Winning the Rat Race “There happens to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine and petty frustration” (Wallace 2005). This is what David Wallace in his 2005 Kenyon Commencement Address This Is Water refers to as the day in and day out of every day adult life. Wallace breaks the mold of commencement speeches with his nontraditional way of telling graduates the truth about adult life and what it means to learn how to think. In his speech “This is Water” David Wallace states that he believes we should change the way we think about things and become more outwardly aware of the world and that this is the true definition of learning how to think. Wallace starts his speech with the parable of the fish with the “moral” being that “the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about” (Wallace 2005). The origin of things like religion, and personal beliefs are ignored and thought to be hardwired like height because they are too hard to understand. To understand what someone else thinks or feels we, as humans, would have to be a little less arrogant and as David Wallace points out change how we experience things. Essential to most commencement speeches is the topic of the value of a liberal arts education. We’re not taught what to think but how to think, and Wallace says that this cliché is true. However it is not “the capacity to think but rather a choice of what to think about” (Wallace 2005). Wallace suggests that we need to be aware of what’s going on around us and choose what we pay attention. He gives the example of the average adult work day and the tediousness that causes frustration be... ... middle of paper ... ... time thinking about OUR wants and how long the wait is but spend the time being happy with what we have because others may not have the same pleasures. Wallace’s idea of not getting caught up in our default setting is true. We shouldn’t make things about ourselves but make everything about what we can do for others. A degree is just a material payoff for the hard work and effort put in overtime at college. The true payoff is this idea to learn to think, to be able to control what we see and how we feel and what we derive from it. We must stay aware of our daily surroundings and not just focus on the ME, ME, ME but also consider other people and how we may be effecting them. Wallace reminds us that it is a struggle to stay conscious and alive, but if we do so we are exercising our freedom of knowledge. That is the true meaning of an education, simply being aware.
“Climb on one’s back and stand on their shoulders to reach the top” this is what the Coronel Colin Powell hints to recent graduating students from the Howard University in 1994. The Commencement Speech was long enough to motivate the graduating students. In addition, it was proper and formal. When the speech began, Powell was excited by ending on sharing his own experiences and giving great advices for those future professionals. Powell´s Commencement Speech demonstrates his interest by sharing his thoughts, and its language was uplifting and captivating. (502).
David McCullough Jr., delivered the commencement at Wellesley High School in Massachusetts on June 1st 2012 to staff, the 2012 graduates, and their family and friends. The speech was straightforward and supplied valuable information for their future. . McCullough’s speech at times felt harsh, offensive, and insulting. His words and examples were given to achieve insight, knowledge, and awareness for each student’s future. The commencement expressed a great deal of achievement, but conveyed that there was more work to be done. His speech was effective and appreciated through humor parallelism, repetition, and anaphora. His point of view has obtained respect and determination by all those that have been challenged and have heard his words.
The importance of attending an institute of higher learning continues to grow as the job market becomes more competitive, and a diploma is essentially required to compete in it. However, with the growing demand for college and university successful students the concept of education has become clouded. In two commencement speeches, one by David Sedaris and the other by David Wallace, this concept of what education means and how it is viewed by the individual student is discussed as well as the process of thinking. David Seders, in his speech What I Learned, writes in a satirical format based on how education is being viewed. David Wallace in his commencement speech addresses the process of thinking and being self-aware with a college education.
The speech is arranged into short paragraphs, providing an example in almost every one. Everyone is familiar with commencement speeches. They are usually used to congratulate a group of people and tend to be looking towards the future. Instead of congratulating the students at Kenyon College, Wallace challenges them. The essay opens with a metaphor about two young fish that do not realize what water is, setting the tone for the rest of the speech. Wallace proceeds to describe how completely oblivious society is to the world around us, just like the fish. Wallace supports this claim through examples within the speech. His use of examples rather than facts or statistics weakens his claim. If more facts or statistics were used his claim would become more convincing. His rationalization come in the form of the short stories that illustrate the choices people make in their everyday lives. He...
“This is Water” is a commencement speech written for students about to graduate with a Liberal Arts Degree from a prestigious school and seems to be geared more directly to those questioning the validity of their degree. David Foster Wallace explains that the education they received allows the audience to handle the monotony and frustrations of the world better by stepping back and realizing that the individual in the audience are not the center of universe. David’s diverse diction gives this work a strong educated but down to earth feel using the words from “didactic” to “bullshitty”.
Through the use of informal language, forming a connection outside of his target audience, and genuine demeanor, David Foster Wallace’s “The Is Water” successfully delivers his message to his target audience. Kenyon College is a private liberal arts university in Gambier, OH with enrollment listed on their website just short of 2,000 students. Tuition and fees total to about just Through informal language, presenting relatable experiences, and presenting himself in an honest form, his speech becomes more engaging and his audience more receptive to his message. Wallace urges the graduating students to hold the value of their education in high regard and make proper use of it when thinking critically (Wallace 2). While Wallace’s warning targeted the graduating class, his speech can be viewed to be just as effective to the other individuals in attendance, which would include the parents/families of graduates and the university faculty and staff in attendance.
...old, xenophobic white men don’t want just anyone off the street joining them for intellectual discussions over Sunday tea . This is why Wallace advocates for students in high school and college to learn SWE; if students are able to present themselves in a more erudite and intellectual manner by using SWE, it can provide them with more opportunities to ascend the “social ladder” as they will have a stronger foundation for academic and professional success. Using SWE will not guarantee that a student will become a doctor or a lawyer, however, they will have the opportunity to expand their education and achieve that ranking if they wish.
In This is Water, Wallace effectively uses logical reasoning and the parable of the religious man and the atheist man to explain how consciousness is a choice, not an unalterable state. To do this, Wallace states that in many cases, “A huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded.” Using logical reasoning, Wallace’s own admission reminds his audience that they are also often wrong, as, logically, humans are not perfect and make periodic mistakes. Once he establishes that people can be wrong, he returns to the parable of the two men and claims “…the exact same experience can mean two totally different things to two different people, given those people's two different belief templates and two different ways of constructing meaning from experience.” This idea is familiar to his educated audience, as he claims it is one of the primary foundations of a liberal arts education. Thus, Wallace uses his audienc...
The commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace in the autumn of 2005, is a very deep speech that examines the whole idea of a Liberal Arts education at an extremely deep and intellectual level. In the 22 minute long speech Wallace talks about how higher education not only teaches you to think but “how to exercise some control over how and what you think.” (Wallace). Wallace later in his speech stresses the importance of this level of thinking by saying “if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed” (Wallace) What he means by saying this is that if you cannot think at a higher level and make sense of real world problems your life will become meaningless and you will become dead inside your head.
The philosopher is presenting complex image with many aspects to illustrate relatively simple problem which makes his writing appealing only to narrow circle of people usually enough educated to find an absolute truth by themselves. His style is too complicated to be appropriate for masses; complicated vocabulary and syntax that is not used anymore. Plato’s relating to the real problem right in the end of his work giving no time to think about it throughout his argument. Basically what he is doing is explaining the problem and then presenting it. In the end he just leaves the reader all alone without further explanation. David Foster Wallace has also tried to convince people that there is something more to the world that can be seen. However, Wallace’s Commencement Speech is very different from Plato’s allegory. I his speech Wallace is presenting his ideas in a simple manner by short stories that anyone can relate to and because of this it makes him more convincing and persuasive. Right in the beginning of the speech he relates to the main topic by story about fishes that allows his audience to think about the main problem along his speech. This move is undoubtedly more effective because it lets audience focus and contemplate on what is important, on what relates to the main topic during whole
He acknowledges the fact that his speech is different from other commencement speeches, almost as if he is self-conscious of the fact that his is not like those. We all know the many clichés that come with any motivating speech, and so does Wallace when he states, "Please don’t worry that I 'm getting ready to lecture you about compassion or other-directedness or all the so-called virtues" (Wallace). Wallace wants the graduates to know the truth about life after college, point blank, with no sugar coating like normal commencement
In the article “Learning by Degrees” by Rebecca Mead describes both sides of the argument is college worth the money. Rebecca tells us the benefits of going to college by giving examples of certain degrees that are paying well and have a good hiring rate. For example college students who earn a degree in business have a 44% chance of making it into a job right out of college or students majoring in economics have a good starting pay around $50,000 per year and could get to over $100,000 before they retire. Both of those examples show why college is a good investment and will get people better jobs.
“This Is Water: Some Thoughts Delivered on a Significant Occasion, About Living a Compassionate Life,” is a Commencement Address delivered by David Foster Wallace. The speech is taken place at the University of Kenyon on May 21, 2005. Throughout the speech, Wallace explains the significance of education is the choice of what to think about and learning how to think.
The “Kenyon Commencement Speech,” by David Foster Wallace, explains the intellectual thought process of how people think in the white-collar business’s higher-income lifestyle, while “Blue-Collar Brilliance,” by Mike Rose, depicts how a blue-collar worker develops great cognitive skills through working a lower income job. While these passages have separate settings, in which one shows the life-style of college graduate in commission and the other a simple high school graduate’s career, both give great insight on the proper meaning of intelligence and its overall impact on a worker’s mentality. Many ideas on the opinion of intelligence white-collar and blue-collar jobs require
College education essentially is the key to success in the future. It opens many doors of opportunity and allows us to explore every option available. College education can provide a student with new exciting opportunities that they would never had if they drop out of at high school. I would like to share some of the benefits that furthering your education can provide, and as well as the joy it can bring to each and every one of us.