wall people and Web people.
I first started thinking about this a couple of months ago when I ran into someone who mentioned to me that Secretary of State, Colin Powell, had spent the last two years before going into government on the board of America Online. I thought, isn't that interesting? Colin Powell spent the first 35 years of his adult life working for America-on-duty, and he spent the last two years working for America Online. And I thought, well, you know, I wonder which perspective he will bring to his job, because he's at two very different perspectives. America-on-duty sees its job as erecting walls and defending walls and breaking down walls. And the America-on duty people's favorite movie, of course, is "A Few Good Men" where, in that climactic scene, Jack Nicholson, the marine colonel, says to Tom Cruise, the navel officer, prosecuting him, "At those fancy parties you go to but you don't want to admit is you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall."
Now, the America Online people, they see the world as built around webs. They see the job of America as to expand the Web, reinforce the Web, and protect the Web at which we are among the people in the center. Of course, their favorite movie is You've Got Mail. Because the Web people understand when Russia has a financial crisis now, we've got mail. When two Philippine college graduates put the love virus on the World Wide Web, you've got mail now.
And these two perspectives I find really define people in today's world, the America-on-duty people, the wall people, they care who is on America's terrorism list. They see the world as divided between friends and enemies. The AmericaOnline people, the Web people, they care about who is on America's buddy list, and they see the world as defined between members and nonmembers of the network. I'm a web guy. I believe we are part of a Web world, and we cannot afford to be hiding behind walls.
The third thing I think you need to keep in mind about this world is that your age will be defined by one word, and that is change, the speed of change. And the reason everybody gets speeded up is very simple; because when the walls come down, when the walls between people and other colleges, when the walls between Digital computer and Compaq computer, when the walls between America and Russia, when the walls come down, what that means is that you are suddenly competing with a whole group of other people who you never imagined you were competing against before.
Think of those people at Borders Books, building their book stores with brick and mortar all over America--five, six years ago--minding their own business, making nice profits for the shareholders, and out of nowhere, out of nowhere comes borderless Books, Amazon.com, that suddenly eats into their business in such a fundamental way it threatens the very core of the company.
Now, the best way I can demonstrate that feed of change for you is with an ad I came across while I was working on my book, "The Lexus and the Olive Tree," an ad for the Sony camera. And if you don't remember anything about this speech today, including who gave it, remember this ad, because it will tell you pretty much everything you need to know about this world without walls. The ad is for the Sony Mavica digital camera. It has three pictures in it. The first is of the Sony digital camera. When I saw that ad, I thought, Sony? I didn't know Sony made cameras. I thought they made stereos and Walkmans and CD's. So Sony is now a camera company. And the first picture is the Sony digital camera, and under it, it says, "This is now your camera." Next to it is a three-and-a-half-inch floppy diskette, and under that, it says, "This is now your film." And next to that is a computer with a baby picture on it, and under that, it says, "This is now your post office." Now, what is that ad saying? That ad is saying that somebody at Sony headquarters woke up one day five, six years ago, and said, say, "What are we? What are we? We're just a big factory for digitizing things, for turning them into ones and zeros and transmitting them over modems. It happens we've been digitizing music and movies all these years, but what the heck: when you can digitize anything, we can also digitize your baby pictures. We can be Kodak."
Sony basically woke up one day about six years ago, and said, we are Sony, and by the way, now we're also Kodak. Then somebody down in shipping and receiving at Sony headquarters said, "You know what? While we're being Sony and Kodak, why don't we also transmit these pictures of your baby from Wheaton to Oakland over modems? Why don't we also be Federal Express?" That ad says we are Sony, we are Kodak, and now we're also Federal Express. Well, I saw that ad and I thought to myself, "Wow, what do the people at Kodak think about this? I'm driving in my car a couple of weeks later and I hear an ad for Kodak. They're now advertising all their computer Online services. They're talking like a PC company now.
So I go down to Houston to do some research at Compaq Computer. While I'm there I ask Compaq how they feel about Kodak becoming a PC company. The people at Compaq tell me, "We're not worried about Kodak. We've become like a big consulting company. Look at our ads. They just say, 'Compaq: Better Answers. We Do Business Solutions.'" Oh, I said, you do business solutions. Interesting.
A couple of weeks later I was with a friend of mine, he works for Price Waterhouse Coopers, the business solutions people. I ask him how he feels about Compaq going into the business solutions business. He says, "We're not worried about Compaq, but we're terrified of Goldman Sachs. They're now offering tax derivatives and tax advice, and that was our business." He suggested I read a book about it. I tell my wife go to Borders Books. She said, "Don't go to Borders Books, go to borderless books, go to Amazon.com." So I go downstairs, I call up Amazon.com. What's the first thing I see? They're now selling CD's. I said, "Wait a minute. Wasn't that Sony's business?" When the walls fall, we are all in each other's business, and that speeds up everything.
I mentioned this to my publisher one day at a meeting we had with book sellers, and the chief book seller from the Midwest stood up, Mark Gates. He said, "Mr. Friedman, I have to tell you a story. I was just in Brooks Brothers department store in the men's suit department looking to buy a new suit. What do I see? They're selling Michael Jordan's new book there, "For the Love of the Game," for 30 percent off on a stack of men's suits. I went up to the men's suit department. I said, 'How would you like it if I sold men suits in my book stores?' He said, 'Have you looked at your Con Edison electric bill lately? Con Edison is offering the Michael Jordan book for Christmas for 40 percent off, and you can now charge it on your electric bill.'" When the walls fall, fasten your seat belts, because the speed of change is going to be turbocharged.
The fourth thing I think you all need to keep in mind for all the foregoing reasons is the sheer complexity of the period you are going to be walking into the world. You know, I was thinking about it driving over here. When you were all in ninth grade, I believe there were 50 pages on the World Wide Web. Today, there are a billion, if not two.
When Bill Clinton became president, no one you knew had e-mail. And most people thought the Internet was something used to catch fish with on the Nile, okay? Eight years later, years after you walked out of ninth grade, the Internet now is ubiquitous and people consider access to it a fundamental entitlement. I believe if the next eight years are as complex as the previous eight years, before they are done, we will have to reconvene the founding fathers and founding mothers of this country to fundamentally restructure the legal system of America. That is how complex I believe that ultimately it's going to get.
The fifth thing you need to keep in mind in this world, and this one is I think quite important, it's what I call the real 2K disease. And the real 2K disease is not that phony virus on the millennium a couple of years ago. The real 2K disease is the disease of over-connectedness and what happens when we are all increasingly on time, online, everywhere all the time. I started thinking about this a couple of years ago. I came across the story of a man, an Israeli man, who was driving north of Tel Aviv with a cell phone in both ears steering the car with his elbows. He's my poster boy for over-connectedness. If you want to know what the disease looks like in Stage 5 terminal, that's what it looks like. And this is a real social disease.
I don't know about you all. You people call my office and say, is Tom Friedman there? My secretary says, no. Can I be connected to his cell phone or his pager or his beeper? You are always in. You are never out anymore. Out is over. Okay? You are stepping into a world where out is over. You are always in. Of course, if you're always in, it means you're always on. If you're always on, what else is always on 27/7 365?
A computer server. Well, no, thanks. I really don't care to live my life as a computer server.
And managing this over-connectedness now in the developed world, increasingly in the developed world, is a real social challenge, because we increasingly live in the age of what a Microsoft researcher calls continuous partial attention. We are all engaged in a stream of action in which we devote continuous partial attention to everything. Continuous partial attention means you are answering your e-mail while your daughter is asking you about her homework, while the phone rings, and your spouse is there asking you something else. We live in a constant stream of a continuous partial attention. And the reason I have no cell phone, no pager, no beeper is because I can't concentrate in that kind of a world. And I don't think you'll be able to either. The best thing you can do for yourself when you walk out of here is either don't get one or throw out whatever cell phone, pager, black berry or Palm Pilot you've acquired.
The next thing -- I guess I'm on No. 7 -- is that we're going to have to learn very quickly to do more things with less stuff. We now live in an age where 1.5 billion people in the world are living a globalization lifestyle. Living a globalization lifestyle means that you use a lot of hydrocarbons, petrochemicals and bent metal. But we are rapidly going to move from a world where a billion and a half people are living that lifestyle to three billion. If we make that transition without being able to do more things with less stuff, to do more driving with less small trucks and minivans, to use more computing with less energy, we are going to smoke up, burn up, and eat up this planet at a speed absolutely never witnessed by any class of Wheaton College. I can assure you that. When Vice-President Cheney says, "Oh, conservation, that's a feel good virtue," no I'm sorry: It is an obligation. It is an obligation.
Let me close with just the last two points that I really learned in working on this issue of globalization and in writing "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" and traveling around the world talking about and the most-asked questions I've gotten over the last couple of years; the first is, what do I do with my kids? What do I do with my kids? You've described a new world, a new system, so what do I do with my kids? Well, I'm a parent. I have a 13-year-old and a 15-year-old daughter, so this is something my wife and I think about. My wife teaches in the public school system in Washington. We think about this a lot. And my simple answer is the following: We are entering a world where the Internet, where networks will increasingly define how we educate, how we communicate and how we do business.
Now, as you all know about the Internet, it has a feature very different from the New York Times or a book publisher. It has no editor, no censor, no publisher, no teacher looking over your shoulder. And what that means is that the center of our children's lives and the center of our citizen's lives is going to be a technology through which they will interact with the world and one another totally naked. And what that means is if you are not building the internal software into your kids and your citizens, to interact nakedly with this world, we're going to have a real problem. And the internal software is not about modems and it's not about bandwidth. It's all about the fundamentals. It's about reading, writing and arithmetic, church, synagogue, temple, mosque, rule of law, good governance, good institutions. If you get those right, the wires will find you.
You know, there are two countries in Africa today, southern Africa. One is called Botswana which is one of the fastest-growing countries in the world last year. Another country is called Zimbabwe. It was one of the smallest-growing countries in the world. If you look at a map, you'll see that they're neighbors divided by a waterfall. What is the difference? The difference is Botswana has reasonable decent rule of law, decent government, decent democracy, decent institutions, decent market-friendly policies. And Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe has a robber oligarchy, okay? I tell you this: If I can get a fair trial in Zimbabwe in five years, I can assure you that Zimbabwe will do fine. But if I can't get a fair trial in Zimbabwe in five years, they can give everyone in Zimbabwe a PC, Internet connection, a black berry, at Palm Pilot, and it won't make ten cents worth of difference. It's all about the fundamentals. They are the secrets of the sauce. And these fundamentals, you can't download them. You can only upload them the old fashion way, under the olive tree, in places like this.
I grew up in small a small town outside of Minneapolis. And when I was growing up, it took me about an hour from my house to find trouble; by bus. Okay? On the Internet, trouble is just one click away. You're one click away from the Sorbonne library or the Wheaton Web site, and you're one click away from a neo Nazi beer hall or a pedophile's living room. The Internet will make you smarter, but it won't make you smart. It will extend your reach, but it will never tell you what to say at a PTA meeting. All that stuff, all those fundamentals, all that stuff you have to upload the old-fashioned way, under the olive tree.
If I had one wish, every modem sold in America would come with a warning from the Surgeon General, and on it would say very simply, "Judgment not included." That you have to upload yourself.
Let me close by sharing with you the most asked question about globalization as I've gone around the world. And it is very simply: Is God in Cyberspace? There's no question I've gotten that question from more people in different places and variations of that question, which is really a values question: Where will the values come from in such a wired world? The question was most likely posed to me a couple of years ago. A venture capitalist in Silicon Valley called me one day and said, "I want to give away a bunch of your books. I'm in Silicon Valley right now. You're in Washington. I want to go to every book store to buy every one of your books. I'll come to your house." Only the ones in Silicon Valley last year could do that sort of thing.
Well, I waited at home. The driver came carrying a bunch of crates of books. I invited him into the house. It will take me a long time to sign them. He sat down at the kitchen table. I signed away. He started leaping through the book and picked it up, and after a while he said, "The Lexus, that's like about technology and computers, right?" I said, yeah. He said, "The Olive Tree, that's family and community, right?" I said, yeah, got it. He said, "I just have one question. Where does God fit in?" He said, "I've been under the presence of Lord Jesus Christ. Where does God fit into this?"
Well, that was a real hard question for me, so hard that I went back and went to my own religious teacher, a Rabbi, Rabbi Marks in Amsterdam who appears in the early version of the book describing the Internet as the power of Abel. And I said, I got this question and I've got it over and over again. I wonder if you could help me answer this question: Is God in Cyberspace?
And let me close today, and thank you, again, by simply sharing with you his answer. My teacher Rabbi Marks pointed out to me there is a verse that says, "You are my witness, I am the Lord." According to Rabbi Marks, he interpreted that version to be saying, if you are my witness, I am the Lord, and if you are not my witness, I am not the Lord. In other words, explained Rabbi Marks, unless we bear witness to God's presence by our own good deeds, he is not present. Unless we behave as though he were running things, he isn't running things.
In the post-Biblical world we understand from the first day of the world that God trusted man to make choices, when he entrusted Adam to make the right decision about which fruit to eat in the Garden of Eden. We are responsible for making God's presence manifest by what we do. And the reason that this issue is most acute in cyberspace is because no one else is in charge there. There is no place in today's world where you encounter the freedom to choose that God gave man more than in cyberspace.
So what I should have told the delivery man is that God is not in cyberspace, but he wants to be there and only we can bring him there by how we act there. God celebrates a universe of freedom because he knows that the only way he is truly manifest in the world is not if he intervenes, but if we all choose sanctity and morality in an environment where we are free to choose anything.
As Rabbi Marks put it, "In the post-Biblical view of the world, you can not be moral unless you are totally free, because if you are not free, you are not empowered. If you are not empowered, the choices you make are not entirely your own. What God says about the Internet and cyberspace is that you are really free there, and I hope you make the right choices, because if you do, I will be present.
Thank you very much.
Last updated on 5/31/01.
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