The Way Forward

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton told an audience of more than 6,000 gathered Monday at North Carolina State University that the world would best find its way to peace and prosperity through “communitarianism.”

“We should be trying to create a world where we share the future,” Clinton said. “We share the benefits and the opportunities; we share the burdens and the responsibilities.

PHOTO GALLERY: The Way Forward (photos by Roger Winstead)

One of those responsibilities is to work together solve the world’s problems.

“How do you go about taking the best of intentions and turning them into positive changes in people’s lives?” he asked. “You’ve got to say, ‘I want to be a person involved in the how.’”

President Clinton’s address, titled “The Way Forward,” charted a course for America’s future after the 2008 election and focused on the effects of new presidential leadership on the nation’s important issues and policy solutions.  His presentation was part of NC State’s Millennium Seminar Series, which brings national and international figures to campus to discuss the world’s most pressing problems.

Clinton called on the “How To” Generation to get to work.

“I don’t think it’s good enough anymore to define your citizenship by being a good, honest worker and a taxpayer and someone who votes,” Clinton said.  “We have a ‘crisis of doing’ in the world.  We have all of these problems out there that people know are problems, that they can talk about until the cows come home, but nobody knows the how – how do you turn good intentions into real changes?”

Clinton cited what he called the two most salient points of the presidential election: The election of the first African American president, and widespread evidence that we are beyond racial polarization because we are a “multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious society.”

“We have learned to see our differences as making life a lot more interesting.  We value our differences.  Our futures are bound up together.  That’s what we mean by ‘communitarianism.’

“The fundamental fact of the 21st century is our interdependence.  Our differences make our lives more interesting but our common humanity matters more.  We have to find some way to come together or we can’t go forward.”

Chancellor James Oblinger introduced Clinton and led the audience in a moment of silence to commemorate the life of basketball coach Kay Yow.  Yow died Saturday following a long bout with cancer.