Nora Moses, Contributing Photographer

“Love thy neighbor, not cancel thy neighbor if they disagree with you.”

So reflected Ben Carson ’73, a retired neurosurgeon and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary under Donald Trump, at a lecture in SSS 114 on Tuesday night.

During the lecture, Carson told his life story and emphasized the importance of education and certain conservative values to the success of the United States. The Buckley Institute, a Yale organization that touts the advancement of “intellectual diversity and free speech at Yale” as its goals, organized the event, advertising it as a lecture on “Living the American Dream, with Dr. Ben Carson.” 

Carson explained his life story, from his background growing up in “dire poverty” to finding success in school and his eventual matriculation at Yale College.

“In the space of a year and a half, I went from the bottom of the class to the top of the class,” Carson proudly said of his academic progression. 

Carson explained that he first dreamed of becoming a missionary doctor, then a psychologist and eventually a pediatric neurosurgeon. He also told the story of his unanticipated entry into the political sphere, instigated by a keynote address he gave at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2013. 

Much of Carson’s talk focused on the importance of educating the next generations of young Americans. Carson explained how his life has taught him about the value of education, and he noted that he has observed a downward shift in the merit of academic requirements in the United States throughout history. 

“If you really want to be blown away, take a look at a sixth-grade exit exam from 150 years ago in this country and see what someone had to know to get a sixth-grade certificate,” Carson said. “You’ll be blown away. We have dumbed things down so much.”

Carson gave his perspective on education as a neurosurgeon, explaining how the brain is “the most fabulous organ system in the universe” and gives human beings the near-infinite ability to learn more.

Currently, Carson is working at the American Cornerstone Institute, a conservative organization he founded that aims to examine the four principles that he said have made the United States into a successful nation: faith, liberty, community and life. 

Carson also advertised the Institute’s Little Patriots Learning Program, a free program designed to teach young children about American history and values through a conservative lens. 

Carson cited Vladimir Lenin to demonstrate the enduring importance of the values children learn at a young age, reciting Lenin’s oft-quoted saying: “Give me your children to teach for four years and the seed that I sow will never be uprooted.”

The program aims to teach “the good, the bad and the ugly,” Carson noted, before asserting that “there’s a lot more good than there is bad and ugly” in American history.

“Take the issue of slavery,” Carson further explained of his view. “Now slavery is a horrible thing, there’s no way to sugarcoat that, but there are those who would have you believe that we are uniquely evil as a nation because we had slavery … Virtually every society has had to deal with slavery. What is unique about the United States is that we had so many people who were vehemently opposed to it that we fought a bloody civil war and lost a large portion of our population to rid ourselves of it.” 

According to Ryan Gapski ’24, president of the Buckley Institute, the event was “made possible” by the Young America’s Foundation’s Irving Brown Lecture Series. Carole Brown, Irving Brown’s daughter, attended the event; Gapski thanked her in his opening remarks.

Gapski noted that a lecture by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last fall and a live recording of The Verdict with Sen. Ted Cruz and Michael Knowles in April 2022 were also sponsored by the lecture series. 

Gapski declined to comment more specifically on funding for the event.

Per its website, the Young America’s Foundation is an organization for conservatives to learn and connect with like-minded individuals and is “committed to ensuring that increasing numbers of young Americans understand and are inspired by the ideas of individual freedom, a strong national defense, free enterprise, and traditional values.”

Some students said that they could recognize YAF’s values in Carson’s lecture. 

“I think fundamentally it was a pretty standard conservative speech that you would expect to hear from someone speaking as part of the YAF,” Buckley fellow Sascha Hume ’27 said of the lecture. 

For Hume, the most interesting aspect of the event was how Carson “brought in” his life experiences and background as a neurosurgeon.

Others were surprised at how “moderate” Carson seemed.

“He was quite soft-spoken. I didn’t realize that he’s not an intense individual,” said Tiana Luo ’24. “I feel like politicians just kind of like to say extreme things, but I felt like he was pretty moderate.” 

Some students were drawn to the event for Carson’s Christianity and appreciated his discussion of it. 

Gapski wrote to the News that Carson’s willingness to explore the importance of faith in his life was “a breath of fresh air on a campus where talk of faith is often looked down upon.”

The Q&A also featured questions from members of the Yale Adventist Christian Fellowship, which Carson said he helped found; one was about Carson’s relationship with his faith. 

“God is a very loving and accepting entity which is there to help you and to try to save you,” Carson said.

The final question of the lecture was from an 11-year-old attendee who asked for Carson’s favorite books as a kid. 

Carson responded that his favorite childhood book was “Chip: The Dam Builder,” the story of an “industrious” beaver.