Graduates, distinguished guests, doting grandparents, preening parents and all your bored siblings: heartfelt congratulations to the class of 2019.
You have reached a milestone. Your hard work and your parent’s sacrifices have paid off. I wish I was as rich as Robert Smith, the billionaire who gave the commencement address at Morehouse College and cancelled all of the student debt. Sorry that you are stuck with me and all the red ink hanging over your degree.
Your generation, as those that came before you, were taught that you are special and unique among the thousands of young Americans who have collected a diploma. Some elders believe you are an unworthy group, spoiled by years of helicopter parenting, gut courses and addiction to social media.
They say your snark and snowflake sensitivity to any and all perceived insults has ruined you for life’s messy realities. Others lament that climate change or nuclear war will overcome humanity before anyone has a chance to do anything about it. Or that liberal democracy is collapsing over the western world and dictatorship is nigh.
Other speakers will take a sunnier view, asserting that you and your country’s best days lie ahead. They will remind you that today’s job market is much better than the class of 2009, when the recession drove grads to their parents couch.
Perhaps your concentration was protesting, petitioning and shouting down conservative campus speakers. You think things are awful and unlikely to get better anytime soon. Nobody much majors in history anymore, so I’m here to tell you that you aren’t much different than your grandparents, except you have better weed and shorter hair.
The generation that went from pot to Prozac, acid trips to acid reflux and cocaine to Rogaine did a fine job protesting and raising hell when they were in college. The class of 1969 occupied buildings, marched against the Vietnam War and chased military recruiters from campus. A few–not your grandparents, of course—even entered the violent Weather Underground.
Things are bad now. But how about the world faced by the class of 1939, when Hitler stood astride Europe? He wasn’t beaten by a movement perched on a white steed. The reason we aren’t all speaking German today is due to the unlikely World War II alliance of a murderous dictator, a nostalgic colonialist and a wealthy liberal reformer. History is replete with examples of humankind overcoming seemingly insurmountable problems in ways that surprise us.
Still, whether you were educated at a leafy Ivy League campus or commuted to community college, you will face life’s eternal vicissitudes. You’ll fail at work. Your marriage may implode. Some of you will fall victim to depression and addiction. And some of you good people who run marathons and eat vegan will get cancer, ALS or MS. Today’s fidgeting siblings may be the ones you fight with over your parents will.
Every generation of graduates is subjected to various forms of doom and gloom. But maybe William Faulkner was right in 1950 when he said than humankind will muddle through, because we have “a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.”
No commencement speech is complete without parting clichés:
Don’t live with your head in the sand, or in the clouds.
Work hard to achieve career success but aim for higher things –kindness generosity and character.
Remember always that at your age there are no mistakes, only lessons.
Live for today but put money in your 401k.
And don’t listen to those who say you’ve just completed the best four years of your life. If that’s so, you are going to lead a very boring life.
Scott MacKay’s commentary can be heard every Monday morning at 6:45 and 8:45 and at 5:44 in the afternoon. You can also follow his political reporting analysis at our web site at ThePublicsRadio.org
Scott was educated at the University of Vermont. He delivered the commencement address at the 2015 Rhode Island College Commencement.
