Obama Commencement Speech at Wesleyan University
Today Barack Obama gave a commencement speech at Wesleyan University and made some interesting remarks about public service I thought worth mentioning here. This quote caught my eye:
``No one is forcing you to care,'' Obama said. ``You can take your diploma, walk off this stage and chase only after the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should buy. But I hope you don't.''
He then went on to talk about how he'll call upon students to "be unified in service to a greater good".
Yeah, kinda sounds like everything that's ever been written at Lose the Label, doesn't it? But it's nice hearing it from somebody who could very well be the next president.
In my experience, the biggest nonstarter for activism is that it's hard to convince people they can make a difference because it's really hard to convince them that others will step up and match their effort, or at least not cancel it out. Well, one way to get around that (though not the only way) is if the call for service and sacrifice comes from the very top. Then change can come from strength in numbers, masses of strangers contributing to accomplish a common goal. Ya know...leadership..
Whether we're talking global warming, fighting poverty, reducing violence or anything else, it helps a lot to have the call for change coming from up high. I'm confident that our generation will respond. We've yet to live up to our full potential, but we've shown some brilliant flashes and I think challenging us now will lead to some great, great accomplishments.
Here's hoping.
Our generation has to step
Our generation has to step up, and I think we are stepping up. But, I think we're doing it subtly, ours is not the rage of the past couple decades nor the absolute rebellion of the 60s and 70s. I feel that our generation is stepping up in a different way. Rather than militancy, we simply speak, which I feel is altogether good.
I know people are age are sick and tired of being called apathetic. Andrew Card came to speak at my college last year. When he saw people protesting him, he called us out "All of you holding those little signs saying dis-Card, how many of you have run for public office?" I thought there was going to be a riot. The insult was twofold. One, it was stupid to claim that a group of COLLEGE STUDENTS are uninvolved because they haven't run for posts that bear age restrictions. Two, he spoke as if our entire generation was simply a group of slackers or sheep incapable of taking action.
As I said, I think we are stepping up, but in our own way. Change is becoming more and more a personal, private matter. A member of an older generation joined a riot, or protested in a group of thousands. We write a blog, join Save Darfur or support Amnesty International, we learn about politicians, do things like this. I think we're quieter, we're different, but we're still making headway. It's like the rising tide, there's no dramatic instant shift, there's no point at which one can say the tide has risen, but before you know it, the water is over your head. Or maybe I'm just idealistic and taken in by poetic metaphor.
Paix et amour,
Joe!
yeah, I think you nailed it.
yeah, I think you nailed it. we're active, but we don't burn things. that doesn't mean we don't care any less than other generations. it just means we go about it in a different way.
on other blogs I've talked to a lot of oldschool hippies who say they all just burned out. they'll say it's because what they were doing wasn't sustainable. well, what we're doing..the habits we're forming...they're very sustainable. it is like a rising tide.
kind of an ironic metaphor to use, though.. what with them magical melting ice caps we're trying to save, haha
^^^^^^^^^^
"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."
-Robert F. Kennedy
The irony of the tide is
The irony of the tide is almost as good as the analogy that we're like a glacier that never apparently moves yet changes the landscape.
Quoth Colbert "Appreciate that metaphor, your grandchildren will have no clue what a glacier is".
Paix et amour,
Joe!
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