“Exercise free will and creative, independent thought not for the satisfactions they will bring you, but for the good they will do others, the rest of the 6.8 billion–and those who will follow them. And then you too will discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you’re not special. Because everyone is.”
———-Wellesley High School Teacher David McCullough, in his commencement speech to graduating seniors. McCullough annoyed some parents by basing his speech on the fact that students today are encouraged to believe that they are more “special” than they are, leading to selfishness, narcissism and delusion.
Yes, the parents apparently wanted something more conventionally inspirational, like a speech telling their children how special they are.
The speech, in text and in video, has gone viral on the web; obviously it struck a chord that needed to be struck. I wasn’t going to post about it, I must confess; I think it McCullough’s speech is being over-praised. It is disorganized. It includes false information (50% of all marriages do not end in divorce, but that fake, unsubstantiated statistic is harder to kill than the Hydra), and I don’t think teachers should be disseminating bad facts. It contradicts itself: “Don’t bother with work you don’t believe in” is dangerous and confounding advice for narcissists who one is trying to convince to think of the needs of others. And throbs with the smug contrariness of someone who set out to be controversial.
Nevertheless, as high school commencement speeches go, it is top of the line, and the McCullough’s message is certainly rooted in ethics. You decide if the accolades are excessive.
Meanwhile, here is the wisdom of the other David McCullough, the late, great historian whose voice you can hear narrating Ken Burn’s “The Civil War,” on how to teach high school students about American history.
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Source: The Swellsley Report
Graphic: Breathelighter
Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at jamproethics@verizon.net.
Ethics Alarms 
What is wrong with the statistic that 50% of all marriages end in divorce? Is it untrue or just misleading? I read that considerably less than 50% of first marriages end in divorce, but the statement can still be true, even if people who get married and divorced many times skew the statistic upwards.
It’s wrong because the statistic is impossible to determine. Ir was originally arrived at be matching the number of marriages in a year to the number of divorces in a year—that’s right: one year’s marriages compared to the divorces of all the couples who have been married and are still living, 60 or more years back. No one has ever talen one year’s worth of marriages and tracked it until every last one was divorced or dead—it would be impossible. I’ve seen reasonable estimates of 20+% on the low side to 40+ %, but the 50% figure, which is always stated as fact, just isn’t a fact, and it ticks me off. (The “A woman makes 77% of what a man does”) stat is equally wrong, but for different reasons..
It is possible to determine. Researchers can survey a balanced cross-section and then extrapolate to the general population. Simple statistics.
Yes, you could do a longitudinal study of a representative cross section of the population. It would take too long to do it for a whole lifetime, but you could do it for a shorter period of time. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 43% of first marriages by women between 15-44 will end in disruption (divorce or separation) in the first 15 years. See http://nchspressroom.wordpress.com/2007/07/06/do-50-of-marriages-end-in-divorce/. The data are from 1996. I just found this now, otherwise I would have mentioned it earlier.
Erik, a longitudinal study would take far too long. A simple survey of respondents would suffice about the success/failure of their marriages. There’s no need to track each and every one of them over as you have prescribed. Incorporating other variables such as: religion, income level, children, etc. into the survey can help discern patterns that may/not correlate with divorce.
Regardless, statistics aside, the current marriage failure rate (whatever that figure may be) is not admirable.
That stat is better; of course “divorce or separation” is pretty squishy (legal separation or informal? Voluntary or involuntary?); those who use the fake 50% stat always say “divorce.” And second marriages have a lower divorce rate, which would lower the 43% further. 43% or even lower isn’t great, but it’s less than half no matter how you slice it, so the “half of all marriages end in divorce” cliche can’t be justified.
I agree with you, although I am surprised that second marriages have a lower divorce rate. I would have thought that people with a greater willingness to get divorced would divorce more often.
Once bitten, twice shy? Perhaps people who have already been divorced are more careful, and don’t rush to the altar as easily as younger, less wounded people.
Jack said: “(50% of all marriages do not end in divorce, but that fake, unsubstantiated statistic is harder to kill than the Hydra)…”
This number has been around for decades. I recall reading long ago about it and some attempt at explaining its origins. I seems that someone collected the number of marriages in a given time period and the number of divorces and found that the latter approximated 50% of the former. Its not like they attempted to track any number of marriages or to correlate the divorces with the original hitching to determine longevity. Maybe a number that that told us that X% ended in divorce after 5 years, 10 years, whatever would be more useful, or just plain “useful”.
It may be untrue on its face, and it is misleading because, if untrue, it gives people starting out the prospect of failure to come.
And yes, I like Mr. McCollough’s take on the “special” concept.
And (unfortunately) it depends on how you define “marriage”! That’s become a factor these days! But back to the subject, I think it took a bit of guts on McCullough’s part to tell those kids (in THAT school, in THAT state) that the universe doesn’t revolve around their perceived needs and desires and that there ARE higher principles which involve (gasp!) Citizenship. Forgive me if I use an utterly politically incorrect word here.
Upon reading the speech, my first thought was of how insulting this is to someone who wasn’t raised by helicopter parents. Some children have to learn how to do adult things when they are awfully young, they weren’t all “bubble-wrapped” or had “maternal caped crusaders”. Of course, this is Wellesley, so my statement does not apply.
It might apply to someone. That’s a perceptive angle that I hadn’t considered.
That’s a good point. Certainly there was at least one person in that crowd who had a rough upbringing and bristled at the blanket statements about being coddled. That’s bound to be the case in any such crowd, with any such speech. It’s why I don’t like blanket statements in general; and indeed it’s why I don’t much care for commencement speeches and the like. You can’t make sweeping generalizations on the assumption that your words will have the same relevance for everyone, regardless of personality or circumstance.
That said, I believe McCullough was speaking more about a social phenomenon than about individual experiences. He described the impulse towards safeguarding the self-esteem of children above all else as “an epidemic,” and I think he’s absolutely right about that. The cult of self-esteem bears being undercut publicly even if no one in attendance at the time is a member of it.
I saw the speech a short time ago, myself. I was thoroughly impressed. Granted, I agree with your assessment that it was a bit disorganized. I sort of noticed that myself, but the basic sentiments are so rare and they so sorely needed to be expressed that despite whatever weak points it has, the speech cannot be praised enough. It’s not just something that teenagers and twenty-somethings need to hear. It’s something that their parents need to hear. It’s something that lawyers and business owners and unemployed people need to hear. It’s something that all of American society needs to hear.