MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
[Everyone's blogging Michael Lewis' commencement speech, and it is interesting] (NOTE: The video of Lewis' speech as delivered is available on the Princeton YouTube channel.)
Thank you. President Tilghman. Trustees and Friends. Parents of the Class of 2012. Above all, Members of the Princeton Class of 2012. Give yourself a round of applause. The next time you look around a church and see everyone dressed in black it'll be awkward to cheer. Enjoy the moment.
Thirty years ago I sat where you sat. I must have listened to some older person share his life experience. But I don't remember a word of it. I can't even tell you who spoke. What I do remember, vividly, is graduation. I'm told you're meant to be excited, perhaps even relieved, and maybe all of you are. I wasn't. I was totally outraged. Here I’d gone and given them four of the best years of my life and this is how they thanked me for it. By kicking me out.
At that moment I was sure of only one thing: I was of no possible economic value to the outside world. I'd majored in art history, for a start. Even then this was regarded as an act of insanity. I was almost certainly less prepared for the marketplace than most of you. Yet somehow I have wound up rich and famous. Well, sort of. I'm going to explain, briefly, how that happened. I want you to understand just how mysterious careers can be, before you go out and have one yourself.
Comments
May be the best speech ever! Thanks.
by EmmaZahn on Thu, 06/07/2012 - 12:34pm
This is the key notion imo in his excellent speech:
I remember a local banker who is a generous philanthropist and volunteer make a very similar comment during a discussion about how charities are struggling in the down economy. The notion that benefiting from luck generates obligation to assist the unlucky is one that tends to be ignored. Instead we get the poor just want to be poor - which reinforces the notion that they, the not-poor, deserve all they have - that they do not have a debt to anyone.
by Elusive Trope on Thu, 06/07/2012 - 12:56pm