Commencement Speech: Fill & Download for Free

Hello!Maybe this video will explain things for you:My point is she’s the last person in America to give a commencement speech, and definitely not about her topic, which was free speech. Indeed, Irony just crawled off to die.She posted a recording of the speech she intended to give on Twitter, and railed against “cancel culture."“Our nation’s campuses should be bastions of free speech. Cancel culture and viewpoint discrimination are antithetical to academia. Listening to one another is important now more than ever!” she tweeted.Is this the type of free speech she was going to talk about? Because it sure does look like daddy Bunker McDementiapants has an entirely different opinion about it.See?

David Foster Wallace's commencement speech at Kenyon College is one of my favorites. It's deeply meaningful to both graduating students and adults.From Jason Kottke's post about the speech: "Wallace has a knack for depicting the world as a pretty messy place that one must navigate with a certain amount of uncertainty in order to really experience anything, which, for me, holds a little more truth than Jobs' "grab the tiger by the tail and live, dammit" thoughts." via: http://kottke.org/05/06/wallace-commencementHere's a quote on one theme of the speech:"Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed."And I submit that this is what the real, no bullsh*t value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out.The speech itself was turned into a book, called: This Is WaterMore info on this NPR site: David Foster Wallace, 2005 via: The Best Commencement Speeches, EverFull text of the speech: http://goaheadsueme.blogspot.com/2005/05/david-foster-wallace-at-kenyon-college.htmlFull audio, broken into 3 parts: http://monsterbeard.tumblr.com/post/1061539463/i-just-posted-the-complete-david-foster-wallace

I will try to keep my own political views out of this, but I can see a couple of reasons why Trump would not be openly invited to give a commencement speech at a university other than the military academies, where as Commander in Chief, he can demand to give the speech.Trump’s current brand is about the past; commencement speeches are about the futureTrump speeches are heavily focused on a mythical past, where everything was much better, but only for a select few people. Commencement speeches are about the future, and how the graduates should go out and make their mark on the world.Trump’s brand is also division and fear; commencement speeches are about unity, hope, and wisdom from experiencesLook at Trump’s inauguration speech, where the focus was on “American Carnage.” This was a decidedly different and stark tone from any president, and was probably the worst direction for a president that had just been elected without the popular vote (the second time a president had within 16 years), alienated pretty much everyone that didn’t vote for him, and was facing a nation that was looking to him to mature into a role that he was elected to. Instead of messages of hope like Kennedy, Reagan, both Bushes, Bill Clinton, and Obama, he chose to talk about America like it was Baghdad in the bad old times. I’ve lived in both, and I’m not sure where he’s driving to see this “American Carnage,” except in rural being ravaged by opiods and globalization, both of which he has no plan to resolve. His speeches where he discusses these extreme failures are usually a lead up for him to say that he “alone can fix it.” This kind of speech is disturbing, because rhetoric that implies a sole person, and not a national unified effort or attempt to reach across differences to find common ground, is approaching the realm of authoritarianism.College graduates are about to go out into a world that they have been preparing to face for years, a world that they have spent a lot of time and money to prepare themselves for. They want to hear about how they should be ambassadors to the world, or to not forget their challenges when they see others struggle, or how this special time in their lives will guide them into future endeavors. They want to hear wisdom from someone who is as excited as they are, and has learned from their mistakes, failures, and successes. Trump doesn’t admit when he has failed, and as such has no wisdom to pass on from learning from mistakes.College graduates are not Trump’s target audience, and he’s okay with thatTrump finds himself more comfortable in crowds that think of him and his lifestyle as indicative of success in business and in life. He craves love from crowds that do not question his business acumen, even in the face of some glaring examples of poor business decisions, questionably legal maneuvers, blatant disregard for and leadership. He is incurious, unwilling to challenge his own beliefs or brook anyone that challenges his. His mannerisms are targeted towards others like him that feel those that have a college education, a.k.a. the elites, look down on them. Colleges aren’t his real audience.As to why Michelle Obama was in demand for commencement speeches, remember that she was an accomplished attorney in her own right. In fact, she was Barack’s boss at one point. She put her legal career on hold, and used the position of First Lady to draw attention to healthy eating initiatives, family issues, and female empowerment. She was an excellent role model as First Lady, showing how she could still be active in passion projects while supporting her husband’s political career, and a great example of a modern marriage. Her experiences as a professional woman, with a successful marriage and a happy home life, as well as being open and frank about the difficulties of maintaining those ideals as a woman of color, makes her a wonderful candidate and example of success for women graduating from college.