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June 7, 2012
"37,000 valedictorians, 37,000 class presidents, 92,000 harmonizing altos, 340,000 swaggering jocks, 2,185,967 pairs of Uggs"
A commencement address with teeth: You’re Not Special “But, Dave,” you cry, “Walt Whitman tells me I’m my own version of perfection!Epictetus tells me I have the spark of Zeus!” And I don’t disagree. So that makes 6.8 billion examples of perfection, 6.8 billion sparks of Zeus. You see, if everyone is special, then no one is. If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless. In our unspoken but not so subtle Darwinian competition with one another–which springs, I think, from our fear of our own insignificance, a subset of our dread of mortality — we have of late, we Americans, to our detriment, come to love accolades more than genuine achievement.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at June 7, 2012 5:54 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
Ronald Reagan: "You can accomplish much if you don't care who gets the credit".
The past is some kind of bizarro world, isn't it?
Posted by: Brett_McS at June 7, 2012 11:02 PM
What's not clear in the Boston Herald piece is that this guy apparently delivered this pearl live as a commencement speech.
Imagine.
Posted by: Rob De Witt at June 8, 2012 7:10 AM
I received an honorary high school diploma, having graduated with a 1.28. That's almost a 1.3! How DARE you tell me I'm not special.
Posted by: Jewel at June 8, 2012 7:50 AM
I imagine it was quite a blow to the parents and teachers in the crowd. The essence of the speech is 'The definition of success you have been taught for the last 18 years is a complete crock, but there is hope for you and here's your first lesson in the true meaning of success. Good luck!"
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