Zakaria offers parting words
There’s a lot to recommend the world these days, journalist Fareed Zakaria told members of Harvard’s Class of 2012 on Thursday. The world has greater economic opportunity and more peace, and can respond better to global challenges than at any time in the past. Trust yourselves as you venture into it, he said, and you’ll do fine. Zakaria, who delivered the 2012 Commencement speech during the Afternoon Exercises, cited recent research showing that violence is at a historic low and economic growth is high. The economies of 80 countries are growing 4 percent annually, even after the financial crisis. Poverty has fallen more in the past 50 years than in the previous 500, and life expectancy continues to rise, with a third of all babies born in the developed world expected to live to 100. There’s also a boom in college graduates, whose numbers, among men, have increased fourfold over the...