Pulitzer Prize-winner and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman addressed thousands of Northwestern community members as the guest speaker for the inauguration of his friend, President Morton O. Schapiro, on Friday afternoon.
Friedman discussed three global trends in the Great Recession: economic, environmental and education. Friedman said the world was growing in an “unsustainable way” and in 2008, “market and mother nature hit a wall.”
“(We are) growing in unsustainable ways that cannot be passed along to children,” Friedman said.
Friedman emphasized the connection between the health of the environment and the economy, comparing Citibank, Iceland’s banks and the ice banks’ mutual meltdowns in the same year of Bear Stearns and polar bears’ mutual extinction.
Friedman referred to two acronyms all too common in society: IBG and YBG – “I’ll be gone or you’ll be gone,” he said. “It is not only our financial system that needs a reboot and an upgrade, but also our education system.”
Friedman emphasized “inventing new jobs for the 21st-century workplace.” And more of them supported by “the right education.”
Using Steve Jobs an example, Friedman emphasized lateral thinking in tackling the world’s challenges and inventing new ways of approaching them.
He drew a parallel between Jobs’ willingness to break the mold and study across disciplines and Leonardo Da Vinci’s application of his wealth of knowledge, urging the audience to use these lateral thinkers as role models. Like in an ideal liberal arts education, each specialty Da Vinci had “nourished” the other.
“Vanilla just doesn’t cut it anymore,” he said. “It’s all about what chocolate sauce, whipped cream or cherry you can put on top.”
