I have suffered through my fourth Commencement and I feel the need to vent a few incredibly biased and perhaps narrow-minded opinions. This is mostly because my colleagues have started a rash of e-mails concerning the main speaker at Graduation because certain people found the speaker's content offensive. This speaker is one of the writers of The Simpson's. The reason he came to our humble neck of the woods is because his daughter was in the graduating class.
It isn't really the man's speech I have issues with. Being a writer for The Simpsons, his humor is clearly the same as that seen on the show. I've always interpreted that show's humor as ridiculing the narrow minded "ists" of the world, a television program that has the ability to bring to light through satire the harsh, destructive attitudes that pervade our society. So, the content of his speech really didn't bother me, at least not in that way.
As a Stand-Up routine, I think the speaker was pretty good. I've seen better. As a Commencement Speaker, I think he was so wide of the mark he hit something in the next state over.
Truth is, I hate graduation. I understand the need for a ritual to end out the year, to acknowledge the significance of achieving a college degree. What I hate about graduation is that I don't believe the ceremony adequately satisfies that need. The fact that the graduating class selected this speaker for their Commencement speaks volumes to the present attitude toward higher education, at least the attitude I've encountered in the classroom, the attitude of apathy and the belief that things like grades and degrees should be given not earned.
What has prompted this venting is the fact that the Commencement speaker does not have a degree. He never attended college or community college. He never pursued a higher education. It irks me that this man was not only invited to speak at Commencement, but he was also awarded an honorary degree by the administration and the board of trustees. I realize that one's education cannot possibly be completed in the classroom. But at a time when the worth of higher education is being questioned by not only the state but also the nation, I can't help but get a little disappointed that the administration deems it worthy to acknowledge and honor a man who has no degree and brags about that fact in his speech.
Perhaps I am being overly sensitive. I work in the arts, which means I constantly have to explain and defend what I do as worthwhile and significant. That's just how it is in our society. The arts are seen as expendable, "cheesecake for the brain" according to scientist Stephen Pinker.
I guess what I'm getting at here is that when our administration, who in theory represents our academic institution and therefore in some sense us, decides to honor an individual with no degree from any higher education institution, an individual who brags about that fact like its a badge of honor in itself, it makes it that much harder for us to argue the worth of a degree in higher education. And if there is little worth in that degree, then what worth is there in one that focuses in the arts?
Anyway, I just needed to vent my frustration into the cosmos of the "intarwebz", especially since my colleagues seem to be only interested in arguing whether the speaker's content was sexist or racist or not. (sigh)
