Good afternoon. I presume I’m the first person to address you as honors graduates. Because I’m almost certainly the first I think I’m allowed to let you in on a couple of secrets, for after all, what’s the use of commencing without good old fashioned sub-rosa pearls of wisdom? Are you ready? Okay.
The world before you does not know you’re coming. You can be forgiven for thinking it does, for many of you already have plans for graduate school or fellowships, and some among you have found jobs reflecting your interests and others may be taking time to let everything sink in, which is a euphemistic expression but “taking time” has a glorious history and we shouldn’t forget it–yet all these circumstances aside, the world has no idea you’re on the way. As the great folk singer Greg Brown says: “The world ain’t what you think it is, it’s just what it is.”
This is a really good thing. Why? Because right now, and I do mean right now, you have a chance to enter the indifferent world with the empowerment that comes with thought. One way to imagine this is embodied by the term “fresh thinking” which is a favored expression of my friend D.J. Savarese who among other things is the first non-speaking student with autism to attend Oberlin College. Fresh thinking. A blank slate. A chance to ask hard questions, because, why not? The Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker writes of his book called “The Blank Slate”:
“This book is about the moral, emotional, and political colorings of the concept of human nature in modern life.” Pinker wants us to understand that the nature vs. nurture debate about human development is far from being a tired containment in our age of rapid intellectual and social changes and that we have a greater obligation to understand ourselves right now than at any other time in history. Pinker believes in what he calls “a realistic, biologically informed humanism” and that fresh ideas can “expose the psychological unity of our species beneath the superficial differences of physical appearance and parochial culture.”
For Pinker, hard questions quote “make us appreciate the wondrous complexity of the human mind, which we are apt to take for granted precisely because it works so well. They identify the moral intuitions that we can put to work in improving our lot. They promise a naturalness in human relationships, encouraging us to treat people in terms of how they do feel rather than how some theory says they ought to feel. They offer a touchstone by which we can identify suffering and oppression wherever they occur, unmasking the rationalizations of the powerful. They give us a way to see through the designs of self-appointed social reformers who would liberate us from our pleasures. They renew our appreciation for the achievements of democracy and of the rule of law. And they enhance the insights of artists and philosophers who have reflected on the human condition.”
So pearl number one is yours: an opportunity. Fresh thinking is in demand just now and I know you’re the right people to deliver it.
Pearl number two is more avuncular, a little less lofty, but nonetheless important. I think it’s spelled out nicely by this quote from the writer George Sand: “Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.”
Notice that Sand makes kindness sound easy–”know how to acquire without meanness” she says. What Sand proposes is not easy, for acquisition, whether it be of ideas or capital is de facto a competition and as Tom Hanks said famously in “A League of Their Own” “There’s no crying in baseball!” Kindness requires empathy which recent studies suggest is a quality that dogs possess naturally but humans need to learn. In the Renée Crown Honors Program we encourage you to try your hand at civic engagement because community activism is kindness mixed with curiosity and represents the practice of living an empathetic life. But since I’m speaking here as your uncle, let me add that kindness requires deliberative reflection and one more thing: you have to slow down to achieve it. In a world of increasingly fast thinking kindness is at a disadvantage. There’s no app for it. Split second decision making ignores it. Kindness is often described as a simple thing, but its actually a factor of sustained consciousness. I urge you in whatever down time you have to turn off your televisions and video games and read anything that promotes kindly wisdom. If it has humor in it, all the better. I frequently reread Huckleberry Finn and seldom reread Moby Dick. Twain’s book is about kindness, Melville’s is about unbridled capitalism.
Lord knows we need more kindness in the world. The Dalai Lama, with whom many of you are familiar said:
“This is my simple religion. No need for temples. No need for complicated philosophy. Your own mind, your own heart is the temple. Your philosophy is simple kindness.”
So go forth class of 2013, and be both fresh and kind. And may you never grow tired of the liberating value of ideas.
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Planet of the Blind 