『甘肃龙网摘要_威海学为贵：【听力】耶鲁大学校长2018年耶鲁大学本科生毕业典礼（三）』Isaac wrote, “Bob Dahl spent countless hours in his office talking with me about my principal theoretical antagonist him! We would discuss this guy ‘Dahl’ in the third person, we consider the limi...
Isaac wrote, “Bob Dahl spent countless hours in his office talking with me about my principal theoretical antagonist him! We would discuss this guy ‘Dahl’ in the third person, we consider the limits of his arguments, we speculate about how he might respond to my arguments.”
Professor Dahl embraced his critics, listened to them, and conversed with them, a model of open and engaged scholarship and teaching – the best we can aspire to at Yale.
The lesson extends beyond our campus. Our greatest challenges as a society climate change, poverty, insecurity, violence demand innovative and creative solutions. Yet, political polarization is making it more difficult than ever to solve these problems. We must be able to talk with our opponents even though we disagree with them.
We might start by emulating Professor Dahl and so many other wise and generous thinkers who have drawn large circles and so added to the sum of human understanding.
My second piece of advice and here, I am taking some liberties with the metaphor is to draw as many circles as you can.
One circle will be your work. Make sure you enjoy it, but make sure you have other circles as well.
We know one of the keys to happiness is developing a passion even an expertise outside of work. Sharing that passion with others gives us great joy, and it connects us to circles of friends and associates who might be very different from the ones we would meet otherwise.
As many of you are aware, I am quite passionate about music from the Appalachian Mountain region. My love of traditional country and bluegrass music has allowed me to visit places such as southwest Virginia and eastern Kentucky. It has allowed me to chair the board of the International Bluegrass Music Museum, and to play bass for thirty years now with the Professors of Bluegrass. It enables me to share stories and songs with perfect strangers at summertime bluegrass festivals. Most significantly, though, it has led to circles of friendship beyond the towns in which I grew up, beyond the universities I attended, and beyond my profession of psychology.
