No Straw MenEnlightened discourse proscribes arguments that are weak or imaginary, like straw, set up only to be confuted summarily.

Who’s in Charge of the Future?

This is a speech I delivered for the Hamilton College Clark Prize. The subject, Who is in charge of the future?, was assigned.

Who is in charge of the future?

We all are—which means anybody can be. Indeed, the influence one person can command is extraordinary.

Of course, to direct the course of human events, it helps first to direct oneself. I propose a two-part method. First, identify and integrate your convictions. This way, you transcend hesitating, noncommittal language, and achieve clarity of purpose and strength of mind.

Second, make your convictions concrete, specific, and definite. This way, you can communicate them to others with ease. Take as your guide the principle to say what you mean, and to mean what you say.

But you need not launch into debates. Do not force arguments on those uninterested or unwilling. It is not your job to save everyone’s soul.

It behooves you, however, to make yourself heard on those issues that personally matter most. Opportunities abound; my favorite is e-mailing newspapers and magazines, TV and radio commentators, and my congressmen.

If you prefer talking, try the following. On any given day, note how many times people articulate ideas as if they were indisputable. Why not then challenge such comments—again, not to give a lengthy speech, but merely to register disagreement?

Moreover, never keep silent when silence implies your sanction. This is one of the tragic lessons of the 20th century: that evil flourishes by the moral agnosticism of good people—because the good is not self-sustaining, but needs eternal vigilance.

The challenge, then, consists not of opposing, but of exposing; not of denouncing, but of disproving; not of evading, but of proclaiming an alternative. Eureka moments are rare, since changing our beliefs is a process. Yet it is of such informed activism that public opinion is ultimately molded.

Some might argue that these notions are simplistic and fanciful. To the contrary, as Thomas Edison understood, genius is about 2% inspiration and 98% perspiration. So few people attend town-hall meetings, observes the filmmaker Michael Moore, that if you go with a group you can virtually institute your agenda. And in a country where only half of eligible voters exercise that sacred right, it’s increasingly evident: Decisions are made by those who show up and those who speak up.

To be sure, events greatly affect history; but it is a relative handful of humans with concrete convictions and the drive to pursue them that gives the world shape and purpose. As the anthropologist Margaret Mead reportedly said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that has.”

Who are these thoughtful, committed citizens? Who is in charge of the future? Again, anyone—regardless of color or creed, sex or sexuality—anyone who is willing to actively concern himself, who possesses both a can-do and ought-to-do attitude.

Perhaps the most famous example is that anonymous Chinese bystander, who in 1989 posted himself before and blocked a column of tanks near Tiananmen Square. In a moment, this otherwise unexceptional student may have impressed his image on the global memory more vividly, more intimately than even May Zedong did.

Then there’s Rosa Parks, whose mere refusal, in 1955, to change seats on a bus dramatically humanized the struggle to end Jim Crow.

More recently, we can point to Tim Berners-Lee. To those who don’t live in cyberspace, as we college students and our younger siblings do, you might not recognize this name. Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web.

But such obscurity only reinforces the point: To be in charge of the future, you don’t need money, you don’t need looks, you don’t need fame. What you need is an opportunity to express your preparation.

Some say greatness is a thing of the past, that there are no heroes left. I disagree. I say that heroes exist to the extent one stands guard at the gate of one’s mind, to the extent that one casts off the apathy people too often confuse for incompetence.

In her novel Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand crystallized the point:

“Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserve[], but have . . . been [un]able to reach. . . . The world you desire[] can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours.”

Go get it.