Graduation address: Wednesday 22 June morning ceremony

Graduation address by Professor Anthony Lang, School of International Relations 

Vice-Chancellor, colleagues, special guests and graduates. 

First, and most importantly, to you graduates, congratulations! I realise, as we all do on this stage, that these words are long overdue to you. You were the first class to deal with the pandemic, which took away what should have been the culmination of your academic life here at St Andrews. It is certainly wonderful to see you here for this celebration, late as it is.

One of the things that you will sometime hear at graduation ceremonies is rules for life, or what rules to follow when you enter the ‘real world’. You might remember that your teachers here at St Andrews instilled in you various kinds of rules: how to do research, the ethics of investigation, the scientific method, textual interpretation, good writing, careful analysis, and general scholarly sensibility. We academics like rules; they make us feel like we are in control.

But there were lots of other rules you had to learn, ones that none of us expected: when to wear a mask, when to eat together, when to drink together, when to get tested, what to do when you wanted to travel, how far apart you should stand. The rules or guidelines or regulations or laws – we were never sure what they were – prevented shaking hands or hugging a friend or having classes in person. All the things that made university life normal slowly disappeared.

And other kinds of rules seem to be breaking down too. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February of this year, they violated one of the central rules of the international order. But it is not just Russia. One of the most cited reasons for Brexit was that the rules and regulations coming from the European Union were somehow hampering the British economy and society. And during the presidency of Donald Trump, the idea that no rules or international laws should bind the United States became a rallying cry for many. 

Living in a world without rules is scary. It can even be deadly, as the people of Ukraine are now experiencing. In my field of International Relations, there are voices calling for a return to a ‘rules based international order’ or a ‘return to normalcy’. But perhaps the rules we had were not fit for purpose. That rules-based order allowed great powers to undertake ‘humanitarian’ interventions which never seemed that helpful, as the ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan demonstrated. The neoliberalism of the global economy, with rules made by those who make the most money, has greatly increased global inequality. Our inability to formulate global responses to climate change and the pandemic reveal most clearly the empty promise of our rules-based order. 

My favourite political theorist, Hannah Arendt, wrote in 1954 that to understand totalitarianism we need to ‘think without a banister’. Certainly, she worried about the loss of those banisters, those rules and standards of judgment that made sense of the world. But she recognised that the existing rules were problematic. She believed the collapse of those banisters could be an opportunity. An opportunity to think creatively and courageously about what comes next. 

I hate to tell you this, but that is your job now – to think, to understand, and, as a result, to create new rules for a new world. You were taught how to think here, and some of the rules we have given you will, I hope, help you to think. We need you to create new standards and new rules, ones that protect the weak and bind the powerful. We need you to create a world in which we can live together without violence and with justice. Perhaps you have been doing it already, so keep it up if you have. If not, think about how you might. We, your teachers, know you can do it. We are counting on you. Good luck!