Dear graduates,
You are completing your studies in a transformative era. This is not the first time, and certainly not the last.
Between 1440 and 1450, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. With this achievement, he changed the world. Until then, for millennia, learning and the dissemination, reception, and sharing of information had been the privilege of a small handful of individuals, monasteries, universities, and the aristocracy.
Texts were written and copied by hand, primarily in Latin. This had one advantage. Texts written at that time are still worth reading today. The author had to carefully consider every word, writing economically and timelessly, not merely for the present moment. After all, weeks, or rather months, would pass from the conception of an idea, through its written record, to its delivery to the recipient. Moreover, the delivery of a text was fraught with many risks. The quality of the text had to be worth the effort and the dangers involved.
The printing press caused a revolution. Suddenly, a text could be written, printed, and delivered to its recipient within days, even hours, and furthermore, it began to be printed in the vernacular. The result: any text could be read by everyone.
Without the printing press, Martin Luther's Reformation between 1522 and 1534 would not have succeeded. His translations and his own groundbreaking texts could be read by everyone. Every subsequent author gained this same advantage. Suddenly, it also became possible to write texts that were superficial, careless, and manipulative for the moment. Unfortunately!
Texts therefore understandably contributed not only to greater education but also to the spread of hatred, manipulation, and the division of Europe—at that time between Catholics and Protestants. The hatred spread through texts culminated in 1618 in the most terrible conflict in European history, the Thirty Years' War.
The printing press cannot be blamed for the hatred and the war. Responsibility rested with those who used it to divide the Old Continent with their hatred. Both warring sides claimed to be defending the correct holy cause and that the adversary needed to be destroyed. Neither side was actually concerned with purifying religion. For both, it was about political ambitions.
Neither the Catholics nor the Protestants won the war. Everyone lost. The rule Cuius regio, eius religio—whose realm, his religion—was once again confirmed. And Europe needed an entire century to recover from the war that had taken place.
Why recall this historical experience from the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries today, at your graduation?
The reason is a very similar situation. Modern means of communication and artificial intelligence are dramatically shortening communication distances in terms of time. Today, the time needed to create and disseminate information is measured in seconds. Readers, too, intend to devote at most a few minutes to reading. This leads to extraordinary communicative superficiality. And thus quantity replaces quality.
It is commonly possible to create the appearance that some pseudo-problem is in fact a real problem. Authors do not trouble themselves with writing arguments, and the superficial reader has no interest in them. After all, on the tram, the bus, the metro, or the train, one only has time for a few stops.
On the day of your graduation, we are mindful of what the mission of CEVRO University is in this superficial and difficult era. During your studies, we held many debates together. It is clear that you will not be fooled by sheer quantity. You want quality. Social media has nothing left to shape in you, as you well know.
Together at the university, we are mindful that no problem is black and white, and that even one's opponent is right about something. Our view need not necessarily be shared by everyone, just as we ourselves approach widely disseminated truths with caution. We will remain vigilant. We safeguard our freedom so that we do not become mere amateur actors in a drama of decline. We will not allow others to draw us into their conflicts. In this way, at CEVRO University, we contribute to improving the world even in the age of artificial intelligence.
May you succeed on your path ahead.
Cyril Svoboda
