Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says humility key to democracy  

Listen to former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s conversation with Olivia Walton, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art board chair, in its entirety above.

Humility, listening and serving others are important pieces of democracy, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday during a lecture at Bentonville’s Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. 

“The American spirit means to me that we don’t wait on our government to deliver for us, that we deliver for one another,” Rice said. “I think the highest form of democracy is actually individual citizens delivering for individual citizens.”

Museum board chair Olivia Walton led the conversation, which was part of the museum’s Building Bridges lecture series that “brings together thought leaders, thinkers, and artists to model civic dialogue,” according to a press release. 

Past speakers have included President Barack Obama, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett and documentary filmmaker Ken Burns.

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During her nearly hourlong speech, Rice didn’t mention President Donald Trump or his foreign policy. The president has faced criticism that his policies, including tariffs and the war against Iran, have alienated U.S. allies. 

As a member of President George H.W. Bush’s National Security Council staff, Rice witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and said the president’s reaction to the event was a lesson in humility. When advised to go to Germany to mark the occasion, Bush responded that it was a German moment, not an American one.

At Bush’s funeral in 2018, Rice said German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her country would have never unified without him. 

“I learned a lot at the time, that moment about grace,” Rice said.

From 2005 to 2009, Rice negotiated with world leaders as President George W. Bush’s secretary of state. She was the second woman and first Black woman to hold the position. She was also Bush’s national security adviser from 2001 to 2005, the first woman to serve in the role.

The ability to listen instead of always speaking first makes a good diplomat, Rice said. That lesson, which Rice learned from her father, was particularly important as a representative of a powerful country like the United States, she said.

“If you speak first, you can shut that room down in no time…I think it’s a really important thing to practice in diplomacy,” she said. “It’s also kind of an important thing to practice in life.” 

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks occurred during Rice’s time as national security advisor and how Americans worked together in response showed “what the soul of America could be,” she said. 

Rice doesn’t blame social media for creating a more divisive country in the years since the attacks, but she said it has created a world where people can choose to only consume information that reinforces their beliefs.

“We’ve stopped listening to each other, we’ve stopped talking across differences,” she said. 

As a political science professor, Rice has served on the faculty of Stanford University since 1981 and said her students give her hope about the nation’s democracy because they’re “the most public-minded generation” she’s ever taught. 

For people looking to take action, Rice said they should do just one thing for somebody else because they’ll never be aggrieved and they’ll never be entitled. 

“And democracy’s best when its citizens are neither aggrieved nor entitled,” she said.